This state of quiescence was not destined, however, to continue long, and within eight years after the death of the chronicler the irruptions of the Highlanders into the low country were renewed, and they now appear in the form of separate septs or clans. Robert the Second had, in the first year of his reign, granted the lands of Badenoch, which had been forfeited by the Cumyns, to his fourth son, Alexander, who, from his fierce disposition, became known as the Wolf of Badenoch, and some years after he obtained grants of the lands of Strathavon, which had belonged to the earls of Fife, and of Abernethy in Strathtay. Alexander had no family by his wife Eupham, countess of Ross, but a number of illegitimate sons; and Bower tells us that in 1391 the Caterans, as he calls them, invaded the Braes of Angus with Duncan Stewart, one of his sons, at their head, and were encountered by Walter Ogilvy, sheriff of Angus, with such of the barons of Angus and their followers as he could hastily summon, at a place called by him Glenbrereth, where the sheriff was slain with sixty of his followers.[434] Wyntoun gives a very graphic account of this raid, which he places in the subsequent year, when he says, ‘There arose a great discord between Sir David of Lindsay, son of Glenesk, and the Highlandmen, and that in consequence of the former sending a secret spy into the Highlands, a great company of Highlandmen, to the number of three hundred and more, came suddenly into Angus under three chieftains, Thomas, Patrick, and Gibbon, whose surname was Duncanson, and encountered the sheriff at Gasklune, in the Stormont, where the latter was slain.’[435] It is unnecessary to enter into the particulars of the conflict, striking though the details are, but we have more certain information as to the leaders of the Highlanders in a Brief issued by King Robert the Third at a general council held at Perth on the 26th March 1392, and addressed to the sheriff and bailiffs of Aberdeen, directing them to put to the horn as outlaws the following persons, guilty of the slaughter of Walter de Ogilvy, Walter de Lichton, and others of the king’s lieges:—viz., Duncan and Robert Stewarts, Patrick and Thomas Duncansons, Robert de Athale, Andrew Macnayr, Duncan Bryceson, Angus Macnayr, and John Ayson junior, and all others their adherents; and as taking part with them in the slaughter, Slurach and his brothers, with the whole Clanqwhevil, William Mowat, John de Cowts, Donald de Cowts, with their adherents; David de Rose, Alexander M‘Kintalyhur, John M‘Kintalyhur, Adam Rolson, John Rolson, with their adherents; Duncan Neteraulde, John Mathyson, with their adherents; Morgownde Ruryson and Michael Mathowson, with their adherents.[436] They thus formed six groups. The first group who were directly implicated, with the exception of the Stewarts, belong to Athole; the Duncansons, with Robert de Athale, were the heads of the Clan Donnachie, descended