Clan Murray: History, Castles, Crest, Motto & Tartan

The Murrays are one of the most widespread and powerful families in Scottish history. From a Flemish knight granted lands by a medieval king, they rose to hold the dukedom of Atholl, command a private army, and leave their name on castles from the Clyde to the far north of Scotland. This is the story of how one family produced a hero of the Wars of Independence, a Jacobite general who nearly changed the course of British history, and some of the grandest strongholds in the country.

We tell it a little differently here. As well as the history, you'll find landscape photography from across Murray territory woven through the story, because these places are as much a part of the clan's legacy as the people who lived in them. By the end, we hope your imagination has a few more images to draw on when you think about where your ancestors came from.

Where did Clan Murray originate?

The Murray story begins not in Scotland but in Flanders, in what is now Belgium. The clan's ancestor was Freskin, a Flemish knight who arrived in Scotland in the 12th century in the service of King David I. David had grown up at the English court and understood the value of experienced soldiers. He granted Freskin lands in West Lothian, and then something far more ambitious. The ancient province of Moray in northeast Scotland, a vast territory that had once been a Pictish kingdom with its own royal house.

Freskin's job was to suppress the remnants of that old Moray dynasty, and he did it effectively. He and his sons intermarried with the local Pictish nobility to consolidate their hold, and in time, Freskin's descendants took their name from the land they had been given. In Latin charters they appear as "de Moravia" (of Moray), and in the Lowland Scots tongue, this became Murray.

The family branched early and widely. The Earls of Sutherland descend from what is believed to be Freskin's eldest son. Other branches spread south. The most significant early move came when Sir Walter Murray married an Oliphant heiress and became Lord of Bothwell in Clydesdale, south of Glasgow. He was one of the regents of Scotland in 1255, and he started construction on Bothwell Castle, which would become one of the finest medieval fortresses in the country. Bothwell was the seat of the Murray chiefs for over a century, and even today, it stands as one of the most impressive castle ruins in Scotland.

Andrew Murray and Stirling Bridge

Bothwell Castle sat in a strategic position during the Wars of Independence, the long struggle for Scotland's survival as an independent nation against England in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. The castle changed hands several times between the Scots and the English. For a period, it served as the headquarters of Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who was Edward I of England's Warden of Scotland.

When the third Murray Lord of Bothwell died a prisoner in the Tower of London, his heir, Sir Andrew Murray, picked up a sword. In 1297, he launched a rebellion against Edward I of England, starting in Moray, the family's ancient heartland. He was joined by another rebel, Sir William Wallace. Together, they led a Scottish army to a stunning victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge on 11 September 1297, destroying an English force as it tried to cross the bridge over the River Forth. It remains one of the most celebrated battles in Scottish history.

Andrew Murray was wounded in the fighting and died shortly afterwards. Wallace assumed sole command and went on to become Scotland's most famous freedom fighter. But here is the thing that gets overlooked. Murray was the one who had planned the battle. He understood how to position an army and when to commit it, and those were exactly the skills Wallace lacked in the defeats that followed. If Murray had survived, the entire shape of the war might have changed.

The fight did not end with Andrew. His son, another Andrew Murray, was made Guardian of Scotland in 1332 and spent years fighting to free Scotland from Edward Balliol and the English. He recaptured both Kildrummy Castle and Bothwell Castle from English garrisons in the 1330s. But the Murray hold on Bothwell was running out of time. The last Murray Lord of Bothwell died of plague around 1360, and his widow married the third Earl of Douglas. Bothwell passed to the Douglases, and the Murray chiefs needed a new centre of power.

The rise of the Tullibardine Murrays

There were many branches of the Murray name by the 16th century, and several disputed the right to lead the clan. The branch that won was the Murrays of Tullibardine, in Perthshire. Their claim rested on descent from Sir Malcolm Murray, sheriff of Perth around 1270, who was a younger brother of the first Lord of Bothwell. Tullibardine Castle, near Auchterarder in Perthshire, was their seat from 1284, though the castle itself was demolished in 1833 and nothing survives above ground. The nearby Tullibardine Chapel, founded by Sir David Murray in 1446, still stands as one of the most complete small collegiate churches in Scotland.

To settle the question of leadership, the Tullibardine Murrays promoted two "bands of association" in 1586 and 1598. These were formal agreements in which numerous Murray lairds across Scotland recognised the chiefship of Sir John Murray of Tullibardine. Among the signatories were the Morays of Abercairny, another powerful Perthshire branch who could have made their own claim. The bands put the matter beyond doubt, and Sir John was created first Earl of Tullibardine in 1606.

Then came the marriage that transformed the family. Sir John's son and heir married Dorothea Stewart, heiress to the Earls of Atholl. She brought with her a vast estate of over two hundred thousand acres in the central Highlands. Atholl became a Murray earldom in 1629, a marquessate in 1676, and in 1703 the family reached the summit of the Scottish peerage when they were created Dukes of Atholl. Their seat was Blair Castle, in the heart of Highland Perthshire.

Blair Castle

Blair Castle stands at the gateway to the Highlands, just north of Pitlochry in Perthshire. The building you see today is a rambling white-washed mansion that incorporates part of a much older 13th-century castle. The Comyns had a stronghold here first, and the Earls of Atholl held it for centuries before it passed to the Murrays by marriage in 1629. But what makes Blair unusual is not its age. It is that almost every major conflict in Scottish history seems to have passed through its front door.

The civil wars of the 1640s brought the Marquis of Montrose to Blair, where he mustered his forces before the Battle of Tippermuir in 1644. A decade later, Oliver Cromwell's forces (Cromwell was the English military leader who had overthrown the king and established a republic) captured the castle and blew part of it up with gunpowder. Then came the Jacobite risings, the attempts to restore the exiled Catholic Stuart kings to the British throne. In 1689, Bonnie Dundee, John Graham of Claverhouse, garrisoned Blair during the first rising. He was killed at the Battle of Killiecrankie, fought in the pass just a few miles south, and his body was brought back here.

The pattern tells you something about Blair's position. Sitting right where the Lowlands give way to the Highlands, whoever controlled it controlled the route north. That is why, in 1746, Lord George Murray found himself besieging his own brother's castle to try to take it back from the Hanoverian government troops inside.

The Gowrie Conspiracy and Huntingtower

Huntingtower Castle stands a couple of miles northwest of Perth, and it has one of the strangest stories of any castle in Scotland. The building is distinctive. Two tower houses, one from the 15th century and one from the 16th, built so close together that they almost touch but were originally separate. A joining block was added later, and inside, some of the original painted walls and ceilings survive from the 1500s.

The castle was originally called Ruthven Castle, and it belonged to the Ruthven family. In 1600, one of the most mysterious episodes in Scottish history unfolded at the Ruthven townhouse in Perth. John Ruthven, Earl of Gowrie, and his brother Alexander were killed in circumstances that have never been satisfactorily explained. King James VI claimed that the brothers had tried to kidnap or kill him, and that he was saved by his attendants, among them Sir David Murray. The Ruthven name was proscribed (meaning it was forbidden by law), their estates were forfeit, and the castle was renamed Huntingtower.

The property passed first to William Murray, Earl of Dysart, then to the Murrays of Tullibardine, and eventually to the Dukes of Atholl. Huntingtower became part of the vast Murray estate in Perthshire, one more castle in a collection that already included Blair and Tullibardine. But the next chapter of the Murray story belongs to a man, not a building. Lord George Murray, the younger son of the first Duke of Atholl, and the most gifted military commander the Jacobite cause ever produced.

Lord George Murray and the '45

The Jacobite risings of the 18th century were attempts to restore the exiled Stuart royal family to the British throne, and they divided Scotland. The Murray family was split down the middle. The Duke of Atholl supported the Hanoverian government (the ruling Protestant monarchy from Germany). His younger brother, Lord George Murray, fought for the other side.

Lord George had already spent years in exile for his Jacobite sympathies, having been involved in both the 1715 and 1719 risings. When Prince Charles Edward Stuart raised his father's royal standard at Glenfinnan in 1745, Lord George was at first reluctant to join. He is believed to have been persuaded by a personal letter from the exiled king himself. Before marching out, he wrote to his brother the Duke on 3 September 1745, explaining his decision and asking forgiveness for opposing him in doing what he believed was right.

A Gaelic speaker with genuine tactical brilliance, Lord George became the driving force behind the early Jacobite successes. He understood how to move a Highland army, when to attack, and when to hold back. The tragedy of the '45 is that the prince's inner circle kept overruling him. At Culloden in April 1746, the final battle, Lord George led a Highland charge that smashed through the Hanoverian front line. It was not enough to prevent the overall defeat, but it showed what he could do when he was allowed to fight.

Lord George escaped abroad and died in exile in the Netherlands in 1760. He never saw Blair Castle again. During the rising, Hanoverian troops had occupied his family home, and Lord George had laid siege to it, bombarding the walls of his own brother's castle. It was the last siege of a castle anywhere in Britain. Brother against brother, general against duke, both Murrays, one castle between them.

The Murray branches

The Dukes of Atholl were the chiefs, but the Murray name spread across Scotland through dozens of branches, each with their own lands and their own stories. A few deserve special mention.

Scone Palace

Sir David Murray of Gospertie was one of those who saved King James VI's life during the Gowrie Conspiracy at Perth in 1600. As reward, he was granted the Ruthven lands at Scone, one of the most historically significant sites in Scotland. Scone Palace stands near the ancient Moot Hill, where the kings of Scots were crowned for centuries. The last coronation at Scone took place in 1651, when Charles II was proclaimed king before marching south to eventual defeat at the hands of Cromwell.

Sir David was created Lord Scone and later Viscount of Stormont. His descendants became the Earls of Mansfield, and the first Earl was one of the greatest jurists of his age, rising to become Lord Chief Justice of England. The magnificent palace that stands today dates from 1802 but incorporates older work, and it remains the home of the Murray Earls of Mansfield.

More Murray Castles

The Murrays held an extraordinary number of properties across Scotland. Elibank Castle, in the Borders near Innerleithen, belonged to a branch who produced one of the best stories in the family. Sir Gideon Murray captured a Border reiver called Walter Scott of Harden in 1611, but offered him his life on one condition. Marry Murray's daughter Agnes, known as "Muckle Mou'd Meg" (Big-Mouthed Meg). Harden took the deal. The Scotts of Harden went on to produce Sir Walter Scott, the novelist.

Comlongon Castle, near Dumfries, was held by the Murrays of Cockpool from 1331, and it is a substantial tower rising to five storeys. The family became Earls of Annandale and later Earls of Mansfield. Duffus Castle, near Elgin in Moray, dates from the 12th century and was built by Freskin himself, the founder of the whole Murray line. It is one of the best examples of a motte and bailey castle in Scotland, though a later stone tower proved too heavy for the mound and half of it collapsed. Balvaird Castle, a fine tower house near Bridge of Earn in Perthshire, passed to the Murrays of Tullibardine around 1500 and was connected to the branch that became the Earls of Mansfield.

The pattern across all these properties tells its own story. The Murrays were not a Highland clan in the traditional sense. They were a family of enormous reach, with branches in the Borders, Dumfriesshire, East Lothian, Moray and Perthshire. Some were Highland chiefs with thousands of followers. Others were Lowland lairds, lawyers and courtiers. What held them together was the name.

Your Murray Connection

You've just read about dukes, generals and medieval lords. So where do you fit in? The Murray family tree has been branching for over eight centuries, from Freskin's sons right through to the present day. A direct line back to the de Moravias is not as remote a possibility as you might think.

But the clan was always bigger than one family tree. The Murrays who built Blair Castle and the Murrays who worked its land, who fought alongside Andrew Murray at Stirling Bridge, who kept the name alive through centuries of upheaval. They were one clan, bound by the same name, the same territory, and the same loyalties. In the clan system, the name itself was the bond. It meant, these are my people, this land is my home, and this chief will answer for me as I answer for him. Whether your ancestors carried the Murray name by birth, by marriage, by geography, or by choice, they belonged to the same story. The castles, the landscapes, the territory you've been reading about. Those are yours, in the way the clan system always meant it.

What is the Murray clan motto and crest?

The Murray motto, Tout prest ("Quite ready"), is characteristically direct. The clan crest features a demi-savage (a half-length wild man) holding a dagger in one hand and a key in the other, a common motif in Scottish heraldry that symbolises strength and guardianship.

As Dukes of Atholl, the Murrays carry a second, more unusual motto: Furth fortune and fill the fetters. This commemorates the capture of the last Lord of the Isles by the Earl of Atholl in 1475. The Murrays actually have three separate crests: a mermaid for Murray, a demi-savage for Atholl, and a peacock's head for Tullibardine. The chief has indicated that the Atholl crest and motto should be used as the badge for all Murray clansmen.

Clan Crest Demi-savage with dagger and key

Clan Tartan The Murray tartan: black and green with a blue overcheck.

Does Clan Murray exist today?

The Atholl Highlanders continue to parade at Blair Castle on ceremonial occasions, the only legal private army in Europe. The Murray Earls of Mansfield still live at Scone Palace. Murray remains one of the most common surnames in Scotland, and the diaspora stretches across the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

The Murrays also held one of the strangest honours of any Scottish family. Through his grandmother, the second Duke of Atholl inherited the sovereignty of the Isle of Man in 1736, making the Murrays rulers of an island with its own Parliament and its own coinage. It was an extraordinary thing. A Highland duke who was also, in effect, a king. The third Duke sold the sovereignty to the British Crown in 1765, but the triskelion, the ancient three-legged symbol of the Isle of Man, still appears in the Atholl arms as a reminder of what they once held.

If you've been reading this as someone with Murray ancestors, we hope it's helped piece together a bit more of your story. We also hope the photography has given your imagination something to work with, because exploring your roots is better when you can picture the places. The Murrays built one of the most far-reaching legacies in Scottish history. They produced a hero of the Wars of Independence who deserved more credit than history gave him, a Jacobite general who nearly changed the course of Britain, and a family that stretched from Flemish knight to duke in five centuries. That's your name, and that's your story.