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.
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