The town of Cromarty was established by the early thirteenth century as a Royal Burgh - that is, a settlement with the right to trade. It also had a castle and a sheriff, who exercised authority over the area around the town. In these days it would be something of a "frontier town" of Scots-speaking southerners on the edge of the Gaelic speaking Highlands.
The district then known as North Argyle consisted chiefly of the possessions of this ancient monastery of Appercrossan or Applecross. Its inhabitants had hitherto - along with those of the Dalriadic South Argyle, which extended from Lochcarron to the Firth of Clyde - maintained a kind of semi-independence, but in 1222 they were, by their lay possessor, Ferchair Mac an t'Sagairt, who was apparently the grandson or great-grandson of Gillandres, one of the six Celtic earls who besieged Malcolm IV the Maiden at Perth in 1160, brought into closer connection with the crown. The lay Abbots of which Ferquhard was the head were the hereditary possessors of all the extensive territories which had for centuries been ruled and owned by this old and powerful Celtic monastery. As a reward for his services against the men of Moray in 1215 and for the great services which, in 1222, he again rendered to the King in the subjugation of the whole district then known as Argyle, extending from the Clyde to Lochbroom, he received additional honours. In that campaign known as "the Conquest of Argyle," Ferquhard led most of the western tribes, and for his prowess, the Celtic earldom, which was then finally annexed to the Crown and made a feudal appanage, was conferred on him with the title of Earl of Ross, and he is so designated in a charter dated 1234. He is again on record, under the same title, in 1235 and 1236.
Regarding an engagement which took place between Alexander II and the Gallowegians, in 1235, the Chronicle of Melrose says, that at the beginning of the battle the Earl of Ross, called Macintagart, came up and attacked the enemies (of the King) in the rear, and as soon as they perceived this they took to flight and retreated into the woods and mountains, but they were followed up by the Earl and several others, who put many of them to the sword, and harassed them as long as daylight lasted. In Celtic Scotland, it is stated that the hereditary lay priests of which he was the chief according to tradition, bore the name of O'Beollan; and MacVuirich, in the Black Book of Clanranald, says that from Ferquhard was descended Gillapatrick the Red, son of son of Roderick or Ruaidri, 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. It was originally known as the Clan Siol Andrea, meaning the race of Andrew. However, from about the yeare 1100 the Andrews moved south to Dumfriesshire area of southwest Scotland. Duncan Andrew, Chief of the Clan, rendered homage to King Edward I of England in 1296. Given by MacVuirich in the Black Book of Clanranald. In 1222 “Gilchrist filius Kinedi,” Gillecriosd son of Kenneth, is on record as a follower of MacWilliam. Cristean is the ordinary Gaelic form of Christopher, otherwise Gilchrist, or Gillecriosd. In the MacVuirich manuscript, however, several names are given between Gilleoin Og and Gilleoin na h’Airde which are absent from the manuscript of 1467.
The Celtization of Man is always associated with the conquest of West-Scotland and the Hebrides by the North-Irish tribe Dál Riada in the 5th and 6th centuries. The list of Gødred's successors included Reginald (1229), Olaf (1237), Harold (1248), the last of the dynasty being Magnus (1265). The Scotch supremacy followed under Alexander III., who changed the arms of Man from the Norwegian ship to the Three legs. The Manx kingdom was " Man and the Isles " until 1156.
From the north, the Cenél nAlbanaich, a Laigin tribe were a branch of the Oirghialla that settled in the northwest Highlands and Islands in very early times. Their chief clans descend from Godfraidh Mac Ferghusa (i.e., "Fergus"), a prince of the Oirghialla in North Ireland who came to Scotland, or Albany, in the ninth century as an ally of Kenneth MacAlpin, first king of the united kingdom of Picts and Scots. The Cenél nAlbanaich settled north of Argyle in the Hebrides, in the area of Skye. The chief clans which branched from the Cenél nAlbanaich are the Clann Dhomhnuill (Donald) and the Clann Dubhghaill (MacDougall), MacDonald (Mac Dhomhnuill), (Reginald) Clann Ranald. From the south, the Siol Alpin (Cawdor; Moray) is the name of a group of clans traditionally connected by their mutual traditional descent from Kenneth Mac Alpin who was the first king of the united kingdom of Picts and Scots in the ninth century a tradition which simply indicates that they were all of generally "South Argyle" Dalriadic stock including the MacGregors and the MacKinnons who became erenaghs, or hereditary abbots, of Iona after the failure of the original Cineal Conaill line around 1200. In Dalriada, the first nation of Scots established in present-day Scotland, the two ruling houses were the House of Gabhran and the House of Loarn. Kenneth mac Alpin (843 AD) was of the House of Gabhran.
In the Middle Ages, Fortrose in the Scottish Highlands, located on the Moray Firth was the seate of the bishopric of Ross. Ross & Cromarty is a northern county of Scotland. It was originally the land bounded by the Moray Firth and Dornoch Firth. From the 11th century Tain was an important place of pilgrimage, and the cathedrals at Dornoch and Fortrose, and Fearn Abbey, date from the 13th century. Tain's charter dates from 1066. The town Fortrose is known for its ruined 13th century cathedral, and as the home of the Brahan Seer. Moray is the largest firth in Scotland, stretching from Duncansby Head in Caithness in the north, to Fraserburgh in Banff and Buchan in the east, to the Beauly Firth and Inverness in the west and is a roughly triangular inlet of the North Sea, north and east of Inverness. A number of rivers flow into the Moray Firth, including the River Spey, and various smaller firths and bays are inlets of the Moray Firth, including the Cromarty Firth, the Dornoch Firth and the Beauly Firth. The Pentland Firth also has its eastern mouth at its boundary. The Moray Firth is effectively two firths, the Inner Moray Firth, which was traditionally known as the Firth of Inverness, and the Outer Moray Firth which is more open North Sea water. The neighboring Clann Duibhne or Campbells of Lochawe became infamous for their political pragmatism. The senior line of the Campbells, descended from Sir Gillespic’s older brother Duncan, were the MacArthurs (Clann Artair) of Loch Fyne and Lochawe.
The Clann an tSaoir, or Maclntyres (Mac an tSaoir) are also a branch of the Clan Ranald. They settled in Loin, or North Argyle, sometime during the fourteenth century, having come from the Hebrides in a galley "with a white cow," to settle in Glen Oe (or Noe) just south of Loch Etive. There they were hereditary foresters to the Stewart lords of Lorn. A branch settled in Badenoch under MacKintosh protection in the fifteenth century, and became members of the Clan Chattan Confederacy. The O’Beolairts (O Beollain) or Gillanders (Giolla Aindreas) of the Cenél Eoghain, descendants from Conall Gulban, son of Nial of the Nine Hostages, of Tirconnell and Donegal were co-arbs (hereditary abbots) of St. Maelrubha at Applecross in Ross-shire. In 1164 King Somerled of the Isles (MacDonald) invited the chief co-arb of St. Columba to accept the Abbacy of lona; but the Cenél Connaill would not allow the Columban primacy (which first went from lona to Kells, and then to Derry in Donegal, the homeland of the Kindred) to pass from Derry back to the Hebrides.
Towards the end of the fourteenth century they inherited the chiefship of the Clann Aindreas, or Clann Giolla Aindreas (Clan Gillanders), a native Pictish tribe related to the MacKenzies and Mathesons and among whom they had long been ecclesiastical and secular leaders. They provided High-Kings of Tara alternately with their Cenél Eoghain cousins until the end of the eighth century, the Cenél Eoghain being dominant as overlords of the Northern Ui Niell from the end of the eighth century onward.
For over 700 years Cromarty's livelihood has depended on its proximity to the sea, and to its fertile farm lands. Its fortunes have fluctuated constantly, peaking in the 17th century with trade with Norway, Sweden, Holland and even the Mediterranean, and then again in the herring boom of the 19th century when dozens of fishing boats sailed from its harbour. Extremely isolated, it was only accessible by boat until the early 20th century, and for many years after that the only road access was over one of Scotland's most notoriously treacherous roads, the Bealach na Ba (Pass of the Cattle), which crosses the peninsula between rugged 2000 ft (600 metre) peaks. The settlement is now connected via a winding coastal road which travels around the edge of the peninsula to Shieldaig and Torridon. The road skirts the shore of the Inner Sound and Loch Torridon.
Before the industrial era, Scotland had nothing that we would call a city, although it had many towns. Since the 18th century, Cromarty was a sea port thriving on trade as far afield as Russia and the Baltic. There had been a settlement, an old ferm toun known as Drummond (Drumainn), near the location of Evanton, and several lordly residences, such as Foulis, Novar and Balconie Castle. The village suffered from the severe famine that plagued the Highlands in 1840s. The modern village is on average a little younger than the Highland region in general.
'Renton - Ross & Cromarty', A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland (1846), pp. 416-30. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=43475. Date accessed: 16 June 2006.