Such being the process by which the ancient tribe in the eastern districts passed into the thanage, the events which followed the death of Alexander the Third produced a change which entirely altered this position, so that the thanage in its original form may be said to have ceased with the dynasty of kings of which he was the last. The war with England which followed, the conflict between two families of Norman descent for the succession to the crown, the numerous confiscations of their respective partisans which accompanied it and led to their possessions falling to the Crown and the final establishment of a Norman dynasty of kings, naturally created a great revolution in the land-tenure of Scotland; the extension of the feudal holding of ward and relief became the established policy of the Crown, and the ancient Celtic tenures gradually gave way before the advancing feudalism, and eventually disappeared under its influence. After the wars of independence and succession we find most of the thanages had reverted to the Crown, and they were usually re-granted to Norman barons on a feudal tenure for military service. This will be illustrated by three charters of David the Second, all granted in the same year. By the first he infefts his cousin, Walter de Lesly, knight, heritably in the thanage of Aberkerdor and its pertinents in the county of Banff, and in the thanages of Kyncardyn; and then follows this instructive clause:—‘Yet because perchance the heirs of the thanes who anciently held these thanages in feu-farm might recover these thanages to be held in future as their predecessors held them, we grant to our said cousin, that if these heirs, or any of them, recover these thanages, or any of them, our said cousin and his heirs shall hold and possess the services of the heirs or heir of the said thanes or thane, and the feu-duties or feu-duty anciently due from the thanages or thanage.’ This clause seems to have interposed no obstacle to the feudal tenure of the thanages being completed, for it is followed by two charters to Walter de Lesly,—one of the fee of the thanages of Kyncardin, Aberluthnot, and Fettercairn, with their bondmen, bondages, and followers, and erecting the same into a feudal barony, with the usual jurisdiction, and under the obligation of rendering military service; and another of the thanage of Aberkerdor, likewise erected into a barony in similar terms.[313] A review of the thanages still existing at this time, with such information as the records afford us, will complete this view of their position. [Sidenote: Thanages in Moray and Ross.]