"Murrays" trace their heritage back to the 12th century and take their name from the province of Moray, once a local kingdom.
An heir of this line, Sir Andrew Moray, was the brilliant young general who led the Scots in 1297 in their first uprising against English rule.
He was captured at Roxburgh early in 1333 and was a prisoner in England at the time of the Battle of Halidon Hill.
He obtained his freedom in time to march to the relief of his wife, who was defending Kildrummy Castle.
To their medieval peacock's head crest (motto-Praite), they added the mermaid (motto-Tout Pret), as Lords of Balquidder; and in the seventeenth century, they took the demi-savage holding a sword and a key commemorating the capture of the last Lord of the Isles by the 1st Stewart Earl of Atholl in 1475: hence the motto Furth, Fortune, and Fill the Fetters.
For a time in the 18th century, the Murray dukes were also Sovereign Lords of the Isle of Man, with their own coinage and parliament, The House of Keys.
The 1st Duke's younger son, Lord George Murray, was the Jacobite general responsible for the highlander's successes through the early part of the 1745 uprising.