Maeldobhen, a descent antecedently probable, as this name of Maldoven or Maeldouen occurs among the later earls, while the Annals of Ulster record that in 1216 ‘Trad O’Mailfabhail, chief of Cinel Fergusa, with his brothers and many others, was slain by Muireadhach, son of the _Mormaer_ of Lennox,’ and the Celtic title of _Mormaer_ could hardly be borne by a Saxon earl. This Maeldouen, the grandfather of Alwyn, first earl, and the true ancestor of the race, must have lived in the early part of the twelfth century, and is thus contemporary with Meldoinneth, the son of Machedach, the ‘judex bonus and discretus,’ who, with Constantine earl of Fife, and Dufgal son of Mocche, _qui fuit senex_, joined in perambulating the lands of Kyrknesse; and as the latter appears in the old Irish genealogy of the Macleans as the grandfather of a lay abbot of Lismore and the ancestor of a Celtic clan, so in Meldoinneth, son of Machedach, we may possibly recognise the Maldobhnaigh, the grandfather of Alwyn, and the ancestor of the Gaelic Lords of the Lennox. The group of clans which sprang from the Lords of the Isles had their origin within the historic period, and their pedigree is too well authenticated to render a spurious version of it possible; while as the lands they held of the Lords of the Isles were in the main confirmed after the forfeiture of the last lord by the Crown, they were left without any great motive to do so; but two other clans, who were in reality not connected with them, seem to have thought it for their interest to claim likewise a descent from the Lords of the Isles, and both were connected with the earldom of Athole. These were the _Clan Donnachie_ or Robertsons of Strowan, and the MacNabs of Glendochart. The former clan simply exchanged Andrew de Atholia, the undoubted father of Duncan de Atholia, the _eponymus_ of the clan, for Angus of the Isles, but as Duncan is repeatedly designated in charters and other documents the son of Andrew de Atholia, the supposed connection with the Lords of the Isles is untenable. The MacNabs are stated by Buchanan of Auchmar to be descended of a son of the first abbot of Inchaffray, whose surname was M‘Donald, in the beginning of the reign of Alexander the Second. Inchaffray, however, was founded in the reign of William the Lion, and the first abbot was Malis, a pastor and hermit, and the second was Innocent, who had been prior, and neither could have been connected with the Macdonalds. The name MacNab certainly means the son of the abbot, but we must look elsewhere for the monastery of which he must have been the lay abbot. In the seventh century St. Fillan founded a monastery in Glendochart, the upper part of which took its name of Strathfillan from him, and in the reign of King William we find the abbot of Glendochart ranking along with the earls of Atholl and of Menteath.[497] As the property possessed by the MacNabs lay in Glendochart, and we find the name of _Gillafaelan_, or servant of St.