An Comunn Gàidhealach Publications > Gaidheal > Volumes 44--45, January 1949--December 1950

A (jilorioiiK Page* from lliglilaiifl lli«toi',v
By EVAN M. BARRON
EW towns in Scotland have
had as long and stirring a
history as Inverness. For
Inverness has been for countless
centuries at once the centre of and
the key to a great Highland region
which has set its seal more firmly
on the land and the people of
Scotland, and contributed more
glorious and more lasting pages to
Scotland’s story, than any other
part of all that ancient kingdom.
It was, of course, to Inverness,
then the Capital of the Kingdom
of the Piets, that Columba came
1400 years ago to bid King Brude
embrace Christianity. But even
then the region which King Brude
ruled from Inverness had more
than 1400 years of history behind
it, as is testified by the many
ancient remains which abound
throughout it, of which the re¬
markable series of stone circles in
the neighbourhood of Inverness,
constituting in one particular
locality a veritable "valley of the
kings,” is the most striking and
the most significant.
But, alas, these pages of our
great Highland past, whether
recorded on the stone of prehistoric
ages or writ on the parchment and
paper of later times, are still
largely unread, and even the tale
revealed by such of them as have
been read is still told but little in
our schools and is still largely
ignored by our historians. Yet
what a tale that is, and how
cherished and how honoured it
should be by all in whose veins the
blood of the Highlands flows.
Here is one page from it, a page
which tells how that great Highland
region, of which Inverness was thert
and still is the Capital, and which
King Brude once ruled, saved the
Kingdom of Scotland from de¬
struction as a free and independent
nation six hundred years ago.
In 1296 Edward I invaded and,
as he thought, subjugated Scotland;
but he had hardly recrossed the
Bonier in the autumn of that year
when outbreaks against his domin¬
ion occurred in Argyll and the
western parts of Inverness-shire
and Ross. By May 1297 the whole
of the great Celtic Province of
Moray, of which Inverness was the
Capital,—that is to say, the whole
vast area from near the western
seaboard of Inverness-shire to the
Spey, including the entire central
and eastern parts of the modern
county of Inverness, a large part
of the modern county of Ross and
Cromarty, and all the modern
counties of Nairn and Elgin-—was
in open and successful revolt;
the hill country of Aberdeen,
Kincardine, and Banff was up in
arms; the Earldom of Fife was out
under Macduff of Fife; Wallace
and Douglas were expelling the
English from the county of Perth;
young Bruce and the Bishop of
Glasgow were at the head of an
army in Ayr and the West, and
Galloway was likewise taking an
active hand in the good work. But
by the end of the first week in July,
in the Celtic Province of Moray
alone was the revolt being main¬
tained. In all the other districts
it had collapsed, the leaders (with
the exception of Wallace) had
capitulated, and Wallace was
lying ‘ ‘with a large army of common
folk” in the recesses of the Forest
of Selkirk.
Stirling Bridge
AT the head of the rising in
Moray was a near neighbour
of Inverness .Andrew de Moray,
scion of a great Celtic house, whose
father owned the lands of Petty,
Croy, Avoch, Boharm, and others,
and who had as his chief lieutenant
a burgess of Inverness, Alexander
Pilche. Throughout May and June
1297 Andrew de Moray, aided by
the burgesses of Inverness, waged
such successful war in the counties
of Inverness, Ross, Nairn, and
Moray that early in July a strong
force was, by Edward’s express
orders, sent against him from
Aberdeen. It accomplished noth¬
ing , but Aberdeen and the surround¬
ing districts seized the opportunity
presented by the absence of Eng¬
land’s supporters to rise in rebellion
and seize the Castle of Aberdeen.
Caught thus between two fires the
English faction collapsed, and
Andrew de Moray, marching
rapidly East and South, captured
the castles held for England and
freed from English rule almost
all the country north of Forth.
Aberdeen Castle fell in the last
week of July, at which time
Wallace was still lying in Selkirk
Forest. But on receiving news of
the doings in Moray and Aberdeen,
Wallace marched northwards and
joined forces with the victorious
army of Andrew de Moray which
was marching rapidly south. With
that victorious army, and under the
leadership of Andrew de Moray,
the battle of Stirling Bridge was
fought and won on 11th September
1297. Andrew de Moray fell
mortally wounded in the moment
of victory, and to William Wallace
was it left to reap the fruits of the
triumph and to be hailed by later
generations as the victor of Stirling
Bridge.
From the Battle of Stirling
Bridge till Edward’s invasion in
1303 Scotland north of the Forth
remained almost entirely free of
the English. But during these
years 3he supplied a large pro¬
portion of the fighting men who,
under the banners of the two great
northern magnates, John Cornyn
of Badenoch and his kinsman, the
Earl of Buchan, maintained the
war against England. On Edward’s
invasion in 1303, moreover, and
the subsequent surrender of the
Comyns in February 1304, the
resistance of the north, and par¬
ticularly of the Province of Moray,
did not by any means cease.
Under the leadership of the heroic
young Andrew de Moray’s uncle,
David de Moray, Bishop of Moray
and founder of the famous Scots
College in Paris, resistance was
maintained in the Province of
Moray until at least the beginning
of 1305 and possibly for some
months longer.
Bruce in the North
IN August 1305 Wallace was
executed, and five months later,
on 10th February 1306, Bruce
slew the Red Comyn at Dumfries.
After that desperate deed he hurried
to Glasgow to his friend and ally,
the Bishop, and thence to Scone,
where, in the Ancient Capital of
the Kingdom of the Scots, he was
crowned by virtue of his Celtic
descent King of the Scots. From
Scone he proceeded further north,
and from those same districts
whence Andrew de Moray had
derived the bulk of his support men
of all classes flocked to his standard.
In the country beyond Forth Bruce
remained from the Coronation till
Methven, and with an army re¬
cruited for the most part from that
same country the Battle of Methven
was fought. Thereafter Bruce
wandered a fugitive in the High¬
lands, until, by the aid of two of
his northern supporters, the Earl
of Lennox and Angus of the Isles,
he escaped to Orkney.
Early in 1307 Bruce returned,
with a Highland following, to
Carrick and the south-west, and,
at precisely the same moment, the
Bishop of Moray and the northern
patriots returned to the Province of
Moray where, to Edward’s great
wrath, the Bishop preached a holy
war against him. Bruce himself
remained in the south-west until
the middle of September 1307, but,
though he gained one or two small
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