A Moderated Customer Comment Blog.  Search

3 Celts & Company • "MACDUFF"

Like the clan's claim of descent from Clan Alpin, the real story of Shakespeare's Macduff overthrowing Macbeth in 1056 remains uncertain, but the hereditary special privilages and dispensations once known as 'Law Clan Macduff' must have originated from some other notable service. Thus, it was accepted even by Edward I, "Hammer of the Scots," that a Scottish king could be properly crowned only by a Macduff. Edward retained that young chief at the English court and gave him his grand-daughter's hand, but Macduff's sister Isabel countess of Buchan crowned King Robert Bruce in 1306. Captured later by Edward, she was punished by confinement in a cage at Berwick.
Until among the first Earls created by David I, the Macduff Thanes of Fife held their territory in the old Celtic manner 'by grace of God,' not from King--hence occasional mentions of the county as though of itself a 'kingdom.' Their direct line failed with another 14th-century Isabel, but the Duff families then first heard of in Aberdeenshire claim to carry on the clan. They reacquired the title Earl, then Duke of Fife, but their territory remained around where they founded the fishing town Macduff.

"Law of Clan MacDuff." In 1425, the last Earl of Fife, Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany, was beheaded. The Clan MacDuff's hereditary right of bearing the Crown of Scotland then passed to the Lord Abernethy. The current Lord Abernethy, who is consequently bearer of the Scottish Crown, is Alexander Douglas-Hamilton, 16th Duke of Hamilton, Hereditary Keeper of the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

Septs: DUFF, FIFE, FYFE, FYFFE, HUME, KILGOUR, SPENCE, SPENS, WEEMS, WEMYSS

"MACDUFF." Scots Kith and Kin and Illustrated Map Revised Second Edition. Edinburgh, SCOT: Clan House, c.1970. p.66,67. Print.

"Law of Clan MacDuff." Wikipedia. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_MacDuff]. 12 September 2017. web.

keywords[x] tartan, wool, kilts, MacDuff, MacIntosh, clan, Chattan, septs