De Moray, Andrew

Andrew Morey was born in the second half of the 13th century . The date and place of his birth is unknown. His father was Sir Andrew Morey of Petty , Justiciary of Scotland (1289–1296), the youngest son of Walter Morey of Petty, Justiciary Lothian (1255-1257). Andrew's mother was the daughter of John I Comin, Lord Badenoch (c. 1215 - c. 1275). The Moray of Petty was a wealthy and influential Baronial family that owned estates in the province of Moray in northeast Scotland. The Mores originate from the Flemish nobleman Freskin , who took possession of the land from King of Scotland David I and built the Mott and Bailey Duffus Castle on the northern shore of Loch Spainy Lake.

The province of Moray resisted the centralized power of the kings of Scotland for a long time, gaining a number of victories over the royal troops. The king of Scotland, Duff the Raging, was killed, and his army was defeated at Forres in 967 . At the beginning of the reign of kings from the Dankeld dynasty, the province of Moray continued to rebel. Here were the centers of resistance of the Macuilliams and Macati. The Scottish king David I responded to the uprising, "planting" Freskin and other Anglo-Norman nobles in this province. The rebels were forced to leave their lands. After the battle of Strakatro, the province of Moray was annexed to the royal domain. She remained under royal authority until 1312 , when the King of Scotland, Robert Bruce, granted the County of Moray to his nephew Thomas Randolph .

Although King David I and his successors sought to impose their rule on the provinces of Moray, resistance continued. King Malcolm IV , the grandson and successor of David I, exterminated and expelled the local population from their homes. In 1229, William Comin of Buchan at the head of the royal army entered the Moray and forcibly subjugated the province to the rule of King Alexander II. As a reward, he received the lordship of Badenoch.

At the beginning of the Anglo-Scottish Wars at the end of the 13th century , the Moray family established themselves well in Northern and Southern Scotland. Sir Andrew Morey, the head of the line from the Morayes from Petty, owned the lordships of Petty, Avoch and Boharm. Since 1289, Sir Andrew Morey served as Justiciary of Northern Scotland. In the 1280s, he married Euphemia Comin, sister of John Comin, Lord Badenoch , nephew of King of Scotland John de Balliol. The Seas from Petty also had connections with the Douglas and s Douglasdale.

The influence of the Moray family was not limited to Northeast Scotland. Sir William Morey of Botwell, the elder brother of Sir Andrew, owned vast estates in the counties of Lanarkshire and Lincolnshire . He built Botwell Castle in South Lanarkshire. Andrew Morey was the heir to his father and uncle.

The Seas from Petty also had influence in the Scottish medieval church. The ancestor and namesake Andrew Morea, Andrew de Morey (d. 1242), was Bishop of Ross (1213) and Morea (1222/1224 - 1242) and was responsible for the transfer of the residence of the bishopric to Elgin in 1224 and the construction of the cathedral in the city. Morea continued to maintain contact with the church. Sir Andrew's youngest brother, David Morey (d. 1326), was rector of the Botwell church in the canon of Morea, and in 1299 he was ordained bishop of Morea . He was one of the most loyal supporters of the King of Scotland, Robert Bruce.

The end of the 13th century was a time of deep upheaval for Scotland. On March 19, 1286, the 44-year-old king of Scotland, Alexander III , died , leaving no male heirs (his two sons died while his father was still alive). After the death of Alexander III, Queen of Scotland declared his granddaughter Margaret of Norway the Virgin (1283–1290), the only daughter of Margaret of Scotland and King of Norway Eirik II . In 1290, the seven- year -old Queen Margaret died on the way from Norway to Scotland.

After the suppression of the Dunkeld dynasty, large Scottish magnates entered the struggle for the vacant royal throne. In November 1286, the Bruce Lords of Annandale attempted an armed negotiation and seized power, but failed. Then the Scottish lords appealed for support to their closest neighbor, King of England Edward I Plantagenet . The first wife of the Scottish king Alexander III was Princess Margarita of England (1240-1275), the younger sister of Edward. The king of England was a mature and respected ruler. The relationship between them and the recently deceased king Alexander III was good. The Scottish lords, turning for support to Edward, were forced to recognize the king of England as overlord of Scotland. The main contenders for the English throne were John de Balliol, Lord of Galloway, and Robert Bruce, Lord Annandale and grandfather of the future king. After lengthy judicial discussions, the English king Edward I Plantagenet in 1292 approved John de Balliol as the new king of Scotland.

The new Scottish king John de Balliol (1292–1296) recognized King Edward I of England as his overlord. Edward was determined to subjugate Scotland to his supreme authority; he was constantly present in Scottish legal and political affairs. At the end of 1295, the Scottish king John de Balliol abandoned his lazy dependence on England and entered into an alliance treaty with France. The angry king of England began to prepare a punitive expedition to Scotland.

In the spring of 1296, Andrew Morey, along with his father and uncle, joined the Scottish militia, assembled by King John Balliol to repel the English invasion. Scottish units under the command of the counts of Atoll, Ross, Mar and John Comin invaded the northern English lands, where they devastated the counties of Cumberland and Northumberland . The Scots besieged the city of Carlisle, whose defense was led by Robert Bruce, 6th Lord Annandale and father of the future king.

King Edward I gathered a large army on the Anglo-Scottish border to invade Scotland. He counted on the support of a number of Scottish lords. On March 25, 1296, a number of them, including Robert Bruce, Lord Annandale , and his son Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick and the future king, took an oath of allegiance to the king of England. The British army under the command of King Edward I crossed the border and on March 30 besieged Berik-upon-Tweed . The city was stormed and plundered for three days. On April 27 of the same 1296, at the Battle of Dunbar, the English army, led by John de Varenna, Earl of Surrey , defeated the Scottish army of John de Balliol.

After the defeat at Dunbar, Scotland quickly surrendered. John de Balliol and the Scottish Lords surrendered to King Edward I of Montrose at the Castle of England. John de Balliol was forced to abandon the royal throne. The English king came from Montrose to the north of Scotland and on July 26, 1296, arrived in Elgin, where he took the oath from a number of Scottish nobles before returning to England.

The Scottish nobles captured at Dunbar were captured and sent to England in chains. The most important prisoners, such as Sir Andrew Morey of Petty, were taken to the Tower of London . In English captivity, Sir Andrew Morey passed away on April 8, 1298 . His son Andrew Morey was jailed at Chester Castle.

King Edward I of England introduced the English administration in Scotland, led by John Warenne, Earl of Surrey. Sir Hugh de Cressingham , an effective administrator in the English service, was appointed treasurer of Scotland. As judges in Lothian , Scotia (north of the River Fort) and Galloway by English appointees. All major Scottish royal castles housed English garrisons. They were followed by the English collectors, who began to rob the Scottish population, introducing large taxes to replenish the royal treasury. In addition, the king of England demanded that the Scottish nobility participate in his military operations against France.

At that time, Andrew Morey was in English custody. In the winter of 1296 - 1297, he fled from Chester Castle . It is not known how or by what means he escaped. Andrew Morey returned to his father’s lands in the north of Scotland. In May 1297, Andrew Morey announced his uprising against English rule in his castle of Avoch in Ross County. On May 3, 1297, William Hesilrig , an English sheriff in Lanark , was assassinated. Despite the fact that Sir Andrew Morey of Petty remained in prison at the Tower of London , where he apparently died as a prisoner of King Edward, many of his subjects eagerly joined his son.

At the beginning of 1297, a revolt began in various places against the British invaders and their Scottish allies. In Northern Scotland, Argyll and Ross rose. On the west coast, the Loklan Makruairi and Ruairi Makruairi brothers led the uprising. Royal officials were killed and destroyed royal property. The uprising also swept the province of Galloway in the southeast of Scotland, the rebels captured the castles where the English garrisons were stationed. In Fife, at the head of the rebels were Count Macduff of Fife and his sons.

Andrew Morey led a rebellion in the province of Morea. The main supporter of the king of England in this province was Sir Reginald Shane, the Scottish sheriff of Elgin , who received orders from Edward I to suppress the riot. Andrew Morey unsuccessfully besieged the castle of Arcartes , which was held by Sir William Fitzorin . In the summer of 1297, the uprising widened, the Scots took all the castles in the province of Moray, including the castle of Arcartes . The English king Edward I decided to use the Scottish lords loyal to him to crush the uprising in Morea. Among those who received the royal order were Henry Cheyne, Bishop of Aberdeen, Garthnat de Mar, the heir to Count Mara, whose father was in the Tower of London, John Comin, Count Buchan , and his brother Alexander Comin. Brothers John and Alexander Komins received orders to remain in Morea until the uprising was crushed. The Scottish lords opposed the rebels from Aberdeen in early July 1297 . On the banks of the Spey River in Enzi, they met with Andrew Morey's rebels. The Scottish lords did not enter the battle with the rebel troops of Andrew Morey, both sides withdrew their forces.

While Andrew Morey took control of Northern Scotland, William Wallace revolted in the south of Scotland. His supporters included James Stewart, Lord Steward of Scotland, and Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow . Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick and future King of Scotland, joined the rebellion.

Edward I , having managed to cope with Andrew Morey with the help of weapons, decided to resort to more subtle methods. The king proposed that Sir Andrew Morey of Petty be freed from the Tower so that he could participate in the English campaign in Flanders if his son was ready to take his place in the Tower as a royal hostage. On August 28, 1297, a royal letter of safe passage to England was issued in the name of Andrew Morey. It is not known whether the letter reached Andrew Morey, but if so, it was ignored, and his father was forced to remain in custody in the Tower, where he died on April 4, 1298 .

The rebelled Scots captured all the castles north of the river fort, only in Dundee still held an English garrison. In September 1297, the rebels launched a siege of Dundee . At the end of the summer of 1297, an English army was sent to Central Scotland under the command of John de Varenna, Earl of Surrey . Andrew Morey and William Wallace, leaving part of the forces for the siege of Dundee, went with their army to Stirling Castle, where they began to wait for the British army to approach. On September 11, 1297, in the Battle of Stirling Bridge, the Scots defeated the 10,000th British army under the command of Count Surrey. The British lost 100 knights and 5,000 foot soldiers killed. According to most historians, Andrew Morey was mortally wounded in the Battle of Stirling Bridge and died of his wounds at the end of that year. After the death of Andrew Morey, William Wallace became the sole leader of the Scottish rebellion against English rule.

A few months after the death of Andrew Morea, his widow, whose name is unknown, gave birth to a son named Andrew. Andrew Morey (1298–1338) inherited the lordships of Avoch, Petty, and Botwell in Scotland, and also twice served as custodian (regent) of Scotland in 1332–1333, 1335–1338.

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