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.
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