 According to the historian G. W. S. Barrow, Gillespie Maclachlan appears in the Ragman Rolls, when the magnates of Scotland signed their allegiance to Edward I of England, in 1296, "clerks of this period writing Anglo-French documents often had difficulty with the name Lachlan, and rendered it by some form of the more familiar name Rothland, or Roland.Thus, unnoticed by historians of Clan Lachlan, Gillespie MacLachlan figures on the Ragman Roll as 'Gilascope fiz Rouland, de counte de Perth'".Sometime between 1306 and 1322 Gillespie received, in charter from Robert I of Scotland, the ten pennyland of "Schyrwaghthyne" (Strathlachlan) and other lands.