BORN about 1272 - married [The Heiress of Orkney] Johanna, daughter of Sir John de Menteith.
PRINCES CONTEMPORANEOUS:
NORWAY: 1319 Magnus VII
SCOTLAND: 1306 Robert I; 1330 David II
ROME: 1316 John XXII
PRELATES:
ORKNEY: 1310 William III; 1328 William IV - [See Historiettes]
CAITHNESS: 1310 Ferquhard; 1332 Nicholas - [See Historiettes]
UPON the death of Magnus V, without male issue, the Orcadian succession opened up to heirs female, and although Simon Fraser (who fell at Halidon Hill, 1333) and Margaret, his spouse, are named in 1330 as having inherited half of Magnus' Caithness possessions, the other half and the earldoms of Orkney and Caithness passed by lineal succession undisputed to the House of Stratherne - Scottish Earls Palatine of an ancient Celtic stock.
In the absence of explicit information from contemporary sources, the way in which the Stratherne Line acquired the right to Orkney is at present matter of conjecture. According to the Diploma of the succession of the Earls of Orkney, Gilbride II had issue besides his son and successor, a daughter Matilda, contemporary with Malise III of Stratherne, and she may have been his first Countess. In 1292 Maria, Queen-Dowager of Man, appears as Countess of Stratherne in the presence of Malise III, [from Nisbet's Heraldry and Ragman Roll] and in 1293 he enters into a marriage contract of his daughter Matilda (then not yet in her 20th year) with Robert de Thony. Thus Malise III may have married first the Lady Matilda of Orkney, and by her had issue the daughter Matilda and his successor Malise IV of Stratherne, and on her decease married Maria, relict of Reginald, King of Man, he having died in 1269.
Malise I of Orkney and Caithness, and IV of Stratherne, fought under the banners of Bruce in 1310, and took prisoner his father Malise III. From a charter of confirmation by King Robert Bruce (1306-1329) of the lands of Kingkell, Brechin to Maria (Marjorie ?) de Stratherne, wife of Malise de Stratherne, as the title is not accorded to either of them, it appears that Malise I of Orkney was then in apparency only to Stratherne, yet (it seems) the same Maria figures as Countess of Stratherne when involved in the Brechin-Soulis conspiracy of 1320, thus Malise III of Stratherne must have died before that date.
Soon after 1319 Malise IV of Stratherne confirms the grant of his father, Earl Malise, to Sir John Murray and Mary, daughter of Malise III. [From Nisbet's Heraldry]. In 1320 he is one of the Scottish patriot nobles who sign the letter to Pope John.
In all probability Malise IV of Stratherne married a sister of Magnus V, and enjoyed the Orcadian Earldom in his wife's right without question, as no formal investiture seems either to have been sought for or obtained. A claim, however, was made for this purpose by one Malise - probably the Master of Orkney - and a caveat entered to secure the revenues in the country till he had time to take the steps that were necessary for obtaining what he considered his right. [From Barry]. In Dean Gules translation of the Diploma it is recited: "Herefore the said Lord and Earl (William of Saint Clare) supponit that it was well known to us how our supreme Lord Mawnis, most illustrious King of Norway, had directed to our deceased predecessors his patent letters for his progenitor Earl Malisius, exhorted them and charged them to deliver to the said Malisius Earl, all charters, evidence, and letters of priviledge pertinent to him concerning the Earldom of Orkney".
The preceding Earl of Orkney and Caithness, Magnus V, was alive in 1320, for on the 6th April of that year he subscribed the letter to Pope John. It seems as if he had been dead in 1321, for in a document addressed by King Robert Bruce to the "ballivi" of the King of Norway in Orkney, dated at Cullen 4th August 1321, he complains that Alexander Brun, "the king's enemy", convicted of lese majestalis, had been received into Orkney, and had been refused to be given up, though instantly demanded "by our ballivus in Caithness, HENRY ST.CLAIR" He was certainly dead in 1329, for in that year his dowager Katherine executes two charters as Countess of Orkney and Caithness in viduilate.
William III, the Orcadian bishop, was in conflict with his metropolitan about this time. He was suspended by the Archbishop in 1321, but was evidently soon restored to favour, for in 1324 we find him assisting at the consecration of Laurentius, Bishop of Hole. By a deed dated at Bergen 9th September 1327, he mortgages his dues of Shetland to his metropolitan, Eilif, Archbishop of Nidaros, for the payment of 186 marks, which he should have paid the Archbishop for six years teinds [tithes]. By another document of the same year, Bishop Audfinn requests Bishop William of Orkney to assist his priest Ivar in the collection of sunnive miel, a contribution which the inhabitants of Shetland had paid from old time to the shrine of St.Sunniva at Bergen. The exact date of this prelate's death has not been ascertained, but William IV, the ninth bishop succeeded him soon after the year 1328.
In 133l Earl Malise possessed the fourth part of Caithness, as appears from an entry in the Chamberlain Rolls in that year, another fourth part being in the possession of Simon Fraser and Margaret his spouse, thus accounting for the half of Caithness which had belonged to Magnus V, and showing that on his death his possessions devolved upon two heirs-female. Simon Fraser and his brother-in-law Malise, Earl of Orkney, Caithness and Stratherne, both perished at the battle of Halidon Hill, 11th July 1333, in which battle the earl was one of the three leaders of the third division of the Scottish army.
Considerable confusion exists as to the dates of succession and marriages of the four last Earls of Stratherne, who were all of the name of Malise. There is record of a Charter of Confirmation by Bruce of a charter [in 1323], by Malise, Earl of Stratherne, to Johanna, daughter of the late Sir J. de Menteith, knight, spouse of the same earl, of the lands of Cortachie, in the shire of Forfar, of Glenlitherner, Dalkeith, and half of Urkwell, in the earldom of Stratherne. From this notice it is to be inferred that Malise was not as yet Earl of Orkney and Caithness. Sir John Menteith signed the letter to the Pope in 1320, and is then described as "guardian" of the earldom of Menteith. He last appears in 1329 during the minority of David Bruce, one of whose charters he attested. He had been created Earl of Lennox by Edward I of England, which he abandoned in 1306; it is also stated that the same monarch created him Earl of Atholl, and it is thus probable that his daughter succeeded to that dignity in her own right. She is the Johanna de Stratherne noted as having married (1) Malise IV of Stratherne, I of Orkney and Caithness; (2) John Campbell, Earl of Atholl by right of his wife, who fell at Halidon Hill in 1333; (3) John de Warrenne, Earl of Warren and Surrey, born 1286, married first to Joan, daughter of the Count de Bar, by whom he had no issue, and from whom in 1315 he obtained a divorce on the ground of a pre-contract of marriage with one Maud de Nereford, whom, however, he did not marry. [History of Westminster]
When Malise, next Earl of Stratherne and Orkney, was forfeited by the English party for supporting Edward Balliol, King Edward III of England created [the Earl's stepfather], John de Warrenne, Earl of Stratherne anterior to the 2nd March 1334, from which we infer that the Earl of Surrey married Johanna de Stratherne almost immediately after the death of her second husband, the Earl of Atholl. There must have been an annulment before July 1339, when Benedict II granted the Papal dispensation for the marriage of Maurice de Moravia with Johanna, widow of John, Earl of Atholl, styling her therein Countess of Stratherne. Maurice de Moravia was related in the third degree to the said John, Earl of Atholl, hence the dispensation. He was created Earl of Stratherne on the 31st October 1345, and fell at the Battle of Durham in 1346. The Earl of Surrey died without legitimate issue in 1347 at the age of 61. It will be observed that the marriages of Johanna with (2) John, Earl of Atholl and (4) Maurice de Moray were during the Earl of Surrey's life, the latter marriage at least serving to establish the fact of a divorce having been procured from John, Earl de Warrenne, Surrey and Stratherne. About 1330 she executed a charter of the lands of Gellow in Cortachy, in which she refers to her father as deceased. In the Atholl charter-room is a charter granted by her nephew John de Menteith, sheriff of Clackmannanshire, by which it is ascertained that some time before 1352 she wedded (5) William, Earl of Sutherland.
She executed a charter during one of her terms of widowhood in favour of Robert of Erskine and his wife, Christian of Keith, her cousin, which is confirmed in 1361 by Robert, Steward of Scotland, and Earl of Stratherne. Christian of Keith was the only daughter of Sir John Menteith, by Elyne, daughter of Gratney, Earl of Mar. Christian Menteith married first Sir Edward Keith, by whom she had Janet Keith, and second Sir Robert Erskine, by whom she had no issue; but a marriage was arranged between Thomas, the eldest son of a previous marriage of Sir Robert, and Janet Keith, the representatives of which marriage now enjoy the Earldom of Mar as heirs of Elyne, wife of Sir John Menteith. The Countess of Stratherne in the foregoing charter could not have been the daughter of Sir John Menteith, who married the Earl of Stratherne, as in that case she would have been in the relationship of sister to Christian of Keith. It is therefore more likely that she was the daughter of the Earl of Menteith mentioned in the Diploma as married to the last Earl of Stratherne, whom she predeceased.
There are several notices in Scottish record publications of Countesses of Stratherne, but it is almost impossible to identify the particular individual meant. Thus notices between 1339-61 may refer to the much-married Johanna de Menteith, to Marjory of Ross, or to Euphemia of Ross, afterwards Queen of Scotland.
[From Orkneyinga Saga and Barry]
NOTE - It is probable that only one of these Stratherne earls was Earl of Orkney, as notices 1320-1333 appear to refer to the last Earl Malise.