Note 395 — Chapter XI · MALCOLM THE FOURTH—A.D. 1153–1165.

Fordun, l. 8, c. 6, is the earliest authority who alludes to the supposed transplantation of the Moraymen. Mr. Skene (Highlanders, vol. 2, p. 167) seems to think that the Moraymen took advantage of the conspiracy of Perth to rise under Kenneth Mac Heth, and that Malcolm, after a violent struggle, crushed their rebellion; but I cannot find any notice of such occurrences in the historians of this period. Malcolm’s struggle was in Galloway, and the greater part of Moray, with the exception of the more inaccessible Highland districts, was by this time in the iron grasp of the great feudal proprietors established in the forfeited earldom by David. Kenneth Mac Heth was the companion of Donald Bane, the son of Donald Mac William, when he rose against Alexander the Second in 1215, fifty-five years after the conspiracy of Perth. It is possible that he may have shared in the earlier risings, but it is hardly probable.