The Hunt for Rob Roy: The Man and the Myths

david stevenson

Rob Roy (Robert MacGregor, 1671 - 1734) bears a name that is well known through the heroic images created for him by tradition, by Sir Walter Scott and by Hollywood.

In this biography David Stevenson strips away the myth and challenges many long-held assumptions about Rob. The picture that emerges is one of a remarkable life - but not a heroic one. The image of a man deeply wronged and forced into outlawry has to be modified by the evidence that he was only outlawed after formulating a plan to swindle his creditors. The staunch Jacobite is revealed as a man who supplied intelligence to the government against those he had supported. The supposed warrior leader never fought in a battle. The reputed great duellist avoided violence whenever possible and is only known to have fought one duel - which he lost.

Yet Rob remains an attractive figure. That he survived, in spite of the odds against him, is a remarkable tribute to his tenacity of both body and spirit, and to his ability to make people like and trust him. With this book Scotland may lose a hero of the old-fashioned, unreal sort, but it possesses in Rob Roy a man whose true life-story as it emerges is dramatic and human.

Genres historyscotlandbiography

336 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1,2004

Places

the trossachs stirlingshire scotland, scotland,

This edition

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover
Published: June 1, 2004 by John Donald
ISBN: 9780859765909
ASIN: 0859765903
Language: English

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Rob Roy Macgregor

Robert Roy MacGregor (1671 - 1734), usually known simply as Rob Roy or alternately Red MacGregor, was a famous Scottish folk hero and outlaw of the early 18th century, who is sometimes known as the Scottish Robin Hood. Rob Roy is anglicised from the Scott...
Dorothy Wordsworth

Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth (1771 - 1855) was an English author, poet, and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close all their adult lives. Wordsworth had no ambitions to be a public author, yet she left be...