The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

320 THE HIGHLANDERS [part ii"
The name of Gilleanrias, which means the servant of St.
Andrew, would seem to indicate that he was a priest ; and
when, in addition to this, we consider the time exactly corresponds
—that the earls of Ross, being a part of the clan
Anrias, must have been descended from him—and that among
the earls who besieged Malcolm IV. in Perth, in the year
1 1 60, appears the name of Gilleandres,
it seems clear that
Ferchard, " the priest's son," was the son of Gillieanrias, the
founder of the clan Anrias, and consequently, that he succeeded
to the earldom, of Ross on the failure of a former family.
Ferchard appears to have rendered great assistance to Alexander
II. in his conquest of Argyll in 1221, and on that
occasion obtained from that monarch a grant of North Argyll,
afterwards termed Wester Ross. The only other act recorded
of Feme and on
; of his life is the foundation of the Abbey
his death at Tayne, in 125 1, he was succeeded by his son
William.
It was during the life of this earl that the expedition of
Haco to the Western Isles took place. The more immediate
cause of this expedition was the incursions which the earl of
Ross had made into various of the Isles ; but although, in a
Celtic country, the proximity of powerful tribes was always
accompanied by bitter feuds, and accordingly there might have
existed some hereditary enmity between the Rosses and the
Gael of the Western Isles, yet the history of the period shews
very clearly
that the hostilities of the earl of Ross were in all
probability instigated by the king ; and that that monarch,
aware of the danger of attempting the subjugation of the
Isles, from the ill success of his father, had by these means
called forth a Norwegian armament, and brought the war to
his own country, a policy the sagacity of which was fully
justified in the result. The cession of the Isles, however,
although an event of so much importance and advantage to
the general welfare of the country, did not affect the interests
of the earl of Ross so favourably ; as previous to that occurrence
they had, ever since the decline of the Maormors of Moray,
been the only great chiefs in the Highlands, and had possessed
an absolute influence in the North. Ikit now a new family
was thus brought in closer connexion with the kingdom of