The conspirators laid their plans with secrecy, and the men of Moray and Mærne marched in haste to the south, in the hope of surprising Alexander, and repeating the catastrophe of his brother Duncan. The king was holding his court at Invergowrie--a residence to which he always exhibited a marked partiality, as he had enjoyed the earldom of the district from a very early period--when he received intelligence of the near approach of his enemies, and with the prompt vigour of his character, hesitated not an instant in confronting the danger, his bold advance so daunting the conspirators that they turned and fled for the mountains. Thither he followed without delay, so closely pressing the pursuit that he swept through the northern earldoms without opposition, until he reached the boundaries of Ross, where his opponents were occupied in gathering their whole strength upon the opposite shores of the Moray Firth. It was evidently their intention to dispute the passage of the Firth, and to attack the army of the king whilst engaged in crossing; but again anticipating their purpose, he reached the point of passage, known as the Stockford, when it was high tide, plunged at once into the stream, and crossing with his mounted followers in safety, advanced upon the enemy before they could escape to mountain or morass, and inflicted such a slaughter upon their surprised and bewildered masses, that all disposition to revolt against his rule was stifled in the blood of his opponents--his stern and sanguinary vengeance upon this occasion earning for him the title of the Fierce. The Monastery of Scone is supposed to have owed its erection to the pious gratitude of Alexander for his speedy and triumphant success; and in the foundation-charter of that ancient Abbey, the name of Heth, Earl of Moray, stands prominently forward amongst the other Gaelic Mormaors, who were assembled in dutiful attendance at the court of their lord the Scottish king.[208] This reign was destined to become the era of the first collision between the ecclesiastical and secular powers in Scotland. The last known Gaelic or Culdee bishop of St. Andrews was Fothadh, who died in the same year as Malcolm Ceanmore,[209] the see remaining vacant during the three succeeding reigns; but when Alexander ascended the throne, he immediately determined upon appointing a bishop, who would be ready to carry out the views upon religious subjects in which all the family of Malcolm Ceanmore had been educated by their Anglo-Saxon mother. Accordingly, in the first year of his reign he selected Turgot to fill the vacant see of St. Andrews; but a difficulty, upon which he had scarcely calculated, awaited him at the very outset of his undertaking.