He succeeded his father on 19 July 1333, and was probably then of age. There is no evidence of his wardship, and he almost immediately took an active part in public life. Sir Robert Gordon asserts that the young Earl took part in the battle of Kilblene, when David, Earl of Atholl, was slain, but there is no corroboration of this. From an English chronicle, however, it appears that he was a leader of the Scottish force which besieged the castle of Cupar-Fife, then held by
the English. The Scots, however, were put to flight by the activity and strategy of Sir John Stirling, Governor of Edinburgh Castle. In 1340 he took part, with the Earl of March, in a foray into England, and though, on their way home, they were intercepted by an English force under Sir Thomas Grey, and worsted, they did much damage, so that four years later a large part of Northumberland was still unprofitable.10 |
In 1343, or between December 1342 and September 1345, the Earl married Margaret, sister of King David Bruce, and that King conferred upon him in rapid succession considerable grants of land. On 28 September 1345 the spouses had a grant in free marriage of the thanage of Downie, co. Forfar, also of the thanage of Kincardine, with castle, etc., the thanage of Fettercairn, and the thanage of Aberluthnot, all in Kincardineshire, and the half of the thanages of Fermartine and Kintore in the sheriffdom of Aberdeen. This was followed, on 10 October 1345, by the erection of the earldom of Sutherland into a regality. On 4 November 1345 the King added the whole barony of Cluny in Aberdeenshire, and on 30 March 1346 the Earl and his wife received a grant of the King's rock or crag of Dunottar, co. Kincardine, with licence to build a fortalice thereon. In 1346 the Earl accompanied his royal brother-in-law to England on the expedition which ended so ignominiously at Neville's Cross. Froissart speaks of him under the name of the Earl of Orkney, as being the first to join the King, with 'many men-at-arms'. He is said to have been taken prisoner, but if so, his name does not occur in any list of captives. He seems to have occupied himself in the interval with his private affairs, but his next appearance in public life is in June 1351, when he had a safe-conduct to Newcastle to confer on the subject of King David's ransom. In September of that year his infant son and heir was given as a hostage for King David on the latter's return to Scotland for a few months. In 1357 the Earl himself, with his eldest son, was a hostage for the payment of the King's ransom, and remained in England for more than ten years, visiting Scotland at intervals, marked by the granting of various charters to relatives and others. On 28 February 1358-59 King David granted to the Earl and his son John the barony and castle of Urquhart, co. Inverness, which is said to have been in exchange for the thanages in Kincardineshire formerly granted, but the earlier charter was repeated in 1360. On 30 July 1366 the King renewed to the Earl the grant of the half thanage of Fermartine. Between 1360 and 1365 the Earl also received various sums from Exchequer in addition to £80 paid by the King towards his expenses in England. The Earl is said by Sir Robert Gordon to have died in 1370, and this is probably correct. He was alive on 27 February 1369-70, when he still held the frank-tenement of the thanage of Kincardine and others, the reversion of which was then granted to Sir Walter Leslie, afterwards Earl of Ross; but in June 1371, the barony of Urquhart was in the hands of the Crown, and the Earl was probably then dead. It has been stated that he was concerned in the murder of lye Mackay and his son Donald in 1370, and that his own death was the result of revenge.11 |