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, an
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