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Dundas

Gaelic: Dun deas (South Fort)
Badge: A lion looking through a bush of oak
French Motto: Essayez (Try)

The Dundas family occupied lands on the southern shores of the Firth of Forth. The family is believed to descend from 'Helias', son of 'Hutred', a younger son of Gospatrick, Prince of Northumberland.

Records from the reign of William the Lion mention Serle de Dundas, Serle and Robertus de Dundas who both signed King Edward I of England's Ragman Roll. During the Wars of Scottish Independence the Clan Dundas fought alongside William Wallace against the English. Later they would also fight alongside King Robert I of Scotland against the English.
However the Chief, Sir George Dundas, was killed at the Battle of Dupplin Moor in 1332. James Dundas built Dundas Castle in 1424. Chief George Dundas the eighteenth Laird led the Clan Dundas during the civil war on the side of the Covenantors. George Dundas was also on the Committee that tried James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose.

William Dundas of Kincavel was imprisoned for his part in the 1715 Jacobite rebellion. Many of the Dundas estates were forfeited after the 1745-1746 Jacobite rebellion. The tartan is recorded in Sobieski brothers' Vestiarium Scoticum 1842