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.
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