[5][6] 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.

[5] After the death of MacBeth, Malcolm III of Scotland seized the Crown and his son, Aedh, married the daughter of Queen Gruoch.

[5] The Earldom later fell into the hands of Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany, however, although the MacDuff family lost their rank, they continued to prosper.

[5] The 1st Earl Fife's cousin, Captain Robert Duff of the Royal Navy supported the British-Hanoverian Government during the Jacobite rising of 1745 and was involved in the Skirmish of Arisaig.

[9] 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.

[7] The law protected all murderers within ninth degree of kin to the Earl of Fife, as they could claim sanctuary at the Cross of MacDuff near Abernethy, and could find remission by paying compensation to the victim's family.

The most conventionally used is one recorded by the weavers William Wilson & Son of Bannockburn some time between c. 1780s and 1819[12] (two variants exist, with blue[13] or green[14] 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.