Canmore are largely occupied with revolts in Galloway and in Morayshire.
The most notable of these was the rebellion of MacHeth, Mormaor of
Moray, about 1134. On its suppression, David I confiscated the earldom
of Moray, and granted it, by charters, to his own favourites, and
especially to the Anglo-Normans, from Yorkshire and Northumberland, whom
he had invited to aid him in dealing with the reactionary forces of
Moray; but such grants of land in no way dispossessed the lesser
tenants, who simply held of new lords and by new titles. Fordun, who
wrote two centuries later, ascribes to David's successor, Malcolm IV, an
invasion of Moray, and says that the king scattered the inhabitants
throughout the rest of Scotland, and replaced them by "his own peaceful
people".[12] There is no further evidence in support of this statement,
and almost the whole of Malcolm's short reign was occupied with the
settlement of Galloway. We know that he followed his grandfather's
policy of making grants of land in Moray, and this is probably the germ
of truth in Fordun's statement. Moray, however, occupied rather an
exceptional position. "As the power of the sovereign extended over the
west," says Mr. E.W. Robertson, "it was his policy, not to eradicate the
old ruling families, but to retain them in their native provinces,
rendering them more or less responsible for all that portion of their
respective districts which was not placed under the immediate authority
of the royal sheriffs or baillies." As this policy was carried out even
in Galloway, Argyll, and Ross, where there were occasional rebellions,
and was successful in its results, we have no reason for believing that
it was abandoned in dealing with the rest of the Lowlands. As, from time
to time, instances occurred in which this plan was unsuccessful, and as
other causes for forfeiture arose, the lands were granted to strangers,
and by the end of the thirteenth century the Scottish nobility was
largely Anglo-Norman. The vestiges of the clan system which remained may
be part of the explanation of the place of the great Houses in Scottish