Historical and genealogical essay upon the family and surname of Buchanan

FAMILY OF BUCHANAN. 1#1
and by some of our Scottish Highlanders. How-
ever, this general, with these under his command,
gave so many checks to the Danes, as obliged
them for some time to desist from infesting his na-
tive country. But he was badly rewarded for his
good service by his ungrateful countrymen, who
esteemed those forces useless in time of peace,
and desirous to be free of some little tax of clothes,
arms and provision, ordinarily paid them, upon
their refusing to disband, by the permission, or
rather contrivance of Corbred the Irish king, Fean
with all his forces were assassinated in one night.
Which inhuman action was not long unpunished :
the Danes within few years thereafter, having with
greater numbers and violence than at any former
time, infested the coasts of that kingdom, and
finding the same destitute of the disciplined troops,
which were in use to oppose their insolences, were
thereby encouraged to march a good way into the
inland country ; which having done with little or
no opposition, they fortified themselves in a con-
venient place, and sending some of their number
to Denmark for more forces, which they obtained
in a short space, subdued a good part of the king-
dom ; having fortified and garrisoned a good many
of the seaport towns thereof, and also built through-
out the kingdom, forts at convenient distances,
termed in Irish, Raes, or wheels, in regard their
form was round like that of a wheel. These forts
were ordinarily built upon eminences, the inside
thereof raised with stone, and the outside faced
with square turf, of a considerable height and
breadth, that four men might walk abreast round