Rob Roy (1671-1734) was a famous Scottish outlaw whose real name was Robert MacGregor. Roy is the English form of ruadh, a Gaelic word meaning red. MacGregor became known as Rob Roy because of his red hair and ruddy skin.
Rob Roy was born on Feb. 1, 1671, at Glengyle, near Loch Lomond. He inherited land from his father and was a nephew of a chieftain of the MacGregor clan. Rob Roy probably combined cattle trading with stealing cattle and with threatening to steal his neighbors’ cattle if they did not pay him money for “protecting” them. But charges that in 1711 he fled with money that various people had given him to purchase cattle for them were never supported.
Rob Roy participated in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715. The rebellion sought to restore the Scottish House of Stuart to the British throne after George I of the House of Hanover had gained the throne in 1714. The rebellion was easily crushed. In 1722, British authorities captured Rob Roy. He was imprisoned for participating in the rebellion and sentenced to exile. But he was later pardoned. Rob Roy died on Dec. 28, 1734. The Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott gave a romantic, fictionalized account of Rob Roy’s adventures in his novel Rob Roy (1817).
