Genealogical memoir of the most noble and ancient house of Drummond

sect. ii. Of Maurice, 1st Thane of Lennox. g
the Saxon princes, his friendship for their family early,
commenced, and, amidst all the vicissitudes of their for-
tune, his attachment to their interests was firm and sin-
cere. When invited over to England, he accompanied
them to the court of Edward; and, when the cruelties of
the Norman conqueror drove them from the kingdom of
their ancestors, Maurice set sail with them for Hungary,
and shared all the dangers of their flight. He is said to
have been the commander of the ship, in which the royal
fugitives escaped ; and, when the furious storm assailed
them on the ocean, the vessel was preserved by his skil-
ful conduct, and the royal family safely landed on the
Scottish shore.
About this time, surnames began to-be generally used
in Scotland, and, soon after his arrival, Maurice receiv-
ed and assumed the name of Drummond. Like the other
surnames of Scotland, this is derived, either from the
lands originally appropriated to its first chief, or from
the office he bore, or from some extraordinary occur-
rence in his life. If the name is derived from the lands,
then it naturally comes from that property, in the parish
of Drymen in Dunbartonshire, called Drummond, which
formed part of the original grant of lands conferred by-
king Malcolm on this Hungarian stranger. If the name
is supposed to have been given him, from the office he
held as captain-general, or admiral to prince Edgar and
his retinue, then it is derived from Dromont, or Dro-
mond, a word used in different countries to denote a ship
of a swift course, the captains of which were called Dro-
monts, or Dromoners — words of Greek original, deriv-
ed from Jgsfsaj, cursus ; whence dromo, onis, in Latin,
signifying a swift bark, that skims along the tops of the
waves. But, it is most probable that the name has art