Note 126 — Chapter IV · Kenneth the Second—971–995.

Strathbogie and the Garioch were “in the crown” at a later period, and before the reign of David, though it would be difficult to say with certainty when these districts were annexed. Moray was forfeited under David, and the summary manner in which that king and his successors were able to deal with church property in the diocese of that name, as well as in that of Aberdeen, discloses the different relation in which the Scottish kings stood towards the people of those bishoprics and towards the population of some of the other dioceses. No Culdees appear struggling for their rights in the earlier charters of Moray and Aberdeen (though in the thirteenth century the Culdees of Monymusk tried to shake off the supremacy of St. Andrews), a proof that the powerful Gaelic families in whom these rights would have been vested, were either extinct, or so far reduced as to be in no condition to offer any resistance to the measures of David. Such was not the case in the bishoprics of Brechin and Dunblane, where the Culdees held their ground long after the time of that king, owing probably to a reluctance on his part, and on that of his successors, to alienate their great feudatories, the earls of Strathearn and abbots of Brechin, by an over prompt interference with Church property in their possession. The tradition connecting Mortlach with Malcolm the Second, has induced me to notice the annexations of these districts under this reign, in which the royal authority may have been considerably extended and consolidated in this direction, though I think it most probable that the final conquest and submission of the province was the result of the frequent and successful, though little known, northern wars of Malcolm the Third, and the subsequent successes of his son Alexander in the same quarter. The last Mormaor of the mysterious province of Mærne appears in alliance with Donald Bane; the people of the district attempted, in conjunction with the Moray men, to assassinate Alexander at Invergowrie, and then nothing more is heard either of the Mormaor or the men of Mærne; and I am inclined to connect with this disappearance the forfeiture of the ancient family, and the distribution of the ancient kingdom between Dee and Spey into the two subordinate earldoms of Mar and Buchan, and the two lordships of Strathbogie and the Garioch, long retained by a member of the royal family.