Each of the seven provinces of Scotland consisted, as we have seen, of two districts, and we find a Mormaer ruling over each: but when they appear in the reign of Alexander the First, under the name of Comes or Earl, we find the number reduced to six; and with the exception of the province consisting of the two districts of Mar and Buchan, each of which is represented by an earl, the other provinces appear with one of its two districts possessing an earl, and the other remaining unrepresented. It was these six earls, no doubt, who formed the party who attacked the king in Perth, and one feature of the new policy appears to have been to increase their number by appointing new earls to the vacant districts, who were feudally invested with their earldoms, and thus introducing a large feudal element into the old Celtic earldoms, while those which retained their original character would be gradually feudalised as opportunity offered. Malcolm had thus restored one of these vacant districts when he made Malcolm macHeth Earl of Ross; and when that earl was driven out by the inhabitants, he endeavoured to connect it still more closely with the Crown, by giving the earldom to Florence, Count of Holland, in marriage with his sister Ada in 1162, but this grant, too, did not practically take effect.[79] Two years after he added another in the district of Menteath, which, along with Stratherne, formed one of the old provinces of Scotland. ‘Gillechrist, Comes de Menteth,’ makes his first appearance as witness in a charter granted by King Malcolm to the canons of Scone in 1164; and in the same charter we have Gillebride Comes de Angus and Malcolm Comes appearing for the first time with the territorial designation of ‘De Ethoel.’ The policy thus inaugurated by David the First as entering into his plan for transforming the old Celtic kingdom of the Scots into a feudal monarchy, and to some extent carried out by Malcolm the Fourth, was still more vigorously prosecuted by his successor William the Lion; and we find that during his reign he converted two of the old earldoms into feudal holdings, that a third had passed by gift and a fourth by succession into the hands of Norman barons, and that he added four new earldoms to the number. [Sidenote: Earldom of Mar.]