The earldoms of Atholl, Ross, and Sutherland were entirely comprehended within the Highland Line, as well as the great district of _Arregaithel_, or Argyll, in its most extended sense, reaching from the Clyde to Lochbroom, and a similar line drawn from the Ord of Caithness to Brinsness on the west side of Thurso Bay separated the Gaelic population in the more mountainous part of the ancient province of Cathanesia, which from an early period had passed into the possession of the Norwegian earls of Orkney, from the Teutonic settlers in the eastern and more level plains. As long as the native race of the _Mormaers_ remained, though assuming the new character of earls, the connection between them and the Gaelic population of the earldom remained unimpaired; but when, by marriage or otherwise, the earldom passed into foreign hands, the Gaelic population became the subjects of a foreign overlord, the greater tribe became broken up, and they emerged from it in the form of clans or broken tribes. [Sidenote: Moray.] The first of these great Celtic tribes to break up was that which formed the great earldom, or rather petty kingdom, of Moray. Here we find a family making their appearance in the eleventh century in the Irish Annals as _Mormaers_ of Moray, and occasionally bearing the title of _Ri_ or king. This line of Celtic kings or _Mormaers_ terminated with Maelsnechtan, son of that Lulach mac Gillcomgan who succeeded Macbeth as king of Scotland for three months. He appears as _Ri_ or king of Moray in 1086, and after him Angus, the grandson of Lulach by his daughter, bears the title of earl of Moray, and by his defeat and death in the beginning of the reign of David the First the line of the ancient kings or _Mormaers_ of Moray comes to an end, but the tribe appears to have been still held so far together by their support of the claims of the family of MacHeth to the earldom of Moray, whose founder Wymund asserted himself to be the son of Angus, and of that of MacWilliam who claimed to be the nearer line of the royal family to the throne of Scotland; and it was not till the year 1222 that the pretensions of these two families were finally extinguished by Alexander the Second. [Sidenote: Buchan.]