James Macpherson: a Scottish Robin Hood

Historian article

By Anne-Marie Kilday, published 25th July 2025

James Macpherson led a notorious gang of robbers in late seventeenth-century Scotland, and he became infamous for robbing rich lairds to give to the poor. Anne-Marie Kilday explains how his notoriety is also significant for revealing how people in early modern Scotland could hold complex attitudes towards the Gypsy Roma Traveller community that did not always accept negative stereotypes fostered by legal restrictions...

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