The history of Clan Gregor is as turbulent as the history of Scotland itself.
Claiming descent from the first Scottish king, Alpin, through his second son, Griogor, the Clan McGregor motto of 'S rioghal mo dhream translates from the Gaelic tongue as "Royal is my race" and reflects this heritage.
From the very early days the McGregors were a scattered people and took many names, but collectively were known as "the Gregorach". They maintained extremely close family ties and loyalties despite their fractured status and this more than anything was to stand them in good stead in the latter part of the second millennium.
Perhaps the greatest misfortune for this clan was to occupy their traditional homelands - lands that were coveted by the neighbouring, powerful Clan Campbell. This home of the clan was the eastern border of Argyll and the western border of Perthshire, including Glenorchy, Glenstrae, Glenlyon and Glengyle. The earliest possession of the clan, Glenorchy which, previously owned by the Campbells, was bestowed on the McGregors for services rendered to King Alexander II (1214-1249) in his conquest of Argyll. This no doubt earned them the enmity of the Clan Campbell in a country where feuding between families and clans lasted for generations and were quite bloody affairs. For a long time the McGregors maintained possession of their lands by right of sword, however the enmity of the surrounding clans resulted in attempts to displace the clan, and the inevitable retaliation by the McGregors, who thus earned the reputation of being a turbulent people.
Certainly the first recognized Chief of the Clan Gregor was Griogair (Gregor) of the Golden Bridles, born about 1300 and died around 1360.
By 1440 the Campbells had gained control of the Glenorchy lands expelling McGregors and other tenants, replacing them with Campbells. When Iain Dubh of the house of Glenstrae died in 1519, he left no heir. Passing over the senior houses of Brackley and Roro, the McGregors' superiors (landlords), the Campbells of Glenorchy, imposed the succession of Eoin MacEoghan, chieftain of the line known as Clan Dughaill Ciar and residing in Glengyle, as 7th Chief of McGregor. This came about because Eoin had once ravished and then married the daughter of Sir Colin Campbell of Glenorchy, who now hoped to control the Gregorach through his son-in-law. These McGregors proved the most unruly of all.
The McGregors were fair game to any landowner who possessed the strength and fortitude to take them on. They were scattered largely due to the greed of the Campbells, but later, became pawns in the Campbell agenda of expansion.
Sir Humphrey Colquhoun, the Laird of Luss was also a greedy and avaricious laird, who became a nuisance to the Campbells. The most powerful of the Campbell lairds was the Duke of Argyll. He tacitly set the McGregors on to Luss to curtail his expansion northwards into Campbell territory. Being hereditary High Sheriff of Scotland, Argyll held all the cards in this struggle. If any blame were to go around, Argyll would come down on the perpetrator, be it McGregor or Luss. With his influence and prestige at court, Argyll kept a close watch on the proceedings.
In truth the McGregors were a fairly lawless clan, who could mount forays into the lowlands and neighbouring clan territories. This they did, being extremely good caterans or cattle-lifters (rustlers), and they maintained a highly successful blackmail enterprise by "protecting" the cattle and other possessions of their "clients". They could, when necessary, safely retreat behind the highland fortress of their mountains, glens and sympathetic families.
The Laird of Luss saw an opportunity to gain lands from the embattled Clan Gregor, and began actively harassing any McGregors who came within his reach. Two such travelling Gregorach men, when refused food and shelter, killed a sheep to quell their hunger. Some Colquhoun clansmen apprehended them and hanged the McGregors on the spot.
In a separate incident, in 1589 John Drummond, the Royal Forester of Glen Artney, came across some McGregors hunting deer on what they considered their own territory. Without the formality of a trial, Drummond hanged the McGregor "poachers", a common enough punishment in both England and Scotland for breaking the severe forest and game laws. No Highlander ever acknowledged such game laws, and felt free to take fish, flesh, or fowl in their own territories. The McGregors, took Drummond's action as an affront to be paid back in kind, even though the poachers were a band of outlaws beyond official clan control. Some vengeful McGregors caught Drummond and executed him, in a similar way he had summarily executed the McGregor hunting party. One account is that after being hanged, they beheaded him and carried his head to the church at Balquhidder, seat of the Clan Gregor. With the leaders of the clan present, the young Chief Alasdair of Glenstrae, strode towards the head and put his right hand on it and swore to uphold the deed in defiance of King James. Thus the McGregor chief took responsibility for the murder, and then urged all present to follow his example. They did so. In this solemn action the entire clan became enemies of King James VI of Scotland, later King James I of England.
Unfortunately for the McGregors, Drummond had been hunting for a stag for a dinner at King James VI's wedding feast for Princess Anne of Denmark. Consequently, the king took the affront personally, and another 'crusade' against the McGregors began.
Argyll now played a double game, he encouraged the McGregors to harry the countryside especially his old enemies, the Colquhouns. He invited the McGregors to 'commit both hership and slaughter' upon the Colquhouns of Luss. The Clan Gregor, at this time, welcomed any great man's protection so Alasdair of Glenstrae, the McGregor chief, took some of his followers and went down to the rich Colquhoun lands between Loch Lomond and Loch Long. There they drove off some 420 cows, 400 sheep and goats and 100 horses. Of course some Colquhouns were killed in the foray. When word got out about these raids, Argyll encouraged the Privy Council to attack the McGregors with 'fire and sword' thereby eliminating some of his unruly tenants.
Colquhoun of Luss, no doubt encouraged by Argyll, sent the customary bloody shirt to Edinburgh and asked for 'Letters of Fire and Sword' against the McGregors. Due no doubt to Colquhoun's stage managed show, with paid mourners and hired widows and orphans, he was duly granted a Royal Commission to raise a force against the McGregors.
Word spread fast and furious in the Highlands when interclan battles erupted. Soon Clan Gregor were aware of the impending raids 'sanctioned by the King'. This was the kind of situation for which the old Highland Clans were well prepared. Subsequently, the bloody cross on the 'cloak of shame' with its fiery cross was making its hurried rounds throughout Clan Gregor territory, by day and by night, calling all before it, no matter what names they had assumed, to come to the common defence of their lands, property and families against the 'Saxon' menace. They were not merely McGregors of Glenstrae, (the grieved party), but also McGregors of Glengyle, Lochaber, Glenorchy, and Glenlyon, as well as many from the smaller mountain communities, all summoned by the fiery cross.
The McGregors were not slow to react. According to one account, Alasdair, the chief of the Glenstrae McGregors, went to negotiate on behalf of his clan. Alasdair was a rare man, who took the advantage before his opponent had the wit to seize it, and he was prepared to hit the Laird of Luss before he was himself harried. A force of 300-400 left the braes of Balquhidder on a bitter February morning of 1603, crossed Loch Lomond from Glen Arklet to the Pass of Arrochar, and swung down the eastern shore of Loch Long to come up on the rear of the Colquhouns.
The meeting between the two chiefs went smoothly and Glenstrae and his men returned home towards Rannach. The Colquhoun chief, however, did not trust the McGregors and quickly gathered a group of his own followers, which included Grahams, Buchanan levies, and alarmed towns-people of Dumbarton which totalled about 500 foot and 300 mounted soldiers formed from his own clan. This group pursued the McGregors, who travelled home by way of Glen Fruin. There being no road, the McGregors were travelling through the floor of the valley when the Colquhoun forces attacked without provocation.
In open country, the Colquhoun cavalry could have run down the Highlanders with ease, but Alasdair placed his foot soldiers across the marshy ground of Glen Fruin at a narrow pass, where the horses were useless. While Alasdair maintained combat with his own group on the valley floor, his brother's men made the circuit of the hill and attacked the unsuspecting assailants from the rear. The Lowland infantry broke and ran at once when the Highlanders charged. The cavalry fared no better; their horses were hamstrung and the riders were slaughtered in the bogs. It was over in a few minutes. The McGregors, ran over the dead to set fire to many houses and stacks in the lands of Luss. They drove off some 2,000 head of cattle, sheep, goats, and horses.
Luss wildly underestimated the abilities and fierceness of the McGregors. He contrived a plan to ambush them with only twice their number. Being a lowlander, he had little idea of the mentality and toughness of the typical McGregor clansmen. Especially in winter, the McGregors were a formidable opponent. The Gregorach knew the countryside like no others, they knew how to use it to their advantage. Gradually they became the toughest guerrilla force in all of Scotland, so much so that they also were hired out to other lairds to quell encroaching clansmen in scattered skirmishes throughout Scotland.
This battle was not merely a family feud between the McGregors and the Colquhouns, but a racial showdown between Highlanders and Lowlanders, with one proviso; the blame or consequences of the proceedings would rest with the McGregor Chiefs.
Given that these assembled highland warriors were a most formidable force, history records there were at least 140 Luss men killed. The truth was no doubt much higher (some say between 200 -300). Only two McGregors, the brother of the chief and one other, were killed in that action (although this too is likely to have been higher). Many more died later under the executioner's hand, for merely being there.
The Battle of Glen Fruin, perhaps the most brilliant battle Clan Gregor ever fought, was a watershed event to the McGregors but it proved to be its undoing before the court of James VI.
As a result of the slaughter of the Colquhouns, the McGregors were proscribed and condemned to extinction by James. The McGregor victory was a direct affront to the King James VI and he would have none of it especially as he was about to become combined King of Scotland and England. He would not allow an uncontrollable clan to make him appear weak and indecisive. Therefore he vented his anger on this one clan and used them as an example to others who might be plotting to flout his authority. Indeed, for a lesser clan, this extremity would have been fatal, but Clan Gregor thrived and actually increased in numbers after Glen Fruin, albeit as a scattered clan with no land and few friends.
King James VI issued an edict proclaiming the name McGregor “altogidder abolished”, meaning that those who bore the name must renounce it or suffer death. The Proscriptive Acts of Clan Gregor were enacted on the 3rd of April 1603. This draconian ruling authorized the capture of Alasdair McGregor of Glenstrae and his leading kinsmen. In the spring of 1604, Alasdair McGregor of Glenstrae, Chief and Laird of McGregor was hanged with eleven of his chieftains against the west end of Saint Giles Kirk where the Tollbooth stood. Today, the “Heart of Midlothian” in Edinburgh marks the spot where the McGregor Chief was executed.
By the Privy Council Act of 1603, in addition to abolition of the McGregor name, all who had been engaged at the battle of Glen Fruin, and other marauding expeditions detailed in the act, were prohibited, also under pain of death, from carrying any weapon but a knife, without a point, to cut their victuals. They were also forbidden, under the same penalty of death, to meet in greater numbers than four at a time.
The name of Clan Gregor was to be erased from existence. To even claim one of these names openly was to invite an immediate execution. The clan-folk of the Gregorach were ordered to take different names. They were to obey implicitly the new Chief placed over them. It should be noted here that many of the McGregors refused. Of those who refused (and were caught); the men were executed, the women were stripped bare, branded, and whipped through the streets. The women and children could be, and were, sold into slavery for Britain’s new colonies in North America.
Further additions to the proscriptive acts denied the McGregors basic necessities of food, water, shelter, and care for infants and the elderly. The McGregors were denied the Sacraments of Baptism, Holy Communion, marriage, and last rites. The gentry of Scotland were encouraged to hunt the McGregors with dogs as if they were common game stock. But, without a doubt, the most horrifying act was the commission of selling McGregor heads to the government to attain pardon for thievery and murder.
The surviving McGregors continued in two groups. The first were those who legally changed their name to satisfy the law, but never changed their heart or blood. The other group were those who took to the great highlands and continued to use their McGregor name in defiance.
An Act of the Scottish Parliament from 1617 (translated into modern English) stated:
It was ordained that the name of McGregor should be abolished and that the whole persons of that name should renounce their name and take some other name and that they nor none of their name and that they nor none of their posterity should call themselves Gregor or McGregor under pain of death .... that any person or persons of the said clan who has already renounced their names or hereafter shall renounce their names or if any of their children or posterity shall at any time hereafter assume or take to themselves the name of Gregor or McGregor .... that every such person or persons assuming or taking to themselves the said name .... shall incur the pain of death which pain shall be executed upon them without favour.
Despite the savage treatment of the McGregors they actually fought for the King during the Scottish Civil War of 1644-45. Two hundred men of Clan Gregor fought for the Earl of Glencairn in what was known as Glencairn's rising, against the Commonwealth in 1653. Charles II of England, in recognition of this, repealed the savage proscription of the name but then William of Orange reimposed it when Charles' brother James VII was deposed.
With the persecution of the McGregors, the clan became known as the Children of the Mist. This persecution is immortalised in the poem/song McGregor's Gathering:
The moon's on the lake, and the mist's on the brae,
And the Clan has a name that is nameless by day;
Our signal for fight, that from monarchs we drew,
Must be heard but by night in our vengeful haloo!
If they rob us of name, and pursue us with beagles,
Give their roofs to the flame, and their flesh to the eagles!
While there's leaves in the forest, and foam on the river,
McGregor, despite them, shall flourish for ever!
Glenorchy's proud mountains, Coalchuirn and her towers,
Glenstrae and Glenlyon no longer are ours;
Through the depths of Loch Katrine the steed shall career,
O'er the peak of Ben-Lomond the galley shall steer,
And the rocks of Craig-Royston like icicles melt,
Ere our wrongs be forgot, or our vengeance unfelt!
If they rob us of name, and pursue us with beagles,
Give their roofs to the flame, and their flesh to the eagles!
While there's leaves in the forest, and foam on the river,
McGregor, despite them, shall flourish for ever!
Staunchly Catholic and fiercely supportive of the Jacobite cause the McGregors turned out in force in both the 1715 and the 1745 uprisings to support the Stuart cause. The aftermath of the failed 1745 rebellion was particularly harsh on all Jacobite sympathizers in Scotland including the McGregors.
The persecution of the McGregors lasted over 170 years, not ending until 1774, when the proscription was finally repealed. The oppressive acts
against the McGregors were finally and totally rescinded by the British parliament, and the clan was allowed to resume their old name and they were restored to all the rights and
privileges of British citizens.
General John Murray (McGregor) of Lanark was duly appointed chief and re-established the clan in 1775.
