Fearchar MacTaggart (1170 - abt. 1251)

Born 1170 in Applecross, Ross-shire, Scotland [uncertain]

Ancestors

Descendants

Died about 1251 at about age 81 in Castle of Delney, Tain, Ross-shire, Scotland [uncertain]

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Ferquhard MacTaggart was an inhabitant of Medieval Scotland. Join: Scotland Project Discuss: Scotland

Biography

Ferquhard MacTaggart is Notable.

Name

Fearchar of Ross or Ferchar mac in tSagairt (Fearchar mac an t-sagairt, often anglicized as Farquhar MacTaggart), was the first Mormaer or Earl of Ross (1223–1251) we know of from the thirteenth century, whose career brought Ross into the fold of the Scottish kings for the first time, and who is remembered as the founder of the Earldom of Ross.^[1]

Origins

The traditional story is that goes back to the work of the great William F. Skene, and indeed, even before him, with William Reeves, whom Skene cited.^[2] The historian Alexander Grant has recently challenged this theory, arguing that the evidence for this origin is far too thin to contradict the intuitive and well attested idea that he came from Easter Ross. Grant takes up the idea instead that mac an t-Sacairt (= Son of the Priest') probably refers to a background as keeper of the shrine to St Duthac, at Tain, Scotland.^[3]

However, despite "Ross" being a word describing the land the Earls managed (hence the Earl of Ross), Sir Robert Gordon (Earldom of Sutherland, P.36) states the Earls of Ross were first of the surname Beolan, and then were Leslies…) and continues on page 46 they are called by the surname (O’Beolan, O’Beollain, Beolan) through 1333 when "Hugh Beolan, Earl of Ross" is recorded as one of the slain at the battle of Halidon Hill. The Beolan (O’Beolan) surname remains as the surname of the Earls of Ross from Uilleam O’Beolan (Beolan) I, Earl of Ross until the death of Uilleam O’Beolan (Beolan) III, Earl of Ross in 1372 when his daughter, Euphemia I, Countess of Ross married to Sir Walter Leslie. Ross became the surname of the Earls of Ross much later in the history of the Earldom (much like the name "Windsor" is also used as the 20th century surname for the Royal Family).

Scholarly work on Fearchar has led to the conclusion that Fearchar was a native nobleman who benefitted by upholding the interests of the King of Scots.^[4] Fearchar emerges from nothingness in 1215, as the local warlord who crushed a large-scale revolt against the Scottish king, Alexander II. The Chronicle of Melrose reported that :

"Machentagar attacked them and mightily overthrew the king's enemies; and he cut off their heads and presented them as gifts to the new king ... And because of this, the lord king appointed him a new knight."^[5][6]

Fearchar's ability to defeat the proven might of the Meic Uilleim and MacHeths together suggests that Fearchar could command large military resources, and as McDonald points out, this can hardly be entirely explained by his background as a hereditary priest from Tain.^[7] However, the Scottish kings themselves were hardly without authority in Ross, and their position could command social power even in this distant land, something proved by the MacWilliams, whose authority depended on their descent from a Scottish king. Fearchar's power then is not so mysterious.

Promotion to Mormaer

It is possible that Fearchar was made Mormaer when the grateful King Alexander II visited Inverness in 1221.^[8] Macdonald, however, gives some reasons why this might be a little early; around 1226 is a more likely date, but he was almost certainly Mormaer by 1230, and definitely by 1232, the year in which Fearchar's initial (as the father of his son Uilleam) appears in a charter, with the style Comes de Ross (i.e. Mormaer of Ross). Fearchar's initial and comital style also appear in a charter granting some lands to Walter de Moravia, a charter dating somewhere between 1224 and 1231.^[9]

So did Fearchar appear from nowhere as a "novus homo"? The facts are that we do not know what happened to the Mormaerdom of Ross after the death, in 1168, of the last known Mormaer, Malcolm MacHeth. We might compare Ross with other Mormaerdoms, such as Lennox and Carrick, in which these apparently new Mormaerdoms were merely de iure royal grants to native lords who already possessed kinship leadership and de facto status as provincial rulers. In this view, conferring this style was simply an act of harnessing organic Gaelic power structures to the political, terminological and ideological framework of the regnum Scottorum.

Fearchar & Scotland

In 1235, it is reported that Fearchar was active in Galloway. The Revolt of Gille Ruadh in Galloway in 1234/5 required a large-scale levying by the Scottish king. King Alexander invaded Galloway, and Gille Ruadh ambushed the royal army, almost bringing it to destruction. However the Scottish King was saved by Fearchar, who appeared to the rescue with the Men of Ross.^[10]

The defeat of the rebellious Galwegians by another peripheral Gaelic lord in the service of the Scottish King had been paralled in 1187, when Lochlann, Lord of Galloway defeated the rebellious Domnall mac Uilleim, claimant of the Scottish throne, at the Battle of Mam Garvia, somewhere near Dingwall. In fact, one historian has linked the two events as revenge.^[11]

Fearchar was also recorded as being present at the negotiations which led to the Treaty of York, signed in 1237

Marriages & Family

We know that Fearchar married one of his daughters, called Euphemia, to Walter de Moravia, a magnate who ruled Duffus. Walter's family were of Flemish origin, and had been planted in Moray by the Scottish crown as agents of royal authority, but were steadily building an independent power-base. Christina, another of Fearchar's daughters, was married to Amlaibh, the King of Mann and the Isles. If we are to use the chronology of the Chronicles of Mann, this happened sometime before 1223, but after 1188. Such a move is not surprising, as the Manx king ruled over the isle of Skye.^[12] This reminds us that Fearchar was not merely a slavish Scottish magnate with narrow local aspirations, but an ambitious Gaelic warlord with greater regional goals in the Norse-Gaelic world of the Irish Sea, the world of Alan, Lord of Galloway and the Manx kings.

Church Patronage

Fearchar's wider connections are further illustrated by his religious patronage. In the 1220s he granted the Premonstratensian Order (perhaps the most modern one about) of Whithorn in Galloway a new monastery at Mid Fearn in Ross, moving it a decade later to New Fearn.^[13] They brought with them some relics of St Ninian too, which is why to this day Fearn Abbey is associated with that saint. Such a move was hardly surprising, since all aspiring magnates needed their own monastery.

Death

We do not know the precise year in which Fearchar died. The traditional date, 1251, is based on the date given in the spurious Ane Breve Cronicle of the Erllis of Ross. The latter gives his birthplace as Tain. Despite the unreliability of this source and date, he was certainly dead by the 1250s, when his son appears as Mormaer in his own right.^[14]

Research Notes

Reeves, William, 'Saint Maelrubha: His History and Churches' (in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. III (1857–60), 258-96, at pp. 275-6); Skene Celtic Scotland, Vol. II, pp. 483-4 . Grant, "The Province of Ross", p. 121. e.g. McDonald, "Old and new", p. 24. MacDonald, p. 29. Grant, p. 122. For all this, see McDonald, pp. 30-3. e.g. Brooke, Wild Men & Holy Places, p. 136. McDonald, p. 39 McDonald, p. 41. McDonald, p. 42.

1 - O'Bjolans, the main line of which by the time of the 6th Earl became known by the surname of "Ross" (rather than the Gaelic MacTaggart or O'Beolan)

2 - The district of Ross is often mentioned in the Norse Sagas along with the other parts of the country then governed by Maormors or Jarls, and Skene in his earlier work says that it was only on the downfall of those of Moray that the chiefs of Ross appear prominent in historical records, the Maormors of Moray being in such close proximity to them and so great in power and influence that the less powerful Maormor of Ross held only a comparatively subordinate position, and his name was in consequence seldom or never associated with any of the great events of that early period in Highland history. It was only after the disappearance of those district potentates that the chiefs appear under the appellation of Comites or Earls. That most, if not all, of these earls were the descendants of the ancient maormors there can be little doubt, and the natural presumption in this instance is strengthened by the fact that all the old authorities concur in asserting that the Gaelic name of the original Earls of Ross was O'Beolan - a corruption of Gilleoin, or Gillean, na h Airde - or the descendants of Beolan. "And we actually find," says the same authority, "from the oldest Norse Saga connected with Scotland that a powerful chief in the North of Scotland named O'Beolan, married the daughter of Ganga Rolfe, or Rollo, the celebrated pirate who became afterwards the celebrated Earl of Normandy." If this view is well-founded the ancestor of the Earls of Ross was chief in Kintail as early as the beginning of the tenth century. In 1179 Florence, Count of Holland complained that he had been deprived of the nominal ownership [of the Earldom of Ross] by King William. There is no trace of any other earl in actual possession until we come to Ferquard or "Ferchair Mac an t' Sagairt," Farquhar the son of the Priest, who rose rapidly to power on the ruins of the once powerful Mac Heth earls of Moray, of which line Kenneth Mac Heth, who, with Donald Ban, led a force into Moray against Alexander II., son of William the Lion, in 1215, was the last. Of this raid the following account is given in 'Celtic Scotland,' Vol. I. p. 483: "The young king had barely reigned a year when be had to encounter the old enemies of the Crown, the families of Mac William and Mac Eth, who now combined their forces under Donald Ban, the son of that Mac William who bad been slain at Mamgarvie in 1187, and Kenneth Mac Eth, a son or grandson of Malcolm Mac Eth, with the son of one of the Irish provincial kings, and burst into the Province of Moray at the head of a large band of malcontents. A very important auxiliary, however, now joined the party of the king. This was Ferquhard or Fearchar Macintagart, the son of the 'Sagart' or priest who was the lay possessor of the extensive possessions of the old monastery founded by the Irish Saint Maelrubba at Applecross in the seventh century. Its possessions lay between the district of Ross and the Western Sea and extended from Lochcarron to Loch Ewe and Loch Maree, and Ferquhard was thus in reality a powerful Highland chief commanding the population of an extensive western region. The insurgents were assailed by him with great vigour, entirely crushed, and their leaders taken, who be at once beheaded and presented their heads to the new king as a welcome gift on the 15th of June, when he was knighted by the king as a reward for his prompt assistance." The district then known as North Argyle consisted chiefly of the possessions of this ancient monastery of Appercrossan or Applecross. Its inhabitants had hitherto - along with those of South Argyle, which extended from Lochcarron to the Firth of Clyde - maintained a kind of semi-independence, but in 1222 they were, by their lay possessor, Ferchair Mac an t'Sagairt, who was apparently the grandson or great-grandson of Gillandres, one of the six earls who besieged Malcolm IV. at Perth in 1160, brought into closer connection with the crown. The lay Abbots of which Ferquhard was the head were the hereditary possessors of all the extensive territories which had for centuries been ruled and owned by this old and powerful Celtic monastery. As a reward for his services against the men of Moray in 1215 and for the great services which, in 1222, he again rendered to the King in the subjugation of the whole district then known as Argyle, extending from the Clyde to Lochbroom, he received additional honours. In that campaign known as "the Conquest of Argyle," Ferquhard led most of the western tribes, and for his prowess, the Celtic earldom, which was then finally annexed to the Crown and made a feudal appanage, was conferred on him with the title of Earl of Ross, and he is so designated in a charter dated 1234. He is again on record, under the same title, in 1235 and 1236. Regarding an engagement which took place between Alexander II. and the Gallowegians, in 1235, the Chronicle of Melrose says, that "at the beginning of the battle the Earl of Ross, called Macintagart, came up and attacked the enemies (of the King) in the rear, and as soon as they perceived this they took to flight and retreated into the woods and mountains, but they were followed up by the Earl and several others, who put many of them to the sword, and harassed them as long as daylight lasted." In 'Celtic Scotland,' Vol. II, p.412, it is stated that the hereditary lay priests of which he was the chief "according to tradition, bore the name of O'Beollan"; and McVuirich, in the Black Book of Clanranald, says that from Ferquhard was descended Gillapatrick the Red, son of Roderick, and known traditionally as the Red Priest, whose daughter, at a later date, married and carried the monastery lands of Lochalsh and Lochcarron to the Macdonalds of the Isles. In one of the Norse Sagas the progenitor of Ferquhard is designated "King," just the same as the great Somerled and some of his descendants had been called at a later date. That the O'Beolan Earls of Ross, of whom Ferquhard Mac an t'Sagairt was the first, descended from the same ancestor, Gilleoin na h' Airde, as the older "Gillandres" earl of 1160, is equally certain. Earl Gillandres as probably forfeited for the part he took against Malcolm IV. on that occasion, and Ferquhard having rendered such important services to Alexander II. was restored probably quite as much in virtue of his ancient rights as the grandson of Ferquhard as on account of his valiant conduct in support of the crown in Moray, in Argyle, and in Galloway, in 1215, 1222, and 1235. He is described in the 'Chronicle of Melrose' as "Comes Rossensis Machentagard," Ferquhard founded the Abbey of Fearn, in Easter Ross, about 1230, and died there in 1251. [ http://www.fullbooks.com/History-Of-The-Mackenzies1.html ]

Sources

1. ↑ Read: p. 2
2. ↑ Reeves, William, 'Saint Maelrubha: His History and Churches' (in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. III (1857–60), 258-96, at pp. 275-6); Skene Celtic Scotland, Vol. II, pp. 483-4 .
3. ↑ Grant, "The Province of Ross", p. 121.
4. ↑ e.g. McDonald, "Old and new", p. 24.
5. ↑ Anderson - Scottish History Vol II: p. 404
6. ↑ Macdonald, p. 28.
7. ↑ MacDonald, p. 29.
8. ↑ Grant, p. 122.
9. ↑ For all this, see McDonald, pp. 30-3.
10. ↑ Anderson - Scottish History Vol II: p. 476
11. ↑ e.g. Brooke, Wild Men & Holy Places, p. 136.
12. ↑ McDonald, p. 39
13. ↑ McDonald, p. 41.
14. ↑ McDonald, p. 42.

• Anderson,, WIlliam "Early Sources of Scottish History A.D. 500 to 1286", Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1922, Vol. II

• Brooke, Daphne, Wild Men and Holy Places, (Edinburgh, 1994)

• Grant, Alexander, "The Province of Ross and the Kingdom of Alba" in E.J. Cowan and R.Andrew McDonald (eds.) Alba: Celtic Scotland in the Medieval Era", (Edinburgh, 2000)

• McDonald, R. Andrew, "Old and new in the far North: Ferchar Maccintsacairt and the early earls of Ross" in Steve Boardman and Alasdair Ross (eds.) The Exercise of Power in Medieval Scotland, c.1200-1500, (Dublin/Portland, 2003)

• Read, Harmon Pumpelly "Rossiana: Papers and Document Relating to the History and Genealogy of the Ancient and Noble House of Ross of Ross-shire, Scotland, and its Descent from the Ancient Earls of Ross, together wtih the Descent of the Ancient and Historic Family of Read from Rede of Troughend, Reade of Barton Court, Berks, and Read of Delaware", Albany, NY: private, 1908

• Reeves, W., "Saint Maelrubha, his history and churches" in Proceedings of the Antiquaries of Scotland, III, 258-96

• Roberts, John L., Lost Kingdoms: Celtic Scotland in the Middle Ages, (Edinburgh, 1997)

• Skene, William Forbes, Celtic Scotland: A History of Ancient Alban, Vol. II: Church and Culture, (1877).

• McDonald, R. Andrew, Outlaws of Medieval Scotland: Challenges to the Canmore Kings, 1058–1266, East Linton, 2003. ISBN 1-86232-236-8 [McDonald, Outlaws of Medieval Scotland]

See also:

• Wikipedia: Fearchar, Earl of Ross

• Wikidata: Item Q5439420, en:Wikipedia

• The Peerage: Fearchar

• Clan MacFarlane: Fearchar

• https://archive.org/stream/scotspeeragefoun07paul#page/230/mode/2up
• ( Scots Peerage, volume 07 pages 201-244 ,also See Footnotes.)