Margaret, had proved quite unable to break them
down. The Pict of Moray was obstinately hostile to the Scots, and
his leaders and rulers aspired to, and claimed the crown of Scotland
itself. Rebellion after rebellion took place, and it was not until
King David I had introduced the feudal baron with his mail-clad
tenants, and settled them on the land by charter, that any success in
establishing peace and civil order was achieved in the vast Pictish
province of Ross and Moray, which stretched across Scotland from the
North Sea to the Minch, and whose people resisted to the utmost.
It is not part of our purpose to treat generally of the feudal and
largely Norman families, which gradually asserted their power over
the Picts in the north, and were accepted as Chiefs, such as were the
Umphraville Earls of Angus, the Roses of Kilravock, the Chisholms
of Strath Farrer, the Bissets and Fresels or Frasers of Beauly, the
Grants of Moray and Inverness, and the Comyns of Badenoch; for none
of these held land north of the Oykel. But later on in the thirteenth
century we shall have more particularly to note the Chens or Cheynes
in Caithness, and the Scottish or Pictish family of Freskyn of
Strabrock and Moray, in its two branches, that of Hugo of Sutherland
and that of his grandson Freskin the younger in Sutherland and
Caithness.
Pages:
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125