The answer brings us to a mysterious lady, who is known to us through a charter[24] of May 1269 preserved in the _Registrum Episcopatus Moraviensis_ or Chartulary of the Bishopric of Moray, and who is called therein _n.o.bilis mulier domina Johanna_, the then deceased wife of Freskin de Moravia, Lord of Duffus, who had died before her. From her name of Johanna this lady is stated to have been a daughter of Earl John, amongst others by so eminent an authority as the late Mr.

William F. Skene in a paper "on the Earldom of Caithness," first read to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland on the 11th March 1878, which is reprinted as Appendix V to the Third Volume of his _Celtic Scotland_ at pages 448 to 453, and the lady is generally known as Lady Johanna de Strathnavir; and on her descent much subsequent history depends.

Skene's conclusion is that the half of Caithness which afterwards belonged to the Angus earls was that half usually possessed by the line of Erlend Thorfinnson, and that Joanna (or Johanna) was Earl John's daughter, and, as such, inherited the Paul share of the earldom and brought it to Freskin de Moravia, when he married her, without the t.i.tle.

We doubt the accuracy of this conclusion, for reasons which, however, rest not on direct evidence, but, like those given in Mr. Skene's paper, on mere probabilities; and we hold that the converse is true, and that Johanna was no daughter of John, and that it was the Erlend half of the Caithness earldom lands that went to her and her husband Freskin de Moravia of Duffus, while the moiety of Paul, in our opinion, remained with a nameless daughter of John, and went along with the t.i.tle of Earl of Caithness, to her husband Magnus, and so to the Angus earls of Caithness, though the lands which went with it were then much curtailed in extent.

But it must be remembered that, in the absence of records, any solution of this difficult problem at present rests on mere speculation and guesswork, and the opinions expressed here must be accepted as mere conjectures unsupported by direct contemporary evidence, and based only upon reasonable probability.

We propose to attempt to deal with this difficult subject in the next chapter.

CHAPTER IX.

_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 t.i.tle 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 a.s.sumed 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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle of Angus, as was customary, the t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle 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 ent.i.tled 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. x.x.xv, 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 a.s.sumptions, 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 ent.i.tled 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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle, 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 ent.i.tled 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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle to them, and that, too, a t.i.tle 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 ent.i.tled 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 ent.i.tled 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 t.i.tle, 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 a.s.sertion 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 ent.i.tled 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 Doc.u.ments_ 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 doc.u.ment 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 t.i.tle 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 pa.s.sed, 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 t.i.tle of Earl of Caithness and the enjoyment of the whole earldom was on Earl John's death temporarily conferred, in addition to his t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tles 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, pa.s.sed 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 t.i.tle 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.