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.
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