Andrew Moray - Origins of The Morays of Petty

Origins of The Morays of Petty

Andrew Moray was born late in the second half of the 13th century. The date and place of his birth, and whether he had any siblings, are unknown. Andrew's father was Sir Andrew Moray of Petty, Justiciar of Scotia (1289?–1296), a younger son of Walter Moray of Petty—Justiciar of Lothian (1255?–1257)—and his wife, the heiress of Bothwell, a member of the Olifard family. The Morays of Petty were a wealthy and politically-influential baronial family whose powerbase was located in the province of Moray in north-eastern Scotland. They traced their origins to Freskin, a man believed to have Flemish origins. He was granted lands in the Laich of Moray during the 12th-century reign of King David I of Scotland, where he built a motte-and-bailey castle at Duffus on the northern shore of Loch Spynie (this sea-loch was subsequently almost completely drained in the 18th and 19th centuries to release hundreds of acres of land for agricultural use).

The province of Moray long actively resisted subsumption within the Scots kingdom. Several royal armies were defeated in this struggle. Amongst the kings thwarted by the men of Moray was King Dub, who was killed when his army was defeated at Forres in 967. Moray was especially problematic for the Canmore kings of Scotland (whose dynasty sprung from King Malcolm Canmore). It was the heartland of rivals, the MacWilliams and MacHeths. Resistance to royal rule lingered into the 12th-century. In 1130 a rebellion was led by Mormaer Óengus of Moray. In the aftermath of Óengus's army's defeat at the Battle of Stracathro, Moray was taken under royal control; independence from it would not be restored until 1312 when Robert the Bruce granted the earldom of Moray to his nephew, Thomas Randolph. King David responded to the rebellion by ‘planting’ of Flemish and other Anglo-Norman loyalists in the area. One such man was Freskin. Many rebels were forced from their lands.

Although King David and his successors sought to impose their authority on Moray, resistance continued. King Malcolm IV, David's grandson and successor, also uprooted and expelled the local populace. The Chronicle of Holyrood records that in 1163: “King Malcolm transferred men of Moray”. It was not until 1229, when William Comyn of Buchan, led a royal army into Moray and finally, and brutally, pacified the province for King Alexander II; he was rewarded by a grateful king with the lordship of Badenoch. The final, and most unmerciful, action in the mac Malcolm kings' long campaign against the rival royal dynasty was perpetrated against the infant in whom its claim resided: the three-year-old girl was publicly murdered by King Alexander's men, whom, having read a proclamation, smashed her head against the market-cross in the burgh of Forfar. Moray now finally accepted the rule of the mac Malcolm kings of Scots.