_The Succession to the Caithness Earldom._
After the death of Earl John in 1231, we come to a most perplexing
time, and it is almost impossible to discover a way out of the maze
of genealogical difficulties in which we find ourselves involved. Not
only is there no chronicle of the period, but there are hardly any
records at all to help us. The pedigree of the descendants of Earl
Harold Maddadson, and particularly of his daughters, who are named in
the _Orkneyinga Saga_, ceases;[1] and that of Earl John's family and
of Harald Ungi and his sisters downwards stops also, save in the case
of Ragnhild, the youngest of them, whose son Snaekoll Gunni's son
is mentioned as claimant in 1231 from Earl John of certain lands in
Orkney and in Caithness as well.
Attempts to clear up the mystery have been made,[2] but none of them
have resulted in any certain or trustworthy conclusions. Nor can
anyone now expect to fare much better; for not only are authentic
pedigrees of the Caithness earls and the materials for framing them
undiscovered or non-existent, but yet another pedigree, namely that of
the Angus line, which provided, from its male members, successors to
the title and to a moiety of the Caithness earldom, is very obscure.
This chapter, therefore, is largely conjectural, and must be accepted
as such. It deserves, and will doubtless receive, severe criticism.
So far as the Angus pedigree can be ascertained, it appears that Earl
Gillebride died about 1187, leaving two sons, Adam and Gilchrist, who
succeeded in turn to that earldom, and Gillebride also left a third
son, Gilbert,[3] a fourth, William, and a fifth, Angus, who had a son
Gillebert or Gillebryd. Gilchrist died about 1204, leaving an eldest
son, Duncan, Earl of Angus, and another son called Magnus, by his two
wives respectively, his second wife, from the name of Magnus given to
her eldest son and to many subsequent earls of that son's line, being
assumed with considerable probability to have been, not a sister of
Earl John, but a sister of Harald Ungi, either Ingibiorg or Elin.
Duncan died about 1214, and left a son, Malcolm, Earl of Angus, whose
sole heiress was a daughter, Matilda, who, about 1240, married, first,
John Comyn, who was killed in France shortly after the marriage,
without leaving issue to inherit. As her second husband, Matilda,
Countess of Angus married Gilbert d'Umphraville, Lord of Prudhoe and
Redesdale in Northumberland in 1243; and their son, also named Gilbert
d'Umphraville, was born about 1244, and succeeded his father as Earl
of Angus in 1267, and though both these Gilberts became successively
Earls of Angus,[4] neither of them ever became Earl of Orkney.
Robertson's contention in his _Early Kings of Scotland_, (vol. II, p.
23 note) that they were grafted on the wrong pedigree seems justified
by the discrepancy in dates; for the Icelandic Annals give only one
Gibbon who died in 1256, and we know that Magnus III was earl in 1263
and till 1273. Indeed little confidence can be reposed in the Diploma
of the Orkney Earls, the only authority for the existence of two
Orkney Earls called Gilbert, and in the period covered by the
_Orkneyinga Saga_, we can prove many errors in the Diploma.
Of Magnus son of Gilchrist, Earl of Angus, we know something. He was
alive in 1227, when he attested the record of the perambulation of the
boundaries of the lands of the Abbey of Aberbrothock,[5] and in the
List of the Oliphant family charters dated 1594 in the Register House
in Edinburgh there is an entry of "Ane charter under the Great Seill
made be Alexr to Magnus sone to Gylcryst sometime Earle of Angus of
the Erledome of South Caithness" which included Berridale and lands
which Magnus' granddaughter's great-grandson Malise II conveyed to
Reginald Chen III, known as "Morar na Shein," after 1340.
It has been suggested that after Earl John's death in 1231, the
successor to the earldom of Caithness was a minor, which Earl
Gilchrist's son, Magnus, could not have been in 1231, and that this
minor and ward was a son of Magnus, and bore the same name as his
father.
The wardship seems at first sight to be proved in Robertson's _Early
Kings_,[6] and the proof is to the following effect:--Malcolm of Angus
attested a charter in Earl John's lifetime on 22nd April 1231, using
his own title of "Angus" only. After John's death, Malcolm attested
another charter on 7th October 1232 as "M. Comite de Anegus et
Katania,"[7] using, in addition to his own title of Angus, as was
customary, the title of a ward, who was heir to another earldom, in
this case that of Caithness. But on 3rd July 1236, Malcolm Earl of
Angus, who lived till 1237 if not longer, attested a third charter
using his own title of "Angus" only, without the addition "and of
Caithness." These facts can be explained by his ward's having attained
his majority and entered upon his earldom of Caithness between 7th
October 1232 and 3rd July 1236. They cannot be explained by saying
that "M" was not Malcolm, but Magnus, and that "M" stands for
Gilchrist's son Magnus, who had become Earl of Caithness. For there
was no "M. Comes de Angus" at the time save Malcolm, and Malcolm was
therefore for about four years Earl of Caithness as well as of Angus.
Robertson's explanation is that Malcolm was Earl of Caithness only as
guardian of a ward entitled to that earldom. The question then
arises, as Robertson puts it, "who was the heir?" and he answers it,
"certainly not his[8] uncle Magnus, son of Gillebride,[9] but very
probably the son of Magnus by Earl John's daughter; the supposed grant
of the Earldom to this Magnus being probably grounded upon his real
marriage with the heiress," and he adds "If, on the death of Earl John
in 1231, his grandson was an orphan and a minor, his wardship would
naturally have been granted to the next of kin, his cousin the Earl of
Angus."
One further charter has to be dealt with. In _Reg. Hon. de Morton_,
vol. I, p. xxxv, cited in _Origines Parochiales_ vol. II, p. 805, a
grant by King Alexander II, to Patrick Earl of Dunbar dated 7th July
1235 is attested by a witness, whose name or initial is illegible, but
who is styled ... _Earl_ ... _Katanay_, ... _Comite_ ... _Katanay_,
and a confident opinion is expressed in a note to the citation that
the witness was Magnus, Earl of Caithness. Now, Earl John's daughter
was taken as a hostage on August 1, 1214, and, if she was then
marriageable and was married at once, her eldest child could have been
born about May 1215, and would attain twenty-one about May 1236, but
to suppose her son of the name of Magnus to have been the ward for
whom the Earldom of Caithness was being kept till 7th July 1235 from
1232 and that he had become Earl of Caithness on the 7th July 1235
seems impossible. If the blank should be filled up with "de Anegus
et," then Malcolm Earl of Angus must still have been the guardian, and
the ward's father and mother must both have been dead by 7th October
1232. This involves three unproved assumptions, of two unrecorded
deaths and one unrecorded birth.
On the whole, therefore, we believe that there is another and simpler
explanation, and it seems probable that there was in this case no
wardship, or if there was, that there was a great deal more, and that
Malcolm held the earldom of Caithness as _Custos_ or administrator or
trustee for the Crown for four years after Earl John's death till the
succession was settled, and till all Caithness except Sutherland was
parcelled out among three claimants, namely the two heirs, each of one
of two sisters of Harald Ungi, and the hostage daughter of Earl John.
When all this was settled, Magnus, as the son of one of the two
elder sisters of Harald Ungi, and also as the husband of Earl John's
daughter, would be entitled on Earl John's death, _jure maritae_,
in Orkney, to a grant from the Norse king of the Orkney jarldom,
and also, in Caithness, _first, jure maritae_, to a grant from the
Scottish king in or after 3rd July 1236, of the North Caithness
earldom and lands held by Earl John, which Dalrymple in his
Collections (p. lxxiii) states positively, without quoting his
authority, that Magnus had for a payment of £10 per annum, and,
_secondly, jure matris_ (Ingibiorg or Elin) to a grant, also from the
Scottish king, of the earldom of South Caithness, which by the Charter
of Alexander "under the greit Seill," above alluded to, Magnus also
got.
The other moiety of the Caithness earldom lands would be fairly given
to Johanna as heiress of Ragnhild, Harald Ungi's youngest sister, and
we know that Johanna got that other moiety, because we find that her
descendants inherited it, and conveyed it or parts of it by writs
still extant, by the description of "half Caithness."
There are, however, other views. Skene's opinion on the subject of the
succession, in his very able paper (given in Appendix V, vol. iii, pp.
449-50 of his _Celtic Scotland_), is as follows:--
"Earl Harald died in 1206, and was succeeded by his son David,
who died in 1214, when his brother John became Earl of Orkney and
Caithness. Fordun tells us that King William made a treaty of peace
with him in that year, and took his daughter as a hostage, but the
burning of Bishop Adam in 1222 brought King Alexander II down upon
Earl John, who was obliged to give up part of his lands into the hands
of the king, which, however, he redeemed the following year by paying
a large sum of money, and by his death in 1231 the line of Paul again
came to an end.
"In 1232, we find Magnus, son of Gillebride, Earl of Angus, called
Earl of Caithness, and the earldom remained in this family till
between 1320 and 1329, when Magnus Earl of Orkney and Caithness, died;
but during this time it is clear that these earls only possessed one
half of Caithness and the other half appears in the possession of the
De Moravia family, for Freskin, Lord of Duffus, who married Johanna,
who possessed Strathnaver in her own right, and died before 1269, had
two daughters, Mary, married to Sir Reginald Cheyne, and Christian,
married to William de Fedrett; and each of these daughters had one
fourth part of Caithness, for William de Fedrett resigns[11] his
fourth to Sir Reginald Cheyne,[12] who then appears in possession
of one-half of Caithness (Chart. of Moray; Robertson's Index). These
daughters probably inherited the half of Caithness through their
mother Johanna. Gillebride[13] having called one of his sons by the
Norwegian name of Magnus, indicates that he had a Norwegian mother.
This is clear from his also becoming Earl of Orkney, which the king of
Scots could not have given him. Gillebride died in[14] 1200, so that
Magnus must have been born before that date, and about the time of
Earl Harald Ungi, who had half of Caithness, and died in 1198. Magnus
is a name peculiar to this line, as the great Earl Magnus belonged to
it, and Harald Ungi had a brother Magnus. The probability is that the
half of Caithness which belonged to the Angus family was that half
usually possessed by the earls of the line of Erlend,[15] and was
given by King Alexander with the title of Earl to Magnus, as the son
of one of Earl Harald Ungi's sisters, while Johanna, through whom the
Moray family inherited the other half, was, as indicated by her name,
the daughter of John, Earl of Caithness of the line of Paul, who had
been kept by the king as a hostage, and given in marriage to Freskin
de Moravia."
Sir William Fraser[16] in a note to the _Sutherland Book_--a mere
_obiter dictum_, however--doubts Skene's suggestions "that Johanna,
Lady of Strathnaver, who married Freskin de Moravia, Lord of Duffus,
about 1240, was the daughter of John Haraldson," that is Earl John,
and that "Magnus of Angus was the son of a sister of a former Earl
of Caithness," and states that "Skene's arguments are plausible, but
there is no very good evidence in support of them." Skene's argument
rests mainly on the names "Johanna" and "Magnus," by itself an
insecure foundation, and one which it is hoped to explain or remove,
adopting the argument from "Magnus," a name which constantly recurs,
and rejecting the argument from "Johanna," a name which never again
appears, in this family.
A century or more after the death in 1231 of Earl John, we find
Reginald Chen III, known as Morar na Shein or "Lord" Schen, in
possession of a moiety of the Caithness earldom, without the title,
and living in Latheron and Halkirk parishes, while the other moiety
was held by the Caithness Earls of the line of Angus, and in 1340 we
find Reginald More, Chamberlain of Scotland, ancestor of the Crichton
or Sinclair Earls of Caithness, acquiring from Malise II, one of the
Stratherne Earls of Caithness and a descendant of the line of Paul
and also of the line of Erlend, part of south Caithness (including
Berridale), which therefore Reginald Chen III did not then own or
acquire, though he owned half Caithness. But Reginald Chen III did
acquire Berridale and other lands later in David II's reign according
to _Origines Parochiales_, II, p. 764.
Now it is known from other sources that Reginald Chen III was a
grandson of Johanna of Strathnaver, the mysterious lady of unrecorded
parentage already referred to, who owned land in "Strathnauir," and
who was dead in 1269, and who had married, at a date which we hope to
fix, Freskin de Moravia, Lord of Duffus, then also dead, and had
had by him two daughters, Mary and Christian, who were married
respectively to Reginald Chen II and William de Federeth I (whose sons
respectively were Reginald Chen III and William de Federeth II)
and these ladies succeeded each to one fourth of Caithness; and a
grant,[17] which was made in David II's time by William de Federeth II
in favour of Reginald Chen III, placed him in possession of William de
Federeth II's quarter of Caithness. Reginald Chen III thus had all the
half share of Caithness which was held by his grandmother, Johanna of
Strathnaver. We also know that by another grant in 1286[18] William
de Federeth I had already conveyed to Reginald Chen II four davachs of
land in Strathnaver and all his other lands there; and, besides these
grants, we have authentic record in May 1269, which recites that Lady
Johanna had before that date granted a considerable part of her lands
in Strathnaver to the Bishop of Moray for the maintenance of two
chaplains to minister in the Cathedral of Elgin.
By the above record, which is a regrant of the Strathnaver lands by
Archebald Bishop of Moray in May 1269 to Reginald Chen II, not only is
his marriage before that date to Mary daughter of Johanna by Freskin
de Moravia proved, but the lands in Strathnaver are identifiable. They
were "Langeval and Rossewal, tofftys de Dovyr, Achenedess, Clibr',
Ardovyr and Cornefern," which now are known in part as Langdale,
Rossal, Achness, Clibreck and Coire-na-fearn, while "tofftys" are
"tofts," and "Dovyr" and "Ardovyr" are respectively old Gaelic for
"water" and for "upper water." "Dovyr" would denote the River Naver
and loch of that name, and "Ardovyr" would mean Loch Coire and the
Mallard River, that is the "Abhain 'a Mhail Aird" of the Ordnance Map
(whatever that may mean),[19] which rises in Loch Coire, and, after a
course of six miles from its upper valley, falls about 330 feet below
its source into the River Naver at Dalharrold. These lands of the Lady
Johanna lay partly to the south of Loch Naver, extended southwards
nearly to Ben Armine, and stretched westwards to Loch Vellich or
Bealach and the Crask and Mudale, eastwards to Loch Truderscaig, and
northwards down the valley of the Naver at least as far as Syre.
Part of them, close to Achness,[30] is to this day known locally as
Kerrow-na-Shein, or Chen's Quarter, either after Johanna's son-in-law,
Sir Reginald Chen II, or after her grandson of the same name, the
great "Morar na Shein," about whom so many legends still survive in
Cat. These lands in Strathnaver are roughly hatched on the map of Cat
in this volume, and, as she gave them away in charitable trust,
they probably formed only a small part of her whole estate after her
marriage with Freskin de Moravia, which probably comprised the old
Parish of Farr, now divided into Tongue, Farr, and Reay.
It is suggested that the ownership of these lands in Strathnaver and
of the other upland territories in Halkirk and Latheron parishes, held
by her descendants and sequels in all her estate, the Chens, connects
the Lady Johanna with the family of Moddan "in dale" in Caithness
and with Earl Ottar, and with Frakark and Audhild her niece, and that
Johanna was entitled to these lands in their entirety in her own right
as the sole descendant remaining in Scotland after 1232 of Harald
Ungi's younger surviving sister Ragnhild, possibly through her son
Snaekoll by Gunni, and that Snaekoll was next heir to these lands
before he went abroad, and either that he was Johanna's father, or
that she became Ragnhild's heir in his place. In this way Johanna
would have a good right, especially if Magnus, son of Gilchrist, had
been compensated for his mother's share by receiving a grant of South
Caithness and its earldom, to receive a grant of the rest of the
Harald Ungi half share of the Caithness earldom, lands previously held
by Jarls and Earls St. Magnus and Erlend Thorfinn's son or some lands
of equal value, and the reason why she had such very large estates as
those which she brought to her husband and the Chen family as their
successors would be made clear. For she would have completed her title
to a large share of the Erlend lands, and also to the Moddan lands
which Gunni and Ragnhild had entered upon and held after the elder
sister of Ragnhild had left Caithness on her marriage with Gilchrist
Earl of Angus.
In support of Johanna's title it is to be observed that neither
Magnus II, nor his wife, is recorded to have claimed any part of
the Strathnaver lands, a fact which indicates that Johanna and her
predecessors had acquired an independent title to them, and that, too,
a title not derived through Earl John. Again, (though in a time when
records fail us, the argument proves little) Johanna, although from
her probable date she might have been so, is not recorded to have
been a daughter of John. Further, to be of suitable age[21] to marry
Freskin she must have been born long after any known child of Earl
John, even his son Harald who had died in 1226. Lastly, neither
Johanna nor her husband Freskin nor any descendant of hers ever
claimed either the whole of or any share in the Orkney jarldom,[22]
which Earls Harald Maddadson, David and John had held in its entirety,
and to which Johanna, had she been Earl John's only daughter, or her
husband Freskin would have been entitled to claim to succeed as sole
heir; while if John had had two daughters, and Johanna had been one of
them, she or her husband Freskin would have been entitled to claim a
grant of some share at least of the lands appertaining to the Orkney
jarldom.
It was, however, Earl Magnus who made such claims, and with success,
and he may well have obtained the Orkney jarldom and lands, and part
of the Caithness earldom as well, with the title, not only as being
the son of the elder of Harald Ungi's sisters, but as the husband of
Earl John's nameless daughter, while his name of Magnus, afterwards
so often repeated in the Angus line, came into that line obviously
through his mother at his baptism, and not through his wife at his
marriage.
The name of Johanna, on which Skene mainly founds his assertion that
Johanna of Strathnaver was Earl John's daughter, is just as easily
explicable, and with equal verisimilitude, if she was not. Snaekoll
went to Norway in 1232, leaving behind him, on our hypothesis, one
child, an infant daughter of tender years, or possibly as yet unborn.
The child of a younger child of Ragnhild would probably be still
younger. Heiress to very large landed estates and justly entitled to
claim a moiety of the Erlend Thorfinnson half of Caithness and all the
Moddan territories, this child would be made by the king of Scotland
a ward, to be married, if female, in due course to a suitable husband.
The Queen of Scotland, who in 1232 had been childless for eleven years
and never had any children afterwards, was an English princess who was
married to Alexander II on 19th June 1221, and lived till 4th March
1237-8, a period which would cover all Johanna's early years. The
queen's name was Joanna, and Johanna of Strathnaver may have been
called after her, as Earl John had possibly been called after her
father King John of England, the friend of Earl John's father, Harold
Maddadson.
We now have to fix the date of Freskin de Moravia, nephew of William,
_dominus Sutherlandiae_ since about 1214. Freskin, as stated, was
undoubtedly the husband of Johanna of Strathnaver, and became on
his marriage owner of her lands there as well as of a moiety of the
Caithness earldom lands.
Freskin was, as also stated, the eldest son of Walter de Moravia of
Duffus, second son of Hugo Freskyn of Strabrock, Duffus and Sutherland
by Walter's marriage with Euphamia, probably, from her name, a
daughter of Ferchar Mac-in-tagart, who became Earl of Ross.[23] As
Ferchar granted[24] certain lands at Clon in Ross about the year 1224
to Freskin's father Walter de Moravia of Duffus without pecuniary
or other valuable consideration, it has been concluded, probably
correctly, that this grant was made on the occasion of the marriage
of Walter to Ferchar's daughter Euphamia; and Freskin, their heir, was
born in or after 1225, and had become _dominus_ de Duffus by 1248 on
his father's death. Johanna, on our hypothesis, would have to be born
by 1232 at latest, that is, before or soon after her supposed father
Snaekoll went to Norway, and from her supposed father's date she could
hardly have been born before 1225. Snaekoll's date can be ascertained
with comparative accuracy. For his mother lost her first husband,
Lifolf Baldpate, only in 1198, at the battle of Clairdon, and she can
hardly have married Snaekoll's father, Gunni, much before 1200. From
these dates Snaekoll could have been born by 1201, and married in
Scotland between 1224 and 1231, and Freskin and Johanna would thus
be of very suitable ages to marry each other, and their marriage
therefore would take place after 1245, or possibly as late as 1250. If
Johanna was the daughter of a younger child of Ragnhild, she might be
born later than 1225.
This would involve a long minority for Johanna, and by reason of her
marriage with Freskin de Moravia in 1245 or later, we suspect that
Freskin's uncle, William _dominus Sutherlandiae_, whose territories
were bounded on the north and east by her lands, was her guardian,
an office whose duties the head of the powerful and loyal House
of Sutherland alone could efficiently perform in the troublous and
turbulent times of her minority.
From Bain's _Calendar of Documents_ relating to Scotland[25] we know
that Freskin was one of the signatories of the National Bond of mutual
alliance and friendship with Sir Llewelin son of Griffin, Prince of
Wales, and other leading Welshmen on the 18th of March 1259. Freskin
would not have been asked to sign a document of such international
importance unless, like another of its signatories, Sir Reginald Chen
I (whose son of the same name, Reginald Chen II, married Freskin's
daughter, Mary of Duffus, later on) he had been one of the leading men
of his time in Scotland. We also find that his rights were saved in a
charter of 11th April 1260 and that on 13th October 1260 he was one of
the three vice-gerents of Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan, Justiciar
of Scotland, present in Court at Perth on that date.[26]
On the 16th March 1262-3 from a grant of two chaplains[27] for the
weal of the soul of the deceased Freskin of Moray, Lord of Duffus, we
know that he had died before that date, that is, probably before his
fortieth year. Freskin, then, died after 13th October 1260 and before
16th March 1262-3, and was buried in the chapel of St. Lawrence in the
Church of Duffus, which he had founded and endowed with lands at
Dawey in Strath Spey, and Duffus. His wife Johanna ("quondam sponsa"
"quondam Friskyni de Moravia") was certainly dead in May 1269 (Reg.
Morav., ch. 126, p. 139).
They left no male heir, but they left two daughters, Mary and
Christian, both minors at their father's death and probably too young
to have been married in August 1263, when, as we shall find, their
lands and their half share of the Caithness earldom sadly needed
defenders from Norse invaders.
Owing to subsequent additions of territory, it is impossible at the
present time to say exactly what all the lands owned by an independent
title by Lady Johanna of Strathnaver were, but some guidance towards
the further identification of her lands in Caithness is found in the
fact that later charters give the names of the lands which her sequel
in all her estate, Reginald Chen III, known as "Lord Schein" or "Morar
na Shein" held,[28] and that he lived in and hunted from a castle at
the exit of the river Thurso from Loch More above Dirlot or Dilred
in Strathmore in Halkirk parish, but never owned Brawl, a capital
residence of the Caithness earls, but did own to the end of his life
"half Caithness," and acquired South Caithness after 1340 by purchase.
Adding to this the facts, indications, and probabilities alluded to in
this and preceding chapters as to the position of lands in Caithness
variously owned, we are able to venture to come to a general
conclusion as to the devolution of the Caithness earldom and lands.
This conclusion is, that what may be termed the shares of the
respective lines of Paul and Erlend, the sons of Earl Thorfinn and
others, in the Caithness earldom lands probably went respectively
between 1231 and 1239 and afterwards in the following manner.
The right to succeed to the share of Paul passed, on his descendant
Earl John's death in 1231, to Earl John's only child then alive, the
nameless hostage daughter, who, according to our theory, had after
1st August 1214 married Magnus, son of Earl Gilchrist of Angus by his
second marriage with either Ingibiorg or Elin, both sisters of Harald
Ungi, and both older than Ragnhild. But the title of Earl of Caithness
and the enjoyment of the whole earldom was on Earl John's death
temporarily conferred, in addition to his title of Earl of Angus, on
Malcolm, Earl of Angus, and nephew of Magnus the husband of John's
hostage daughter, as being the head of the Angus family and one of the
most powerful earls in Scotland, pending a general settlement of the
affairs of Sutherland and Caithness; and Malcolm held his own Earldom
of Angus, and, in addition, for the Crown, as _Custos_, trustee, or
administrator _pendente lite_, held Caithness after 22nd April 1231
and certainly at 7th October 1232, possibly till 3rd July 1236, when
the following settlement was made.
Caithness, without Sutherland, was with the title of Earl of
Caithness, North and South, confirmed to Earl Magnus II by two grants,
the one of North Caithness in right of his wife and the other of South
Caithness in right of his mother. The estate of Sutherland was after
10th October 1237 erected into an earldom in the person of William,
who was the eldest son of Hugo Freskyn, and was then owner of the
estate, this earldom being, as stated in the Diploma of the Orkney
Earls, "taken away from Magnus II" in his lifetime, possibly out of
South Caithness, by Alexander II.
On Magnus' death in 1239, Gillebryd or Gillebride, called in the
Icelandic Annals Gibbon, who was either a son or younger brother of
Magnus, succeeded Magnus II in the Orkney and Caithness titles and in
the Paul share of the Caithness earldom, and it appears from a
grant of the advowson of Cortachy on 12th December 1257 that Matilda
daughter of Gillebert, "then late Earl of Orkney," married Malise
Earl of Stratherne. On Gillebride's death in 1256, his son Magnus III
succeeded to Orkney and to the share of Paul in the Caithness earldom,
as held by Earl Magnus II and Earl Gillebride his successor, that
is without the Sutherland earldom, and without Freskin and Johanna's
share of Caithness.
The right to succeed to the other share of Caithness, that of Erlend
Thorfinnson, which, according to _The Flatey Book_ had belonged to
Jarl Ragnvald, and had been conferred on Harald Ungi by William the
Lion in 1197, passed through Ragnhild, another and the youngest sister
of Harald Ungi, and then through a child of hers, possibly Snaekoll
Gunni's son, the only known male representative of this line at the
time, or through Snaekoll's younger brother or sister, along with
the Moddan estates in Strathnaver and in various highland and Celtic
parishes in Caithness, to Johanna of Strathnaver as Ragnhild's heir;
but this share did not carry with it the title of Countess. It
was held for her in wardship, but it was not formally granted and
confirmed by the Crown to her or her husband Freskin de Moravia, who
had become Lord of Duffus by 1248, until their marriage, in or after
1245, or even later, and when the settlement was made, possibly South
Caithness was taken partly out of it.
If Earl John had left no daughter at all, the result in Caithness
might well have been much the same; for in that case the Caithness
title and lands might well have been conferred as to the title and
a share of the earldom lands on the elder surviving sister of Harald
Ungi, Ingibiorg or Elin, and her heir, while the other share without
the title would go to the heir of the younger sister Ragnhild. But
Magnus, if he had not married John's daughter, would not have got
North Caithness, and it seems essential that Magnus should have
married into the line of Earl John, in order to found a claim on his
part to the Jarldom of Orkney, which Harold Maddadson, David, and John
(with whom Magnus had no relationship at all, so far as is known)
had held in its entirety, in spite of the grant of a moiety of it
to Harald Ungi, ever since Harald Ungi's death in 1198, and to the
exclusion of the Erlend line from all share in Orkney, (save for
Harald Ungi's grant) ever since Jarl Ragnvald's death in 1158.
But who will find _evidence to prove_ our conjectures to be even
approximately true?
Till this is done, these matters rest upon mere conjecture, based
mainly upon known Scottish policy, the name of "Magnus," and the
probable situation of the lands owned by the parent lines and the
families known afterwards to have held them, namely, the families of
Cheyne, Federeth, Sutherland, Keith, Oliphant, and Sinclair, among
whose writs or inventories of them search might be made.