This is a multi-part series based on the book Inverurie and the Earldom of the Garioch by The Rev. John Davidson, D.D. (1878) with focus on sections recounting the history of the Leslies of the area.
We now find ourselves reading about Malcolm, son of Bartolf, as the first Constable of Inverurie, whose son, also named Malcolm, went off to the Crusades with Richard Coeur de Lion. The Constables of Inverurie included Malcolm’s other son Norman, and Norman’s son, Norino who served as Constable under Isabel de Bruce, the great-grandmother of Robert the King. Under Norman Leslie, the name of Leslie became an honorable one. At that time the banner of the Constables changed to a griffin, instead of the lord’s emblem, the rose.
The third Constable of Inverurie (Enrourie), Norino, the son of Norman, was the representative of Earl John’s younger sister, who, in some way, was Earl David’s heir to the Garioch lands and lordship. In 1248 the King, Alexander II., ” at the instance of Isabel de Bruiss and Robert de Bruiss her son, gave to Norino, the Constable, the son of Norman, the lands of Leslie in free forest “. By his marriage with a Fifeshire heiress, Norino increased the connection of his house with that county, which at last attracted the Leslies to Fife, and gave their name to a parish in that area. At that time, Inverurie had had a visit from Edward I in a raid through Aberdeenshire in 1296.
During the time of Norino, the last Leslie Constable of Inverurie, by Papal decrees parishes in the Garioch were created with abbeys. The abbeys included: Logyduro by the Abbey of Lindores, Leslie, Premnay, Insch, Culsalmoud, Meldrum, and Kennethmont.
This ends the story of the Constables of Inverurie in Aberdeenshire. It is interesting to learn that the descendants of Bartolf were in service to King Alexander II and to the Bruce family. It is noteworthy that King Alexander II agreed in a treaty with England for the boundary between Scotland and England.