its chief." ['Highlands and Highlanders.']

In his later and more important work the same learned historian
discusses this question at great length. He analyses all
the doubtful pedigrees and origins claimed by the leading clans.
Regarding the Fitzgerald theory he says, "But the most remarkable
of these spurious origins is that claimed by the Mackenzies. It
appears to have been first put forward by Sir George Mackenzie,
first Earl of Cromarty," who, in his first manuscript, made Colin
a son of the Earl of Kildare, but in a later edition, written in
1669, "finding that there was no Earl of Kildare until 1290, he
corrects it by making him son of John Fitz-Thomas, chief of the
Geraldines in Ireland, and father of John, first Earl of Kildare,
who was slain in 1261." Dr Skene then summarises the story already
known at length to the reader, quotes the Record of Icolmkill
and the forged charter, and concludes -

"The same mistake is here committed as is usual in manufacturing
these pedigree charters, by making it a crown charter erecting the
lands into a barony. Kintail could not have been a barony at
that time, and the Earl of Ross and not the king was superior,
for in 1342 the Earl of Ross grants the ten davochs of the lands
of Kintail to Reginald, son of Roderick of the Isles, and we
find that the Mackenzies held their lands of the Earls of Ross
and afterwards of the Duke of Ross till 1508, when they were all
erected into a barony by King James the Fourth, who gave them a
crown charter. An examination of the witnesses usually detects
these spurious charters, and in this case it is conclusive against
the charter. Andrew was bishop of Moray from 1223 to 1242 and
there was no bishop of that name in the reign of Alexander the