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The MacGregors were one of seven clans within the Siol Alpin group, the others being clans Grant, MacAulay, MacFie, MacKinnon, MacNab and MacQuarrie. The MacGregors are considered to be the most prominent ones.
The MacGregors are traditionally believed to originate in the Three Glens: Glen Strae, Glen Orchy and Glen Lochy. Some also add the glens of Glen Lyon and Glen Dochart to it. Later, the MacGregors spread more eastwards.
I included a map covering most of the places mentioned in the text below. The map is taken from OS OpenData. I added some red marks and numbers on it to make things a bit clearer.
Glen Strae (1); Glen Orchy (2); Glen Lochy (3); Glen Lyon (4); Glen Dochart (5).
The earliest MacGregor certainly inhabiting Glen Orchy is John of Glenorchy, who was listed in the newly created sheriffdom of Argyll in 1292. He was one of the forced signatories to the notorious Ragman Rolls of allegiance during the Wars of Independence. When fighting against England's Edward I, then still joined by the future Robert the Bruce, he was caught and held to ransom, and finally exciled to France.
And then the misery started and a name pops up that will
determine the faith of Clan Gregor. While John of Glenorchy was in France, his southern neighbour, Sir Colin Campbell of Lochawe, married off John's daugher Mariota to his own son, John Campbell. When John MacGregor died in 1390, John Campbell took the title of Glenorchy.
By 1432, Sir Colin Campbell of Glenorchy received the ancestral MacGregor lands of Glen Orchy from his father, Sir Duncan Campbell of Lochawe.
The loss of Glen Orchy meant the MacGregors spread elsewhere, mostly towards the east.
Glenstrae was still held by the MacGregor chief.
It wasn't just the MacGregors who were affected by the Campbell expansion. Other clans suffered as well, such as the Fletchers and the MacNabs.
The senior line of MacGregors holding Glen Strae died out in 1519, but the Campbell Earl of Argyll recognised an Iain MacGregor as new laird of Glenstrae. This MacGregor just so happened to be married to a daughter of Campbell of Glenorchy. In any case, he was not accepted by all clan members.
Iain MacGregor was succeeded by Alasdair MacGregor in 1528, but died shorly after the Battle of Pinkie in 1547 (when Scotland was soundly defeated by England's Henry VIII, who tried to marry his son to the infant Scottish Queen Mary).
So Alasdair's younger brother Gregor Roy became the new clan chief, even though he was still a minor. His guardian was Duncan MacGregor (Laudosach of Ardchoille) and the latter was not exactly fond of Campbell ownership of Glen Orchy. In fact, Duncan MacGregor was nothing short of a criminal, especially when triggered by the "legal" criminal activities of some Campbells.
Earlier in his "career" Duncan had already enjoyed the privilege of Campbell hospitality in the shape of an underground pit, but following his escape, Duncan continued and even upped his game, taking revenge on those bullying MacGregors. When Campbell of Glenorchy
tried to weaken the bond of allegiance between MacGregors and their own clan chief by taking bonds of manrent from MacGregor tenants in Breadalbane (that's the area around the long loch leading up to number 7 on the above map) in 1550, Duncan was obviously not amused. He killed one of those "traitors". This time Duncan had run out of his luck and he and two of his sons were caught and beheaded by Campbell of Glenorchy, not so incidentally on the St Gregory saint day, 16 June 1552.
With that nuisance out of the way and with Gregor Roy still a minor, Campbell of Glenorchy bought superiority of Glen Strae from his kinsman, the Earl of Argyll. When Gregor Roy came of age in 1560, Campbell of Glenorchy simply refused to recognise him as his tenant. The MacGregor chief was also at odds with another branch of Clan Campbell, notably the Campbells of Glen Lyon. It did not take long before Gregor turned (or was forced to turn) into a outlaw and ravaged crown lands. Immediately the MacGregors living in Breadalbane renounced their bonds of manrent with Glenorchy. Things got really out of hand because on 22 September 1563 an Act of the Privy Council gave the most powerful lords a Commission to pursue the MacGregors with fire and sword, one of those lords being Campbell of Glenorchy.
The Campbells chased MacGregors from their territory and substituted them for their own henchmen. Queen Mary briefly managed to cease the evictions as well as the construction of a tower of strength on an artificial island in Loch Rannoch - Eilean nam Faoileag - but in 1568 Queen Mary was on her way out and the Campbells happily continued their merry ways. An Act dating from 1564 also penalised clans helping MacGregors. Gregor Roy MacGregror was imprisoned in 1569 and on 7 April 1570 he was beheaded at Kenmore (number 7 on the map). With the loss of their clan chief, Glenorchy started to oust MacGregors
from the lands of other clan chiefs. Nothing could stop Campbell authority.
Gregor Roy was succeeded by his son Alasdair, who came of age in 1588. Things were not looking good for the clan. King James VI ran a policy of genocide in the Highlands and Islands, with Argyll as chief agent. An Act of 1587 held landowners responsible for actions of those living on their lands (and who wanted to be held accountable for broken clans - clans without homelands?), so MacGregors were being evicted from their homes. Moreover, Campbell of Glenorchy blocked the attempt of Alasdair to be invested in his own lands of Glenstrae and even took legal actions to evict Alasdair from Glenstrae.
With MacGregors being on the move everywhere with no place to call home, it was nearly obvious things could only get worse. And they did.
In 1589, John Drummond, under-forrester in Glen Artney
(number 8 on the map) caught some MacGregors poaching and instantly hanged them. Retaliation did not take long and soon Drummond was beheaded by some MacGregors who then took the head to Alasdair. He took the blood-guilt of the murderers on him. The result was that the two most important earls in the Highlands (Huntly and Argyll) were charged with arresting 139 MacGregors and confiscating their lands and property. The MacGregors were hunted down. Alasdair managed to escape and was eventually pardoned in 1592, but he had to surrender hostages from the three principal branches of Clan Gregor who were to be relieved at regular intervals. These were men of good behaviour who had done nothing wrong. But obviously this was not a situation any MacGregor wanted to be in: spend time at his Majesty's pleasure.
So in 1601 Alasdair failed to find new hostages and Argyll received a commission to deal with the MacGregors. Unfortunately, Argyll was so powerful he could do what he wanted, even use the MacGregors for his own personal vendettas, e.g. against the Colquhouns of Luss (a clan living next to Loch
Lomond, so further south the map).
Without land of their own, raiding other clan lands had become second nature to the MacGregors, so invading the rich lands of the Colquhouns meant they ran away with plenty of cattle. Naturally Argyll did not object. But when the MacGregors raided Glen Finglas next, the Colquhouns received a Commission to raise a punitive force against the MacGregors. It took a while, but it was ready by 8 Jan 1603. The MacGregors were suddenly up against an "army" so they sent the fiery cross around the area and were joined by Camerons of Rannoch and MacIans of Glencoe. The MacGregor force was outnumbered, but when the two forces met in Glen Fruin (west of Loch Lomond) in Februay 1603, the victory was all for the MacGregors.
However, that victory would cost them very dearly. James used all of his force to destroy the MacGregors completely, as he wanted "that unhappie and detestable race to be extirpat and ruttit out". He passed the "Proscription Act", making it illegal to be a MacGregor. Women were branded on the face; children could not be baptised and were sent to Ireland or to the Lowlands (if they tried to escape twice, they were hanged). It was perfectly legal to kill a MacGregor, and you were even rewarded a nineteen-year lease of his lands. As a MacGregor you could get a pardon if you killed a fellow MacGregor of equal rank, or several of a lower rank... and then changed your name into something else.
The Gaelic phrasing for the Proscription Act makes it clearer: Dìteadh gu bàs - "condemnation to death". Ethnic cleansing. The original edict is published on the Clan Gregor website.
Alasdair managed to evade hunting Campbells for well over six months, but eventually handed himself over to Argyll, after he was promised a safe conduct into England, to plead his case with the King (by now living in London as James I of England). Highland honour meant nothing to a Campbell and Argyll brought Alasdair and three close relatives as far as Berwick (just over the border) and then brought them back to Edinburgh where he faced a mock trial. They were all to be hanged, and because four was clearly not enough they would hang the hostages too, since they were MacGregors and that was good enough a reason.
On 20 January 1604 they were hanged at the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh, Alasdair positioned higher than the others. Walking on Edinburgh's Royal Mile, you might find some individual spitting on a heart paved in the Royal Mile. Do not think any ill of him. He's only spitting at the Heart of Midlothian and this is the exact spot where the MacGregors were hanged.
The Acts were renewed and tightened several times, even under Charles I in 1633. Kindred clans, such as the Grants and MacAulays, were heavily fined for helping MacGregors. The Campbells on the other hand, had an official order to root out the entire race, and to cover for those expenses, Argyll could keep the land ofthose MacGregors he caught. The Campbells were extremely vigorous in their chase as they are reputed to have even trained bloodhounds to catch MacGregors.
Some they could never catch though, such as Callum of Glengyle, who had led the forces in Glen Fruin. He had several very close shaves with the Campbells, either killing their bloodhound and running off, or shooting one of his assailants at amazing distance. Callum died of old age instead of on the scaffold.
The Glengyle branch is "only" the fourth most important branch of MacGregors, but name one MacGregor and nine out of ten will name a Glengyle MacGregror: Callum's grandson is the illustrious Rob Roy
MacGregor.
The Acts were also open to abuse, however. Robert of Aberach (or Lochaber), the mastermind of Glen Fruin, was a notorious criminal yet received a pardon and changed his name to Ramsay.
Campbell of Glenorchy was allowed to enter the eldest son of Alasdair's brother as a tenant in Glenstrae, after which he bought out all rights to Glenstrae. And so the last bit of ancestral land of the MacGregors came into Campbell hands.
It is a very curious thought that, even though the MacGregors had been repeatedly mistreated by the Stuart dynasty, they rose to the royalist cause in 1644. A king was the chief of chiefs and MacGregors and highland honour are no aliens. Hence the Acts were lifted in 1661 when Charles II was restored to power, although the MacGregors did not receive any legal title to any of their lands. The arrival of William of Orange though, was a time of settling private scores. The penal laws against the MacGregors were reinstated in 1693. It is no surprise the MacGregors were present in the Jacobite Risings of 1715 and 1745 against the Hanoverian regime. On the day of Culloden, however, the MacGregors were fighting in Sutherland, so not on the main battlefield. The government still deemed it necessary to decend on Balquhidder (number 6 on the map) with some 700 troops and burn down all MacGregor houses.
It finally took Gregor MacGregor of Inverarderan to plead with George III to have the laws annulled. The repeal of the Acts were debated in Parliament on 29 November 1774, 171 years after they had been passed.
The MacGregors chose a new chief from the Balquhiddder branch in 1714. The current chief is Sir Malcolm Gregor Charles MacGregor of MacGregor, 24th Chief of Clan Gregor.
For this bit of history I relied heavily on two books:
"Clan Gregor" by Forbes MacGregor
&
"Feuds, Forays and Rebellions - History of the Highland Clans 1475-1625" by John L Roberts
