Clan MacGregor
also McGregor, Gregor
The persecuted clan, proscribed but never broken.
- Origin
- Perthshire, Scotland
- Motto
- 'S rioghal mo dhream
- Famous bearer
- Rob Roy MacGregor
- Register
- Scottish clan
The seat of Clan MacGregor
Seat vacantChief
No one leads the Clan MacGregor community yet. When the movement opens, you can stand for its leadership, or help elect whoever does.
Current mission
No shared goal set yet. Once Clan MacGregor has leadership, it sets the public focus: a restoration, a gathering, a real-world project that helps its own.
The MacGregor clan is being rebuilt. Join the waiting list for the movement today, and you help decide who leads it and what it does.
Help rebuild the MacGregor clan →Motto
'S rioghal mo dhream
“Royal is my race”
What does the MacGregor name mean?
Son of Gregor, from Gaelic, claimed by tradition to descend from a son of Kenneth MacAlpin, first King of Scots.
The history of Clan MacGregor
Clan MacGregor traces its descent, by tradition, from a son of Kenneth MacAlpin, first King of Scots, hence the proud motto 'royal is my race'. Their lands lay around Glen Orchy, Glen Strae and Glen Lyon, in the heart of the southern Highlands.
Pressed by the rising Campbells and other neighbours, the MacGregors became known for raiding and resistance. In 1603 the very name MacGregor was proscribed by the crown, punishable by death, after the Battle of Glen Fruin against the Colquhouns. The proscription was renewed under Cromwell and again after the 1715 Jacobite Rising.
Their most famous son, Rob Roy MacGregor (1671–1734), became a folk hero through Walter Scott's novel and a long line of films thereafter. The proscription was finally lifted in 1774; the chief's line was restored shortly after.
Champions of the MacGregor name
The bearers whose lives are inseparable from this surname. Each has its own page — biography, achievements, geography, connection to the family.
Notable bearers of the MacGregor name
- Rob Roy MacGregor
Stories of Clan MacGregor
The Battle of Glen Fruin
1603In February 1603, days before James VI of Scotland departed Edinburgh to take the English throne, Alasdair MacGregor of Glenstrae led four hundred clansmen down Glen Fruin onto the lands of the Colquhouns of Luss, in a long-running cattle feud over Loch Lomond pasture. By the day's end roughly one hundred and forty Colquhouns lay dead. The widows of Luss rode to Stirling and presented the bloodied shirts of their men to the king. James, on the eve of inheriting an English crown and intent on showing the southern court a settled north, signed a Letter of Fire and Sword. The very name MacGregor was abolished. The proscription would stand for one hundred and seventy-one years.
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Rob Roy MacGregor
1671–1734Robert Roy MacGregor, born 1671 at Glengyle on Loch Katrine, was the third son of a clan that was not legally allowed to bear its own name. He worked as a cattle dealer and grew rich on the protection trade. In 1712 a sum of one thousand pounds advanced to him by James Graham, Duke of Montrose, vanished with one of his drovers; Montrose called the loan, seized Rob Roy's house at Inversnaid and evicted his wife and children. Rob Roy declared open war on the duke. For more than two decades he raided Montrose's lands, stole his rents, and lived as an outlaw under the protection of the rival Duke of Argyll. He died at Balquhidder in 1734, aged sixty-three, having sat up on his deathbed to refuse a death he had not yet finished arranging.
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