Talk:John Randolph, 3rd Earl of Moray

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Do you have a source for this claim that on his death the Earldom of Moray reverted to the crown? Sources state that it passed to his sister, Black Agnes of Dunbar. Are you possibly getting confused with his wife's Earldom of Ross? PatGallacher 10:23, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, of course. The earldom of Moray was granted to Thomas Randolph in 1312 as male entail, not in regality, and the grant specified that it would revert to the crown upon lack of male issue. The absence of the king after the death of John Randolph meant that the king couldn't not take immediate physical possession, but Robert Stewart did, and carved much of it up between himself (he granted Badenoch to his son Alexander) and John of Islay (who got Lochaber). It wasn't until 1369 that David was able to march to Inverness and take possession of as much of the lowlands of Moray that he could. He retained control of it until his death in 1371, but after Robert II succeeded the following year, he confirmed the break up of the earldom, and the parliament of Scone in 1372 granted the Earldom of Moray to John Dunbar in regality. For this, see Stephen Boardman, The Early Stewart Kings, pp. 51-2. Speaking of the earldom, Boardman writes "In early 1372, however, a major territorial deal between Robert II and the Dunbar brothers allowed the king's son Robert to acquire the earldom of Fife. The arrangement centred on Robert II acknowledging the claims of John and George Dunbar to elements of the inheritance of the Randolph earls of Moray, lords of Annandale and Man. John and George Dunbar were the sons of Isabella Randolph, daughter of Thomas Randolph, the third and last of the Randolph earls of Moray who had died without issue heirs at the Battle of Neville's Cross in 1346. In strictly legal terms the Dunbar claims to be the descendants and heirs of the Randolph earls of Moray were not particularly strong, because the 1312 grant to Thomas Randolph, the first earl, had explicitly made the earldom a male entail with a reversion to the crown on the failure of male heirs. In 1368 David II had recovered control of the earldom of Moray under the terms of the 1312 entail, and until 1372 the earldom remained part of the royal financial and territorial system. In a parliament at Scone in March 1372, however, John Dunbar and his spouse, the king's daughter Marjory, were granted the earldom in free regality, excepting the lordships of Lochaber, Badenoch and the castle of Urquhart, which had already been granted out to the lord of the Isles and the king's sons Alexander and David." In no proper source to I have Agnes being called "Countess of Moray"; she was neither the legal Countess nor was she ever in possession of it nor did David say she should be in possession. In the index to the article "Kings of the wild frontier? The earls of Dunbar or March, c. 1070-1435", in the Exercise of Power in Medieval Scotland, c. 1200-1500, Agnes is called simply "countess of March". I'm afraid this seems to be another one of those fictions about medieval Scottish nobility going around the internet; you can usually blame the Victorians for this kind of thing. Anyways, she definitely was not the Countess of Moray. Regards, Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 15:43, 31 August 2006 (UTC)