Ferchar of Ross or Ferchar mac in tSagairt (Fearchar mac an t-sagairt, often anglicized as Farquhar MacTaggart), was the first Mormaer or Earl of Ross (1223-1251) we know of from the thirteenth century, whose career brought Ross into the fold of the Scottish kings for the first time, and who is remembered as the founder of the Earldom of Ross. mac an t-Sacairt (= Son of the Priest') probably refers to a background as keeper of the shrine to St Duthac, at Tain, Scotland.
[Moravia (Moray) was invaded by Donald Bane, son of Mac Willianc and ‘ Kennceught Mac Aht (Kenneth Mac Heth), and the son of an Irish king, with a numerous rabble of marauders, all of whom were at feud with the King of Scotland. Machentagar having attacked and sorely routed these enemies of the king, beheaded them, and presented their heads as a novel offering to the new king, on the 15th of June; in return for this service, the king created him a new knight.] " Scristinam " means " Christinam," as " Gillescrist " is written instead of " Gillecirrist." This " Ferkkar " was the powerful Ferquhard Mac Intagart, Earl of Ross, whom the Chron. de Mailros calls " Machen-tagar," only narrating that in the yeare 1215 " intraverunt in Moraviam hostes domini regis Scotiae, scilicet Dovenalcius Ban, filius Macwillelmi, et Kennauh Mac Aht, et filius cuiusdam regis Hiberniae, cum turba malignantium copiosa; in quos irruens Machentagar hostes regis valide prostravit, quorum capita detruncavit et novo regi nova munera proesentavit, .xvii. hal. Julii, propter quoci domnus rex novum militem ipsum ordinavit."
The Chronicle of Melrose reported that "Machentagar attacked them and mightily overthrew the king's enemies; and he cut off their heads and presented them as gifts to the new king ... And because of this, the lord king appointed him a new knight." The " Macwilliam " ~ here mentioned must have been the son of Guthred Macwilliam (son of William of Egreniont, grandson of King Duncan and Ingibiorg the daughter of Finn Arneson), who had begun a rebellion in 1211, but in 1212 had been captured by William Cumyn, Earl of Buchan, and put to death (Fordun, viii, 76). " Kennauh Mac Aht," must mean " Kenneth Mac Heath," which shows him to have been son of the other pretender, Malcolm Mac Heth (alias Wimund), and brother-in-law of Earl Harold at Orkney.
[The first Donald Bane or Mac William, who rebelled against William the Lion in 1181, was a son of William Fitz-Duncan, or grandson of Duncan, and cousin to the king. He was slain on Mamgarry Moor, near Inverness, in 1187. Godfrey, son of the preceding Mac William, or Donald Bane, rebelled against King William in 1211, and was beheaded in 1212, as stated by Munch. The Mac William or Donald Bane who rebelled against Alexander II. in 1215, and who was slain by Ferquhard, was brother, not son of Guthred or Godfrey. —Robertson, i. 393, 428; ii. 3.]
The circumstances of the tragical event are thus mentioned in the Saga: : " the vessel which carried the royal couple with their suite, was never heard of nor seen, except that some pieces of wreck were thrown on shore by the seas, at the southernmost point of Shetland, from which it was inferred that it had perished in Dynrost (Sumburgh Roost, between Shetland and Fair Isle, Dynrost still surviving in the name Dunrossnes, i.e., Dynrastarnes, the promontory of Dynröst). It is therefore obvious that by " Jadlandia," in our Chronicle, Shetland (properly Hjaltland, very often Hjatland) is meant. In the Chronicle of Lanercost the name is corrupted into " Yselandia."
In the 1220s Ferchar granted the Premonstratensian Order (perhaps the most modern one about) of Whithorn in Galloway a new monastery at Mid Fearn in Ross, moving it a decade later to New Fearn. They brought with them some relics of St Ninian too, which is why to this day Fearn Abbey is associated with that saint. Such a move was hardly surprising, since all aspiring magnates needed their own monastery. The Norbertines, also known as the Premonstratensians and in England, as the White Canons (from the color of their habit), are a Christian religious order of Augustinian canons founded at Prémontré near Laon in 1120 by Saint Norbert, afterwards archbishop of Magdeburg. Norbertine priests are designated by O Praem following their name. The order was founded in 1120. In 1126, when it received papal approbation, there were nine houses; and others were established in quick succession throughout western Europe, so that at the middle of the 14th century there are said to have been over 1,300 monasteries of men and 400 of women.
[Ferquhard Mac-ia Tagart (the son of the priest), was probably descended from one of the Culdee abbots, who becanie mere lay proprietors of the abbey lands, discharging no ecclesiastical functions whatsoever, but supporting from their revenues the community by whom such duties were discharged. Ferquhiard is the first member of his family known as Earl of Ross. This family afterwards rose to importance on the decline of the earls of Orkney. They held Skye and the Nordreys by grant from the Scottish kings, and were inveterate opponents of the little Norwegian population of the islands, who claimed to hold the islands as fiefs from the King of Norway.
The fidelity of Ferquhard to the Scottish crown appears to have been rewarded by large grants in Argyll.—Robertson, i. 239 ii. 3, 23, 100.] Ferchar's initial and comital style also appear in a charter granting some lands to Walter de Moravia, a charter dating somewhere between 1224 and 1231 but he was almost certainly Mormaer by 1230. Ross with other Mormaerdoms, such as Lennox and Carrick, in which these apparently new Mormaerdoms were merely de iure royal grants to native lords who already possessed kinship leadership and de facto status as provincial rulers. In 1235, it is reported that Ferchar was active in Galloway. King Alexander invaded Galloway, and Gilla Ruadh ambushed the royal army. The Mormaerdom of Ross after the death, in 1168, of the last known Mormaer, Malcolm MacHeth is largely unknown throughout another peripheral Gaelic lord in the service of the Scottish King by the Galwegians.
Ferchar was also recored as being present at the negotiations which led to the Treaty of York, signed in 1237. The Treaty of York defined the boundary between the two kingdoms as running between the Solway Firth (in the west at Cumbria's northern boundary along the border with Scotland to Northumberland) and the mouth of the River Tweed (in the east). His daughter Euphemia was married to Walter de Moravia, magnet who ruled Duffus. Christina, another of Ferchar's daughters, was married to Amlaibh, the King of Mann. By the chronology of the Chronicle of Mann, this happened sometime before 1223, but after 1188, as the Manx king ruled over the isle of Skye.
In the Black Book of Clanranald, says that from Ferquhard was descended Gillapatrick the Red, son of Roderick, and known traditionally as the Red Priest, whose daughter, at a later date, married and carried the monastery lands of Lochalsh and Lochcarron to the Macdonalds of the Isles.