page_title: Mormaer of Caithness
section_title: Angus and Strathearn rulers
hierarchical_section_title: Mormaer of Caithness / Mormaers of Caithness / Angus and Strathearn rulers
caption_attribution_description: English: A map of the Pentland Firth, northern Scotland, showing various towns and villages on the British mainland and in Orkney, as well as physical features, including islands in the Firth. This map's source is here, with the uploader's modifications, and the GMT homepage says that the tools are released under the GNU General Public License.
context_page_description: The Mormaer of Caithness was a vassal title mostly held by members of the Norwegian nobility based in Orkney from the Viking Age until 1350. The mormaerdom was held as fief of Scotland and the title was frequently held by the Norse Earls of Orkney, who were thus a vassal of both the King of Norway and the King of Scots. There is no other example in the history of either Norway or of Scotland in which a dynasty of earls owed their allegiance to two different kings.
  The earliest reference to the title is however to that of a native Scots ruler, Donnchad, although the extent of the Scottish crown's influence so far north at the time, beyond the lands of the powerful Mormaers of Moray, is questionable. The Norse saga which mentions Donnchad does not provide a date, although the context suggests the early tenth century. Nonetheless, at least since the childhood of Thorfinn Sigurdsson in c. 1020, but possibly already several decades before, the Earls of Orkney were the controlling figures.
context_section_description: Jon Haraldsson's son Harald had drowned in 1226 and as there were no male heirs two parties with a claim sought the jarldom from King Haakon Haakonsson of Norway. On their return to Orkney in the autumn of 1232 in a single ship the claimants and their supporters were all lost at sea. As early as 2 October of that year the Caithness title was claimed by a member of the family of the Earl of Angus and it was to this house that Caithness and Orkney were  eventually granted.
  There was no Mormaer of Caithness from c. 1350 to 1379. Alexander of Ard, the son of Maol Íosa's daughter Matilda and Weland of Ard (Aird, west of Inverness) was considered the rightful heir to Caithness but he resigned his interest in 1375 to King Robert II, possibly for a financial compensation or the king's support for his attempt to become Earl of Orkney. The power vacuum in Caithness was filled by William III, Earl of Ross. After this time the title "Earl of Caithness" was granted to David Stewart, 1st Earl of Caithness a younger son of Robert II whose successors have borne that title from then until the present day.
caption: The Pentland Firth, the "waterway which divided - or united - the Earldoms of Caithness and Orkney".[7] Caithness is to the south and some of the Orkney islands are to the north.
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