Clan MacDuff or Clan Duff is a Lowland Scottish clan. The clan does not currently have a chief and is therefore considered an armigerous clan, which is registered with the Lyon Court. The early chiefs of Clan MacDuff were the original Earls of Fife, although this title went to the Stewarts of Albany in the late fourteenth century. The title returned to the MacDuff chief when William Duff was made Earl Fife in 1759. His descendant Alexander Duff was made Duke of Fife in 1889.
History
Origins of the clan
thumb|left|200px|[[Macduff's Castle, in Fife, Scotland. The site is associated with the MacDuff Earls of Fife]]
The Clan Duff claims descent from the original royal Scoto-Pictish line of which Queen Gruoch of Scotland, wife of Macbeth, King of Scotland, was the senior representative. In 1404, David Duff received a charter from Robert III of Scotland for lands in Banffshire. James Duff, 4th Earl Fife fought with distinction in the Peninsular War where he was wounded at the Battle of Talavera in 1809 and was later made a Knight of the Order of St Ferdinand of Spain.
The Earl of Fife and the Abbot of Abernethy were both "Capitals of Law of the Clan MacDuff".
The chiefs of the clan had the right to enthrone the King on the Stone of Scone. (two variants exist, with blue or green thin "tram track" over-check lines in place of the black ones.) A variant on this, with the larger black stripe replaced by dark green and the proportions altered, was recorded by the Highland Society of London, c. 1815–20. All of these are very similar to the royal Stewart tartan, but without its thin yellow and white over-checks. A third and rather different one appeared in 1842 in the Vestiarium Scoticum, and was probably invented by the "Sobieski Stuarts". There are various other tartans with names like dress MacDuff and hunting MacDuff.
<gallery class="center" widths="200px" heights="200px">
File:MacDuff tartan (1819, Wilsons), centred, zoomed out.png|The most conventional of the Clan MacDuff tartans (main Wilsons' pattern)
File:MacDuff tartan (1815, Highland Society), centred, zoomed out.png|Highland Society version
File:MacDuff tartan (1842 Vestiarium Scoticum), centred, zoomed out.png|"Clan Makduffe" tartan as published in the Vestiarium Scoticum
</gallery>
Clan Castles
thumb|220x124px | right | Updated picture of Clan MacDuff Castle (2019)
- Macduff's Castle in East Wemyss, Fife, is now a ruinous castle that was once held by the MacDuff Earls of Fife. The property later went to the Clan Wemyss who built the present castle.