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Descendants of Maoldonich mac Colmin mhic Mhaolain (a.k.a. Gilledonich mac
Malcolm MacMillan), who was laird of Leny in Perthshire and of Lennie in
Midlothian in the late 12th century. The family’s history is given in a 16th
century family tree which constitutes the second oldest genealogy of the
M’millans, and which also shows the connected origins of the Calmans,
M’Callums, (Mac)Malcolms, and of the M’Ildonichs/M’Maoldonichs (see
here).
The family of de Lany – as the name usually appears in the middle ages – were
important churchmen and royal servants; its most famous member being Domino
Roberto Lany who was the Queen’s chamberlain, the king’s chaplain, and
ambassador to England in the late 14th and the early 15th century. The
courtier-churchman had no children and the marriage in about 1392 of his
sister Janet (she may have been his neice – the old tree is not clear at this
point) took the family’s main estates into the hands of the Buchanans, who
also therefore claim Lennies as their sept. The name Leny is usually assumed
to come from the Gaelic placename Leanaidh (meaning a wet or marshy meadow)
but given the importance of the sword as a symbol in both the de Lany and
MacMillan histories, may in fact derive from Lainidh, "the blade of a sword".
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