In the opinion of Shaw this quarrel about precedency was the origin of the celebrated judicial conflict, which took place on the North Inch of Perth, before Robert III., his queen, Annabella Drummond, and the Scottish nobility, and some foreigners of distinction, in the year 1396, and of which a variety of accounts have been given by our ancient historians. The parties to this combat were the Macphersons, properly the clan Chattan, and the Davidsons of Invernahavon, called in the Gaelic _Clann-Dhaibhidh_. The Davidsons were not, as some writers have supposed, a separate clan, but a branch of the clan Chattan. These rival tribes had for a long period kept up a deadly enmity with one another, which was difficult to be restrained; but after the award by Macintosh against the Macphersons, that enmity broke out into open strife, and for ten years the Macphersons and the Davidsons carried on a war of extermination, and kept the country in an uproar.
To put an end to these disorders, it is said that Robert III. sent Dunbar, Earl of Moray, and Lindsay of Glenesk, afterwards Earl of Crawford, two of the leading men of the kingdom, to endeavour to effect an amicable arrangement between the contending parties; but having failed in their attempt, they proposed that the differences should be decided in open combat before the king. Tytler[137] is of opinion that, the notions of the Norman knights having by this time become familiar to the fierce mountaineers, they adopted the singular idea of deciding their quarrel by a combat of 30 against 30. Burton, however, with his usual sagacity, remarks that, “for a whole race to submit to the ordeal of battle would imply the very highest devotion to those rules of chivalry which were an extravagant fashion in all the countries under the Norman influence, but were utterly unknown to the Highlanders, who submitted when they must submit, and retaliated when they could. That such an adjustment could be effected among them is about as incredible as a story about a parliamentary debate in Persia, or a jury trial in Timbuctoo.”[138] The beautiful and perfectly level meadow on the banks of the Tay at Perth, known as the North Inch, was fixed on, and the Monday before Michaelmas was the day appointed for the combat. According to Sir Robert Gordon, who is followed by Sir Robert Douglas and Mr. Mackintosh, it was agreed that no weapon but the broad sword was to be employed, but Wyntoun, who lived about the time, adds bows, battle-axes, and daggers.