Constructed to provide defense against Viking raiders which attacked the rich farms south of the River Tay and further added to by Causantín, Earl of Fife during the 11th century.
Fife | James Earl Jones | Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex | Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma | Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener | Earl | Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts | Earl of Derby | Earl Warren | Earl of Pembroke | Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer | Earl of Warwick | Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford | Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby | Earl of Shrewsbury | William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham | Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester | Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick | Earl of Leicester | John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon | Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex | Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester | Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer | Earl of Devon | Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig | My Name Is Earl | Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon | Earl Scruggs | Earl of March | Barney Fife |
The Earl of Fife tried to lead the survivors of Mar's shattered army on an orderly retreat; but this turned into a rout after Beaumont and others took to horse, charging off in pursuit.
It has been proposed that the St Andrews Sarcophagus was made for Causantín, but this is a minority view, as is the suggestion that the relics of Columba, perhaps including the Monymusk Reliquary, may have been translated from Iona to Dunkeld during Causantín's reign.
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Causantín's reign falls in a period when Irish annals have relatively few notices of events in Scotland, possibly due to the failing of the annals believed to have been kept in Scotland at Iona and Applecross.
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As a patron of the céli dé, and perhaps a collaborator of Abbot Diarmait of Iona, it is thought that Causantín may have been a church reformer, in line with céli dé ideals.
His name occurs as a witness, alongside bishops John of Glasgow, Robert of St Andrews, Cormac of Dunkeld, Gregoir of Moray, Mac Bethad of Rosemarkie, and mormaers Máel Ísu of Strathearn, Ruadrí of Mar, Matad of Atholl, as well as his kinsman, Gille Míchéil, chief of Clann meic Duib and others.
The title Earl Fife was created in the Peerage of Ireland by letters patent dated 26 April 1759 for William Duff (1696–1763) after proving his descent from Macduff, Earl of Fife.
In 1889, Alexander Duff married Princess Louise, the third child and eldest daughter of the future King Edward VII; two days after the wedding, Queen Victoria elevated him to the dignity of Duke of Fife in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
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Earl of Fife is a title that has been in existence twice: once as a Gaelic comital lordship in medieval Scotland, and from 1885 to 1912 as an earldom in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, created by Queen Victoria for Alexander Duff.
Born at Banff, Scotland, the son of Banff Sheriff Clerk James Duff (1729–1804) by his marriage to Helen Skene 1734–1764, he was a kinsman (first cousin once removed) to the second and third Earls of Fife.
He was Member of Parliament for Banffshire from 1727–34, and was created Lord Braco of Kilbryde in the Peerage of Ireland on 28 July 1735, and Earl Fife and Viscount Macduff, also in the peerage of Ireland, by letters patent dated 26 April 1759, after proving his descent from Macduff, Earl of Fife.