Clan MacThomas, sometimes recorded as MacComie, MacComash, or Thoms in anglicised form, is a clan of Perthshire whose story is one of the more unusual in the Scottish Highland tradition — a family that began as an offshoot of one of the great confederations, asserted its own distinct identity with considerable energy, and ultimately declined in the upheavals of the seventeenth century, leaving a legacy that survived through scattered descendants and the enduring memory of their Glen Shee heartland. The MacThomases were never a large or politically dominant clan, but the vividness of their motto, the drama of their rise and fall, and the beauty of the Perthshire landscape they inhabited give their story a quality that rewards attention.
What Is the Origin of the MacThomas Name and Clan?
The name MacThomas derives from the Gaelic Mac Thomaidh, meaning son of Thomas or son of Tamhas. The clan traces its founding to a figure known as Tomaidh Mor — Great Thomas — who is believed to have lived in the fifteenth century and who is identified in clan tradition as a grandson of Mackintosh of Mackintosh, the chief of Clan MacKintosh and captain of the great Clan Chattan confederation. If this genealogical account is accurate, the MacThomases were originally a junior branch of the Mackintosh family who established themselves independently in Perthshire, taking the name of their founding ancestor and building a separate clan identity centred on the glens of that county. The precise details of Tomaidh Mor’s biography are matters of tradition rather than documented history, but the MacThomas connection to the Clan Chattan world is well established in the historical record, and it shaped the early identity of the clan in ways that persisted even after they had asserted their independence from the confederation. Those who know the story of Clan MacKintosh will recognise in the MacThomas origins a familiar pattern of cadet branches striking out from the main line to establish their own territorial and kinship identity.
Where Did the MacThomases Hold Their Lands?
The MacThomas heartland was Glen Shee, a long valley running northward through the Grampian mountains from the lowlands of Perthshire toward the high passes of the eastern Highlands. It is a dramatic landscape of moorland ridges, fast rivers, and the kind of austere beauty that characterises the eastern edge of the Highland zone — neither the wild western romanticism of the sea lochs nor the gentle lowland pastoral, but something harder and more self-contained. The clan’s principal seat was at Finegand in Glen Shee, an estate in the upper part of the valley that gave them a base from which to manage their territory and assert their position among the families of the district. The Shee Water, flowing south through the glen, and the surrounding hill ground supported the cattle-based economy that sustained most Highland clans of the period. The MacThomases also held interests in the neighbouring glens and in the broader district of mid-Perthshire, and their position on the edge of the Highland line — within reach of both the Gaelic Highland world and the more anglicised lowland communities to the south — gave them a particular kind of cultural and political flexibility that some of the more remote clans lacked.
What Was the Clan Motto and What Did It Mean?
The motto of Clan MacThomas is Deo Juvante Invidiam Superabo, a Latin phrase that translates as With God’s help I will overcome envy. It is one of the more psychologically revealing of all Scottish clan mottos — not a martial declaration of conquest or a simple assertion of loyalty, but an acknowledgement that the clan had enemies who resented its rise, combined with a confident declaration that those enemies would not prevail. For a clan that had broken away from the Clan Chattan confederation and established itself as an independent entity in a competitive and sometimes violent world, a motto that addressed envy directly was both honest and strategically pointed. It suggested a family that was aware of being watched and resented by more powerful neighbours, and that had chosen to frame that awareness not as vulnerability but as a test of character to be met with faith and determination. The wildcat — shared with the Clan Chattan tradition from which the MacThomases had emerged — appears in their heraldic imagery as a reminder of that fierce Badenoch and Highland lineage, even as the clan made its own way in Perthshire.
A Clan MacThomas tartan crest ceramic ornament, a keepsake inspired by the clan’s Glen Shee heritage in Perthshire and the motto Deo Juvante Invidiam Superabo. Browse MacThomas gifts here.
Who Were the Notable Figures of Clan MacThomas?
The most significant figure in MacThomas history is Robert Mor MacThomas, who led the clan in the early seventeenth century and brought it to the height of its influence. Under Robert Mor, the clan is said to have numbered several hundred fighting men — a substantial force for a family of their scale — and their reputation in Perthshire was formidable. Robert Mor’s leadership coincided with a period when the clan was actively asserting its independence from older confederal ties and positioning itself as a significant player in the complex politics of the eastern Highlands. His death, and the subsequent weakening of the clan’s leadership, contributed to the decline that followed in the later seventeenth century. The MacThomases suffered considerably during the upheavals of that century — the wars of the Covenant, the Cromwellian occupation, and the grinding pressure of more powerful neighbours all took their toll on a clan that lacked the territorial depth or the political connections to absorb such sustained pressure. By the end of the seventeenth century, the clan had effectively ceased to function as an organised political entity, its members dispersing into the broader Perthshire population or emigrating to other parts of Scotland and beyond.
How Did the MacThomases Relate to the Clan Chattan Confederation?
The MacThomas relationship with Clan Chattan was complex and at times contentious. Having originated as a branch of the Mackintosh family, the MacThomases initially retained their connection to the confederation, but as they grew in strength and developed their own territorial identity in Perthshire, tensions over their degree of independence from the confederation’s leadership became more pronounced. The question of whether the MacThomases owed the Mackintosh chiefs the same degree of deference as other Clan Chattan member families — or whether their independent origin and separate territory entitled them to a different relationship — was one that generated periodic friction. The MacThomases ultimately moved toward effective independence, a trajectory that placed them among a select group of clans whose story involves breaking away from a larger confederal identity to assert their own name and lineage. For context on the broader confederation from which the MacThomases emerged, the history of Clan MacPherson — another of the great Clan Chattan member families — illuminates the world of Badenoch and Strathspey from which the MacThomas founding line descended.
What Became of Clan MacThomas and How Is It Remembered Today?
The decline of Clan MacThomas as an organised entity by the close of the seventeenth century did not mean the end of the name or the identity. Descendants of the clan carried the MacThomas name, and its anglicised forms — Thoms, Thomson, Thomas — into the following centuries, and the family’s connection to Glen Shee remained a point of ancestral reference for those researching their MacThomas lineage. The motto Deo Juvante Invidiam Superabo endures as the clan’s most distinctive legacy — a statement of faith and resilience from a family that understood what it meant to rise in a world where envy and the power of greater neighbours were constant facts of life. Glen Shee itself remains one of the most beautiful valleys in Perthshire, its landscape little changed from the centuries when MacThomas cattle grazed its upper slopes and the chiefs of Finegand surveyed a world they were determined, against considerable odds, to make their own.
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