Alexander Ranaldson MacDonell of Glengarry

Alexander Ranaldson MacDonell
Portrait of Glengarry in 1812 by Henry Raeburn.
Born	(1773-09-15)15 September 1773
Died	17 January 1828(1828-01-17) (aged 54)
Nationality	Scottish
Alma mater	University College, Oxford
Known for	15th chief of Clan MacDonell of Glengarry

Colonel Alexander Ranaldson MacDonell of Glengarry (15 September 1773 – 17 January 1828), sometimes called by the Gaelic version of his name, Alastair or Alasdair, was clan chief of Clan MacDonell of Glengarry. As was customary for a laird (landed proprietor in Scotland), MacDonell was often called Glengarry after his principal estate.

Glengarry's haughty and flamboyant personality, as expressed in his character and behaviour, gave Walter Scott the model for the wild Highland clan chieftain Fergus Mac-Ivor in the pioneering historical novel Waverley of 1810. Glengarry was the fifth Lord MacDonell in the Jacobite peerage.

He was born on 15 September 1773, the eldest of the nine children of Duncan Macdonell (c. 1744–1788), chief of Clan Macdonell of Glengarry, by his marriage to Marjory Grant (1744–1792), of Dalvey.

In 1788, he became the 15th chief of Clan MacDonell of Glengarry, inheriting huge estates from Glengarry in the Great Glen to Knoydart on the Atlantic. In 1790. he entered University College, Oxford.

In February 1793, after war with France had begun, Macdonell was commissioned as a Captain to recruit a company of the Strathspey Fencibles, raised by Sir James Grant, a kinsman. In August 1794, he was given a colonel's commission to raise the Glengarry Fencibles regiment of Glengarry Highlanders, recruits being drawn from the Glengarry estates, under threat of eviction if persuasion did not work. Glengarry commanded his regiment in Guernsey until August 1796, when he resigned. His hope of a career as a regular officer in the British Army had been undermined by his commander-in-chief, the Duke of York and Albany, perhaps due to concerns about his character.