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Updated: May 11, 2025
On Magnus' death in 1239, Gillebryd or Gillebride, called in the Icelandic Annals Gibbon, who was either a son or younger brother of Magnus, succeeded Magnus II in the Orkney and Caithness titles and in the Paul share of the Caithness earldom, and it appears from a grant of the advowson of Cortachy on 12th December 1257 that Matilda daughter of Gillebert, "then late Earl of Orkney," married Malise Earl of Stratherne.
So far as the Angus pedigree can be ascertained, it appears that Earl Gillebride died about 1187, leaving two sons, Adam and Gilchrist, who succeeded in turn to that earldom, and Gillebride also left a third son, Gilbert, a fourth, William, and a fifth, Angus, who had a son Gillebert or Gillebryd.
On Gillebride's death in 1256, his son Magnus III succeeded to Orkney and to the share of Paul in the Caithness earldom, as held by Earl Magnus II and Earl Gillebride his successor, that is without the Sutherland earldom, and without Freskin and Johanna's share of Caithness.
Gillebride died in 1200, so that Magnus must have been born before that date, and about the time of Earl Harald Ungi, who had half of Caithness, and died in 1198. Magnus is a name peculiar to this line, as the great Earl Magnus belonged to it, and Harald Ungi had a brother Magnus.
Gillebride had then succeeded to both the reduced Scottish earldom of Caithness and the whole of the Orkney jarldom as successor in the Angus line of Magnus II; and Gillebride had died in 1256 leaving a son Magnus III. Like his predecessors, Magnus III seems to have found himself in the awkward position of being bound to serve two masters who were rapidly approaching a state of war with each other.
These daughters probably inherited the half of Caithness through their mother Johanna. Gillebride having called one of his sons by the Norwegian name of Magnus, indicates that he had a Norwegian mother. This is clear from his also becoming Earl of Orkney, which the king of Scots could not have given him.
The question then arises, as Robertson puts it, "who was the heir?" and he answers it, "certainly not his uncle Magnus, son of Gillebride, but very probably the son of Magnus by Earl John's daughter; the supposed grant of the Earldom to this Magnus being probably grounded upon his real marriage with the heiress," and he adds "If, on the death of Earl John in 1231, his grandson was an orphan and a minor, his wardship would naturally have been granted to the next of kin, his cousin the Earl of Angus."
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