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Clan MacGregor

ROYAL IS MY RACE


Clan MacGregor (also known as clan Gregor) are a Highland clan who can claim an origin as far back as the 800s.

As well as being among the first Scottish clans to play the bagpipes in the early 1600s, clan MacGregor produced one of the most famous folk heroes in Scottish history, in the form of Rob Roy MacGregor. A Jacobite, cattle rustler and famous outlaw, MacGregor has been immortalised in popular culture and song for centuries.

The MacGregor clan motto is "'S Rioghal Mo Dhream" (Royal is my race) and the clan crest is a crowned lion's head.

Scottish History

of Clan MacGregor


Children of the mist

The MacGregor clan earned the title ‘Children of the Mist’ in their days of lawlessness when they were most adept of all the clans in vanishing from the scene when it suited them.

The forming of the clan could also be said to be at one with the mists of times remote.

There are claims that the MacGregors were of Pictish origin while other historians have considered them allied to the Celtic tribes who originally came from Europe.

There is a ‘King’ Gregory recorded in ancient script (although ‘king’ could not have meant much more than the leader of a tribe) yet Gregory is surely a clue. That the clan descended from a Gregor, the third son of a King Alpin, is maintained at the end of the eighth century A.D. Then again a ‘Kenneth MacAlpin, the first king of Picts and Scots’ could have prompted the proud MacGregor saying ‘Royal is my race!’

What is agreed from all sources is that while William the Conqueror was landing with his Norman forces at Hastings, the clan MacGregor had come into being and was settled near where Dalmally now occupies a position at the head of Loch Awe; and other lochs to be associated in time with the clan included Loch Vioil, Loch Katrine and Loch Earn.

The family were landowners in Argyll by the end of the 13th century with a John of Glenorchy as their leader and his son Gregor was one of the first recorded instances of the clan name being used.

As the clan’s story developed it was obvious that they would have a close relationship with their neighbours, the powerful Campbells, alternately being friendly and inter-marrying or feuding to the death.

For instance, Rob Roy’s mother was a Campbell and when the clan was made landless and forbidden to use their name, Rob took his mother’s name temporarily.

By the middle of the 16th century the MacGregors were spread over a wide area and tending to be ‘agin the Government’. They gained a reputation for wildness, particularly around the Rannoch area where their leader went under the colourful title of Duncan the Lordly.

Any Government forces sent into the moorland wastes to deal with these brigands had scant success and the clan went on ever more daring plundering raids.

Despite the fact that they were fellow Roman Catholics, Mary, Queen of Scots, for political reasons decided to continue the persecution of the clan MacGregor.

Much of this harassment had been enforced by Protestant barons flexing their muscles between the death of Mary’s father, James V, and her succeeding to the throne.

In 1563 Mary gave the Campbells of Inveraray the use of royal castles in the Highlands in their campaign to impose law and order and they succeeded in capturing and executing Gregor, the son of Alistair, a prospective chief of the clan and known, because of his skill in archery, as ‘the Arrow of Glenlyon’.

The Queen’s opposition to the MacGregors was mild (including once, after banishing the clan, reinstating it as a lawful community) in comparison with her son King James VI vindictive war against them.

Persecution of the clan continued after the king went south following the Union of the Crowns for James had his adherents in the Highlands who were ordered to “rout out and exterminate all of that race of malefactors and limmers”.

The clan was damned by the king to be lawless and nameless; and women associating with MacGregors were made a public spectacle when stripped naked and whipped through the streets of the nearest townships. Some of the clan fled to Ireland and a choice of surname other than their own had to be made. Death was the penalty against clansmen if more than four people met together; weapons were to be confiscated (the roof thatch was a grand hiding place for the broadsword) and attempts were made to brand the women on the face.

Anyone capturing a MacGregor on producing his head was entitled to that clansman’s possessions.

One might wonder how the clan survived. The Scottish Highlands may have had something to do with it. The ‘children of the mist’ often did not know the meaning of the word surrender but they knew their homeland intimately – the mountain fastnesses, the secret corries, the trackless wastes, as their enemy did not. And the king’s orders, sounding so ominous on paper, got no further than that for the less than enthusiastic among his lackeys.

One notable MacGregor who did not escape was Alistair, the victor of the battle of Glen Fruin. He was arrested by a Campbell gang.

On the way to trial, crossing Loch Lomond at night, Alistair vanished overboard and succeeded in swimming to the shore and temporary safety.

Later, influenced by the Duke of Argyll, Alistair agreed to be taken south for an audience with the king and to ask pardon for his Glen Fruin slaughter of the king’s men – and the company did actually cross the Border at Berwick.

But a change of purpose set them on a ‘U’ turn – to Edinburgh where Alistair and relatives who had accompanied him were hanged in the High Street near St. Giles’ kirk where eventually a scaffold would be erected to replace the age-old site of execution in the Grassmarket, marked there by a stone design fashioned in the shape of the national flag of Scotland, the St. Andrew’s saltire cross, in memory of the Covenanter martyrs who were hanged at this spot.

The opportunity now arose for some of the MacGregor men to join what might be termed a mercenary army and restore some prestige to the clan.

The chance was given them, after King James had gone, by his son Charles I who ordered the Marquis of Montrose to continue the work in attempting to create order in the Highlands and this included opposing the army of Covenanters. Men of the clan agreeing to this would be given ‘legal restoration’.

There is no record of how many – if any – volunteered for this mobilisation.

Rebels with a cause

The persecution through the years had caused the rebel attitude in the clan to become ingrained into their natures.

Callum MacGregor of Glen Fruin was a crack shot and his speciality was in the use of the long-barreled flintlock gun. There is a hillock in Glen Ogle called ‘The Knoll of the Dog’ where he killed a Campbell bloodhound as it headed a pursuit of him by a Campbell gang, bringing down the beast with a single shot as it leapt over a huge rock where he had hidden himself.

On another occasion, Callum was hiding on an islet on Loch Katrine. The Campbells, grouped on the shore, reckoned that since the islet was bare of sustenance they could starve him out – and settled down to await his surrender.

One of the Campbell men was a cobbler in the rare times of peace and he lit a fire to prepare some food. The smoke rising from the fire silhouetted the figure, making him a good target.

Callum shouted across the water in the Gaelic, “Get out of my sight, you greasy cook!” then shot the man dead.

It happens that in the Gaelic the word ‘cook’ can also mean ‘cobbler’. This uncanny recognition by their quarry of the dim figure by the fire regarding the man’s peacetime trade astonished the Campbells; and thinking that Callum must have some personal variation of ‘the second sight’ – the gift of seeing in the mind’s eye a vision of the future – the superstitious Highlanders left the scene and Callum, in his own time, crossed to the mainland shore, homeward bound.

So, into such an uncertain, violent world, Rob Roy MacGregor was born in 1671.

Sir Walter Scott gave this description of the great outlaw as he was in his prime –

‘His stature was not of the tallest, but his person was uncommonly strong and compact. The greatest peculiarities of his frame were the breadth of his shoulders, and the great, and almost disproportionate length of his arms; so remarkable indeed, that it was said he could, without stooping, tie the garters of his Highland hose, which are placed two inches below the knee. His countenance was open, manly, stern at periods of danger but frank and cheerful in his hours of festivity. His hair was dark red, thick, frizzled, and curled short around his face. His fashion of dress showed, of course, the knees and upper part of the leg, which was described to me as resembling that of a Highland bull, hirsute, with red hair and evincing muscular strength similar to that animal. To these personal qualifications must be added a masterly use of the Highland sword, in which his strength of arm gave him great advantage, – and a perfect and intimate knowledge of all the recesses of the wild country in which he harboured, and the character of the various individuals, whether friendly or hostile, with whom he might come into contact.’

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Family History Mini Book


We hope you enjoyed reading this excerpt from this mini book on the Scottish history of the MacGregor family.

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125 Clan MacGregor

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The Crests

of Clan MacGregor

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Divisions

of MacGregor

Arrowsmith
Black
Bower
Bowmaker
Brewer
Caird
Comrie
Dennison
Docherty
Fletcher
Gair
Greer
Gregory
Greig
Greyson
Grigor
King
Kirkpatrick
Leckie
MacAdam
MacAlister
MacAlpine
MacAngus
MacAnish
MacCainsh
MacCance
MacChoiter
MacConachie
MacDonagh
MacGilledow
MacGregor of Balquhidder
MacGregor of Cardney
MacGregor of Glengyle
MacInnes
MacInstalker
MacLiver
MacNess
MacNie
MacNiesh
MacNocaird
MacNucator
MacPetrie
MacRae
Malloch
Nice
Nish
Orr
Pattullo
Peat
Peter
Peterkin
Peters
Petrie
Skinner
Stalker
Stringer
Walker
White
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Historically Related Septs

of Clan MacGregor

Spellings

of MacGregor

MacCrouther
MacGrowther
MacGruder
MacGruther
MacGrouther
MacGruer
MacCrewer
MacCrouder
MacCrewir
MacCrowther
MacGrader
MacGrudder
MacHrudder
MacGruthar
MacGrewer
MacHruder
MacGrowder
MacGrevar
MacGrudaire
MacRudder
MacRudrie
MacRuar
MacRuer
MacRither
Magruder
Makrudder
Makgruder
Gruer
MacGregare
MacGregur
MacGrigor
Gregorson

192 Clan MacGregor

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