Switching Sides

Fearchar’s son Uilleam (William) de Ross was born in 1220, and was even more aggressive than his father. This Second Mormaer of Ross instigated a campaign to reconquer the Hebrides by eliminating its Norwegian settlers. A Norse record takes terse note of this: “In the previous summer [1295] letters came east from the Hebrides…and they brought forward much about the dispeace that the Earl of Ross…and other Scots, had made in the Hebrides, when they went out to Skye and burned towns and churches, and slew very many men and women…They said that the Scottish king intended to lay under himself all the Hebrides.”

The Mormaer was rewarded for his victory with the Isles of Skye and Lewis. The earldom of Ross had grown a wee bit.

His son Uilleam II de Ross (born 1249) found Scottish politics to be a double edged sword: he was in danger from the blade no matter which direction he brandished it. In 1294 he joined with other Scots noblemen like Sir Patrick Graham of Kincardine in acknowledging little Margaret of Norway as the heir of King Alexander. Also like Sir Patrick, he fought in the Battle of Dunbar where he was taken into English custody.

Uilleam’s forbears had all married noblewomen who today are little more than names jotted down on paper. These dutiful creatures main functions were to bear heirs and keep their highborn mouths shut. But when Uilleam wed Euphemia de Berkeley (her family still exists as Barclay. As in Bank.) he got more than a submissive womb. Evidently Euphemia was raised to have a mind of her own. She defied her in-laws’ chest thumping and openly supported the English cause. She convinced Edward I to release her husband and appoint him warden of Scotland north of the Grampians.

Now officially pro-English, Uilleam became one of Robert Bruce’s earliest enemies. When a band of Bruce’s supporters and family members sought sanctuary in St. Duthac’s chapel in Tain, Uilleam arrested them and handed them over to the English crown.

Historic Tain, Scotland

In 1306 Bruce’s fortunes took an upturn, and his men attacked Uilleam’s holdings in the south and west. By 1308 the Mormaer of Ross was forced to submit to Bruce, who graciously rewarded his acquiescence with a pardon and the restoration of his title and territories. This bribe and the realities of power kept Uilleam in the Bruce camp.

Uilleam fought alongside Bruce in the Battle of Bannockburn, and signed the Declaration of Arbroath a few years later.