ever existed elsewhere than in the Earl of Cromartie's fertile
imagination.

But this is not all. It has long been established beyond any
possible doubt that the Earls of Ross were the superiors of the
lands of Kintail during the identical period in which the same lands
are said to have been held by Colin Fitzgerald and his descendants
as direct vassals of the Crown. Ferchard Mac an t-Sagairt, Earl
of Ross, received a grant of the lands of Kintail from Alexander
II. for services rendered to that monarch in 1222, and he is again
on record as their possessor in 1234, four years after the latest
date on which the reputed charter to Colin Fitzgerald, keeping
in view the witnesses whose names appear on the face of it, could
possibly have been a genuine document. Even the most prominent of
the clan historians who have so stoutly maintained the Fitzgerald
theory felt bound to admit that, "it cannot be disputed that the
Earl of Ross was the Lord paramount under Alexander II., by whom
Farquhard Mac an t-Sagairt was recognised in the hereditary dignity
of his predecessors, and who, by another tradition," Dr George
Mackenzie says, "was a real progenitor of the noble family of
Kintail." That the Earls of Ross continued lords paramount long
after the death of Colin Fitzgerald, which event is said to have
taken place in 1278, will be incontestibly proved.

But meantime let us return to the 'Origines Parochiales Scotiae.'
There we have it stated on authority which no one whose opinion
is worth anything will for a moment call in question. The editor
of that remarkable work says:- "In 1292 the Sheriffdom of Skye
erected by King John Baliol, included the lands of the Earl of Ross
in North Argyle, a district which comprehended Kintail and several