This is from an independent, impartial writer who had no interest
whatever in supporting either the one theory or the other.

Sir William Fraser, the well-known author of so many valuable private
family histories, incidentally refers to the forged charter in
his 'Earls of Cromartie,' written specially for the late Duke of
Sutherland. He was naturally unwilling to offend the susceptibilities
of the Mackenzie chiefs, all of whom had hitherto claimed Colin
Fitzgerald as their progenitor, but he was forced to admit the
inconclusive character of the disputed charter, and that no such
charter was granted to Colin Fitzgerald by Alexander III. Sir
William says:- "In the middle of the seventeenth century, when
Lord Cromartie wrote his history, the means of ascertaining, by the
names of witnesses and other ways, the true granter of a charter
and the date were not so accessible as at present. The mistake
of attributing the Kintail charter to King Alexander the Third,
instead of King Alexander the Second, cannot be regarded as a
very serious error in the circumstances." Sir William, it will
be observed, gives up the charter from Alexander III. The mere
admission that it is not of Alexander III. is conclusive against
its ever having been granted to Colin Fitzgerald at all, for, as
already pointed out, that adventurer, if he ever existed, did not,
even according to his stoutest supporters, cross the Irish Channel,
nor was he ever heard of on this side of it, for more than thirty
years after the date written on the face of the document itself
could possibly have been genuine, the witnesses whose names
appear as attesting it having been in there graves for more than
a generation before the battle of Largs was fought.

When the ablest upholders of the Colin Fitzgerald theory are obliged