Ugly of countenance, but of great bodily strength and stature, crafty, self-seeking, treacherous and wholly unscrupulous, he is still known in the North as "the wicked Earl Harold," yet the Saga classes him with Sigurd Eysteinsson and Thorfinn Sigurdson as one of the three greatest of the Jarls and Earls of Orkney and Caithness. On the mainland, no new earldom north of the Oykel was conferred on anyone for a further period of thirty years. It was, in fact, neither the policy nor, save in very exceptional cases, the practice of the Scottish kings to grant earldoms to men with powerful followings and vast territories;[51] for these made them, especially in remote situations, almost independent rulers, and dangerous enemies, and it was undesirable to increase their importance by additional dignities. It was, on the contrary, usual by charter to create barons and other military tenants, who should hold their lands, described in their charters, by military service, in male succession direct from the Scottish Crown, and liable to forfeiture for disloyal conduct. Nowhere were military tenants so essential as they then were in the extreme north of Scotland on lands immediately adjoining the territories of Norse jarls owing double allegiance, and therefore of doubtful loyalty to the Scottish Crown. For this reason also no part of the lands of the Erlend line would be granted to the line of Paul, as an addition to their own. From what has been above stated, it will appear that we have treated the well known history, intituled _The Genealogie and Pedigree of the Earles of Southerland_ and written down to 1630 by Sir Robert Gordon, Baronet of Gordonstoun, and continued by Gilbert Gordon of Sallach[52] until 1651, as mere fiction as regards all persons before William, first Earl. "Alane Southerland, Thane of Southerland," Walter "first Earle," Robert, second earl, who is alleged to have founded "Dounrobin Castell" were purely fictitious persons. "Hugh Southerland, Earle of Southerland nicknamed Freskin" existed, but never was an earl, as Sir Robert well knew, because he quotes charters right up to his death, in which he was styled simply Hugo Freskyn. The _Sutherland Book_ also wholly omits William MacFrisgyn, second Lord of Duffus and Strabroc, the son and heir of Freskyn I and the father of Hugo. A revised pedigree of the early generations of Freskyn's family will be found in an Appendix to this book, and it is believed to be correct. At the same time it is in conflict as to the first three generations with so high an authority as the late Cosmo Innes, and Sir William Fraser followed him. However this may be, it is abundantly clear, from contemporary and undoubtedly authentic records still happily extant, that in the twelfth century Freskyn de Moravia and his immediate successors were the guardians appointed by one Scottish king after another to protect the fertile coast lands of Moray and Nairn alike