been the Sutherlands and not the Stewarts
who became kings of Scots. Nevertheless the earls of Sutherland rose to great power in the
North, and exercised something approaching royal authority in their earldom.
As for the Murrays, the main line acquired
the Lordship of Bothwell by marriage to an Oliphant heiress (the Oliphants descend from an
Anglo-Norman knight and friend of David I). These Bothwell Murrays were very important in
the wars of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as patriots, but the lordship of
Bothwell passed away from the family in 1360 in the female line (through an heiress) to
the Douglases (the Douglases were essentially a Lowland family of Flemish origin, although
the power of the Red Douglases, the chief branch of the family after 1455, was partly
derived from the Stewart earldom of Angus, which they inherited in the late fourteenth
century: Afterwards Douglases appear holding lands and titles in the lowlands of Fife and
on lower Donside and Deeside in the northeast). By two "Bands of Association" in
the late sixteenth century, however, the various Murray lairds from all over Scotland
(Sutherland and Moray, Perthshire, Stirlingshire, and the Lowlands) recognized the
Tullibardine branch (see Chapter IV) as chief and pledged allegiance to Sir John Murray,
first Earl of Tullibardine (the Tullibardine branch had been vested in the chiefly arms of
Murray by the Lord Lyon King of Arms in 1542). Among those signing one or the other of
these Bands were the Morays of Abercairney in Strathearn, Perthshire, and the Murrays of
Polmaise in Stirlingshire, both of whom nonetheless claim senior male-line descent. Also
in the Bands were the Murrays of Cockpool in Dumfriesshire, the Murrays of Cobairdy in
Buchan, and the Murrays of Falahill and Blackbarony on the Borders.
The House of Tullibardine had originally been
discouraged for aiding Balliol in the early fourteenth century, but was raised to favor
again as a result of the Gowrie Conspiracy at the expense of the Ruthvens. The Murray
earls of Tullibardine soon inherited the Stewart earldom of Atholl in Perthshire, and thus
the Murray earls of Atholl, later dukes of the same, became leaders of the various clans
and baronial families of Atholl, who were now their feudal tenants. This resulted in a
unique mix of clanship and feudalism, placing clan and family groups within a greater
feudal context. After the fourteenth century fall of the House of Strathearn from their
position as the native leaders of the Perthshire region, the Stewart earls of Atholl in
northern Perthshire had gladly attempted to fill the void left by their demise. With the
coming of the South-Perthshire Tullibardine line to Atholl in the early seventeenth
century (and given their female-line connection to the House of Strathearn) there came a
jelling of a natural regional unity behind the Murray dukes of Atholl, who led the
Athollmen and the South-Perthshire gentry to a kind of regional nationhood: Itself set
between the regional spheres of the Gordons of Huntly in the northeast, and the hostile
Campbells of Argyle to the west.
The Barretts (Baroid—Cork,
Baireid—Mayo) came to Ireland with the |
