The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. VI] O F S C O T L A N D 283
A.D. 1^14.
into Moray. They were there met b\' Ferchard
-
.
Macantagart, the earl of Ross, who had judged it
prudent for him to join the king's party ; the invaders were
defeated, and both of the leaders slain. By this defeat, and the
consequent death of Kenneth, it appears that the family of
Angus became e.xtinct ;
but the Highland law of succession had
the effect of transmitting the claims of the family, together with
.
^
event, a certain Gillespie raised another insurrection
the chiefship of the whole tribe, to the next branch of the clan,
A.D. 1228.
and accordingly we find ... that thirteen years after this
in Moray. In his progress he burned some wooden castles
which had probably been erected for the purpose of containing
he surprised and slew a baron
garrisons to overawe the country ;
called Thomas of Thirlstane, to whom Malcolm IV. had given
the district of Abertarff, and afterwards burnt Inverness. The
king proceeded against him in person, but unsuccessfully ; and
in the following )-ear William Comyn, earl of Buchan, then
justiciary of Scotland, marched with his numerous vassalage
upon the same enterprise, dispersed the insurgents, and slew
Gillespie with his two sons. As we find that, immediately after
this event, Walter Comyn, the son of the earl of Buchan,
becomes possessed of the districts of Badenoch and Lochaber,
while it is certain that these districts were previously possessed
by the natives, we cannot doubt that this Gillespie was lord of
that extensive territory, and that on his death Comyn received a
grant of them from the crown as the reward of his services in
suppressing the insurrection and slaying its head. Alexander
II. followed up this success by his usual policy, and erected the
portion of the earldom of Moray, which was not now under the
stern rule of the Bissets, Comyns, and other Norman barons,
into the separate sheriffdoms of Elgin and Nairn. The authority
of government was thus so effectually established, that the
Moravians did not again attempt any further resistance ; and
thus ended with the death of Gillespie, the last of that series of
persevering efforts which the earls of Moray had made for
upwards of one hundred years to preserve their native inheritance.
'This Gillespie has been most im- family,
slain in 1221. Fordun, the
j)roperly confounded with Gillespie only authority for both rebellions,
nine Seolaue, of the Mae William earefully distinguishes between them.