A revised
pedigree of the early generations of Freskyn's family will be found
in an Appendix to this book, and it is believed to be correct. At the
same time it is in conflict as to the first three generations with
so high an authority as the late Cosmo Innes, and Sir William Fraser
followed him. However this may be, it is abundantly clear, from
contemporary and undoubtedly authentic records still happily extant,
that in the twelfth century Freskyn de Moravia and his immediate
successors were the guardians appointed by one Scottish king after
another to protect the fertile coast lands of Moray and Nairn alike
against the race of MacHeth from the hills and the Norse invader from
the sea; and that on the extensive territories which they possessed,
they built stately castles and endowed cathedrals and churches
with lands and tithes, providing from their family not only high
ecclesiastical dignitaries to serve them, but distinguished soldiers
and administrators to give them peace; services which their successors
in the thirteenth century were, in their turn, destined to repeat and
continue in Sutherland, Strathnavern and Caithness, when the old Norse
earldom there had been broken up and effectively incorporated in the
kingdom of Scotland.
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