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Rob Roy - Birth, Name, Tartan, Badge

Glengyle - Birthplace of Rob Roy.  Rob Roy was born at Glen Gyle, on the northern end of Loch Katrine.  His father was an officer in the srvice of King James II.  Rob Roy probably got his Jacobite leanings from his father.  Rob Roy was stout shouldered andof medium stature.  They say, he had arms as long as to tie his garters without bending.

Rob Roy, actually Robert MacGregor (b.  1671, d.  December 28, 1734) was a Highland freebooter known as the Scottish Robin Hood.  Nominally a cattle dealer, he became a cattle thief who sold his neighbors protection against other rustlers.  When the protection business failed, Rob Roy was accused of fraud and declared an outlaw.  After his principal creditor, James Graham, First Duke of Montrose, seized his lands, Rob Roy warred with the duke until 1722, when Rob Roy was forced to surrender.  Later imprisoned, he was finally pardoned in 1727.  His memory has been perpetuated and romanticized by Sir Walter Scott in the novel Rob Roy (1818).

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The Rob Roy tartan was worn in lieu of the proscribed MacGregor tartan.

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The badge of Clans Alpine and Gregor is the pine.

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The MacGregors claim to be of royal descent.  Their motto is Is "s'rioghail mo dhream," meaning "royal is my race." The earliest possessions of the clan were in Glenorchy.  For centuries the MacGregors were persecuted.  Sir Walter Scott says of the MacGregors: "They were famous for their misfortunes and the indomitable courage with which they maintained themselves as a clan." For over a century, the name was utterly proscribed, and it needed an act of Parliament to annul the suppression of the name.  During the period of proscription many of the MacGregors had to change their names.  It was in 1774 that the ban was removed.  The famous Rob Roy was a MacGregor of Glengyle.  The name MacGregor means son of Gregor -- in Gaelic Griogar.  It is interesting that Scott made an error in Gaelic in his song "The MacGregors' Gathering." In the song he anglicizes the Gaelic plural Griogarach, meaning "of the MacGregors," as Grigalach.

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The MacGregors were either related to or descended from the first MacAlpin (Alpin) -- hence the reference in lore to the name Alpin when referring to the MacGregors.  MacAlpin is a name of Cymric origin.  The MacAlpins claim descent from Kenneth McAplin, the ancestor of a long line of kings.  The MacAlpins have never been a united clan under a chief.  There is an old saying: Cnuic is uillt is Ailpeinich, meaning Hills and streams and MacAlpins. The inference is that the MacAlpins are as old as the hills.

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