Sutherland and Caithness in Saga Time by James Gray

J >> James Gray >> Sutherland and Caithness in Saga Time

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

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.

CHAPTER X.

_King Hakon and the North of Scotland._

We can now turn with some sense of relief from the intricate maze
of the genealogy of the Caithness earls to the more open ground of
Scottish history, which we left at the date of the death of William
the Lion in December 1214, when he was succeeded on the throne of
Scotland by his son, Alexander II, a youth who had then just entered
his seventeenth year. We can then work the results of our genealogical
conjectures into the general history of the northern counties.

Alexander II, like his predecessors, was in the year after his
accession immediately confronted with a revolt headed by Donald Ban
MacWilliam the younger, another of the descendants of Ingibjorg of
Orkney, widow of Earl Thorfinn and first wife of Malcolm Canmore. The
scene of the rising was, as usual, Moray; and Donald was aided not
only by the inhabitants of that province, but also by a large force
of Irish mercenaries. This rebellion, however, was speedily crushed by
Ferchar Mac-in-tagart of the family of the Lay Abbots of Applecross
in the west of Ross, a county to which Henry, the eldest son of Harold
Maddadson had in vain laid claim.

Differences which threatened to break out between Scotland and England
were speedily settled, and the young king, as we have seen, married
Joanna, sister of King Henry III of England, in 1221. Alexander next
conquered the district of Argyll in 1222, and in the same year reduced
Caithness to subjection on the occasion of Bishop Adam's murder, and
he shortly afterwards put down two rebellions, the one in Moray, as
above stated, and the other in Galloway, a district which, however, he
did not finally conquer till 1235, although Mac-in-tagart was knighted
for a victory there in 1215, and soon after, by 1226, became Earl of
Ross.[1] In 1236, as a punishment for burning to death the Earl of
Atholl, in revenge for the defeat of a member of their family at a
tournament, the Bissets were deprived of their estates near Beauly,
and fled to England, where they endeavoured to embroil that country
again with Scotland. In this they failed, and a treaty was signed
between the two nations that neither should make war on the other
unless it were first attacked itself.[2]

Argyll, Galloway, and Moray being subdued and settled, and the old
Earldom of Caithness broken up, and divided among trustworthy feudal
tenants holding their lands by military service from the Scottish
king, the whole of the mainland of Scotland may now be said to have
been effectively incorporated into one kingdom under the Scottish
Crown. Ecclesiastically, also, the whole realm was divided into
dioceses, whose bishops were appointed by consent of the king.

The dream of Malcolm II at last was realised.

The western islands of the Hebrides, however, still owed allegiance to
the king of Norway, who was till 1240 engaged in civil war with Duke
Skuli in his own kingdom. Alexander II therefore equipped a naval
expedition to reduce the islands, but, soon after he had embarked,
he sickened and died on the island of Kerrera, near Oban, in 1249,
leaving as his successor, his son Alexander III, then only in his
eighth year, who was married in 1251, before his eleventh year, to
Margaret, daughter of Henry III of England, then a child of about
the same age as himself. The marriage was followed by a nine years'
struggle between the rival factions of Alan Durward, Justiciar of
Scotland, and of Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, in which England
constantly interfered, till the Comyn, or Scottish, faction finally
gained the upper hand. In 1261, Alexander III's only child Margaret,
who afterwards became Queen of Norway, was born.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16