Gillemichel Macduff, from his position in the earliest charter, must have held a high position as a follower of the king, and may have rendered him great services, which legend drew back to the usurpation of the throne of his ancestor Duncan by Macbeth, and led to the creation of the fictitious Macduff, who makes his first appearance in Fordun’s Chronicle, and after Constantin’s death Gillemichel may first have had the personal title of Comes or Earl bestowed upon him, and then been feudally invested with the Earldom of Fife, which thus may have become a territorial title in his person. It certainly did so in that of his successor Duncan, who received from David a charter of the earldom, which was confirmed to his successors by the subsequent kings;[75] and a similar feudal investiture of the earldom of Angus in the person of Gillibride may have added that old Celtic earldom likewise to the number, as from this time, when we find the older earldoms still conferring no territorial designation on their earls, Gillibride invariably appears along with them as Earl of Angus. During the earlier part of the reign of Malcolm IV. no change appears to have been made in the position of the existing earldoms. His first charter after his accession appears to have been his confirmation of the grants to the monastery of Dunfermline, and this charter is witnessed first by six bishops, then by twelve barons, most of whom were Normans, and other foreigners, and then by six of the earls (De Comitibus), who are thus named: Gospatricius Comes, Ferteth Comes, Duncanus Comes, Morgund Comes, Melcolmus Comes, et Comes de Engus. The five preceding earls were those of Dunbar, Stratherne, Fife, Mar, and Athol, the earl of Buchan, who would make up the number of the seven earls, not appearing among them. To this number a temporary addition was made by Malcolm, when, on making peace with Malcolm macHeth, the pretended son of Earl Angus of Moray, in 1157, he gave him the district of Ros with the title of earl; but the inhabitants soon rose against him and drove him out.