ime, Ferchar Mac-in-Tagart, Earl of Ross;[20] and
Walter was known as Sir Walter de Moravia, and lived till 1243, but
was dead by 1248, his widow surviving him, and later on we shall come
to another Freskin, their eldest son, (who was _dominus de Duffus_
on 20th March 1248), in Strathnaver and Caithness. Hugo's third son,
Andrew, was the parson of Duffus[21] who became Bishop of Moray,
and moved the see from Spynie to Elgin, where he erected a specially
beautiful Cathedral, the predecessor of that whose splendid ruins
still stand. According to the Chronicle of Melrose he died in 1242.

Hugo Freskyn's eldest son, William, Lord of Sutherland, was simply
"William de Sutherlandia" on the 31st August 1232, and "W. de
Suthyrland" appears as a witness to a grant of a mill on 10th October
1237. But William, Hugo's son, was by Alexander II created Earl of
Sutherland, as we hope to show, soon after 1237, probably as a reward
for long and loyal service to William the Lion and to Alexander II,
between the year 1200 and the date of his creation, in the various
difficulties and rebellions in Moray and Caithness, between which
two centres of disaffection his territory of Sutherland lay.[22] For
William's family had then its "three descents" and more, and its chief
had a sufficient body of retainers settled on the land to entitle
him to the dignity of an earldom. That he was earl there is no doubt,
because a deed of 1275 settling litigation between the Earl William
of that date and the Bishop of Caithness refers to William of glorious
memory and William his son, _earls of Sutherland, nobiles
viros, Willelmum clare memorie et Willelmum ejus filium, comites
Sutthirlandie_, (c.f. The Sutherland Book, p. 7).

The first four generations of the Freskyn family seem to be also
clearly proved in one line of a grant by William the Lion to Gaufrid
Blundus, burgess of Inverness, of 2nd May (year omitted) which is
attested "Willelmo filio Freskin Hugone filio suo et Willelmo filio
ejus," which is strange Latin, but embraces all four generations. It
is quoted in the New Spalding Club's Records of Elgin, p. 4, as from
Act Parl. Scot, vol. 1, p. 79. The Charter is dated at Elgin probably
near the end of the twelfth century, when William Mac-Frisgyn, Hugo,
and William of Sutherland were all alive. Not a single member of the
family was, as every Fleming was, styled "Flandrensis" in any charter
or writ, and Fretheskin is probably a Gaelic name, of which