Dunrobin Castle (11)
Perhaps not surprisingly this far up in the wild and often lawless north, the owners of Dunrobin have led turbulent and often controversial lives.  Sutherland is one of the northernmost counties in mainland Britain, its name coming from the word Suðrland, meaning &quot;southern land&quot;, a name given to it by the Norwegian Vikings living in Orkney, for whom of course, this was the south!  

In the mid 12th century, a Flemish nobleman called Freskin was invited to Scotland by King David I and given the troublesome region of Moray to rule over.  Surprisingly little is known about Freskin de Moravia, from whom a number of families claim descent, but we do know that his great grandson, William de Moravia, was created 1st Earl of Sutherland.  

In the early 13th century, Alexander II had to deal with trouble in Caithness.  In 1222 for example, they had murdered their bishop and the king marched north to &quot;punish the men of Caithness.&quot;  He had to march north again in c.1228, to deal with Gillescop's rebellion - Gillescop was one of the McWilliams, that I wrote about under Ormond Castle.  It would seem that 'the Freskins' probably aided the king in crushing these rebellions and that William Freskin was raised to be the Earl of Sutherland in order to balance out the power and turbulence of the Earl of Caithness.
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