Rob Roy MacGregor

Rob Roy MacGregor was a Scottish Highland cattle dealer and clan leader whose financial collapse drew him into conflict with the Duke of Montrose and the government. Rob Roy MacGregor served as Scottish clan chief.

Rob Roy's conflict with the Duke of Montrose and the Hanoverian authorities turned financial and clan disputes into years of outlawry, cattle raiding and political manoeuvring. During the Jacobite rising of 1715 he operated in an ambiguous position between rebellion and protection of his own clan interests. He eventually surrendered, was imprisoned and received a royal pardon in 1727 before spending his final years around Balquhidder.

In Nigel Tranter’s Macgregor’s Gathering, Rob Roy MacGregor and his nephew Gregor cling to Glengyle, one surviving corner of the clan’s former territory, while maintaining their loyalty to the exiled Stuart king. In Sir Walter Scott’s Rob Roy, when Rashleigh steals documents capable of ruining the firm and carries them into Scotland, Frank follows with the Glasgow merchant Bailie Nicol Jarvie. Their search brings them into the Highlands and into the protection of Rob Roy MacGregor, outlaw, cattle dealer and political intermediary. In Nigel Tranter’s The Clansman, in 1715, Rob Roy MacGregor’s support for the Stuart cause places him under renewed threat from the government and from the Duke of Montrose, his powerful enemy.