Hail to the Chief of Clan Scott

[JonathanB]

The kilt relevance of the following question about Scottish history is that I’ve just ordered a kilt in Scott tartan. And a lovely tartan it looks too.

As well as the attractiveness of the tartan, I’ve become interested in Clan Scot, partly through having read a lot of Sir Walter Scott recently, including his first success, the poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel which tells of the feud between the Scotts and a neighbouring family.

Looking up the list of clan chiefs in the invaluable Whittaker’s Almanack, I see the head of Clan Scott is his Grace, the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensbury. But at the head of the page it states “Under decision (Campbell-Gray 1950) that a bearer of a “double or tripled barrelled” surname cannot be held chief of a part of such...”

His Grace’s surname is Montague Douglas Scott. Looks triple barrelled to me

So what’s he doing being a clan chief with a triple barrelled surname?