| She is in 1494 referred to as daughter of Alexander Sutherland of Strabrock, and has, by Sir William Fraser and the Peerages been assumed to be the daughter of the first Alexander Sutherland of Duffus. But in later writs she is named as the daughter of Alexander Sutherland of Duffus, and the great-grand-daughter of Sir Alexander Sutherland of Duffus. She was apparently still a minor in 1484, when curators ad lites were appointed to protect her heritage. She succeeded to Duffus and to lands in Caithness which had probably also come into the family by the marriage of Nicholas Sutherland with Mary le Cheyne, and she styled herself Lady of Duffus. But objections were made to her heirship by her uncle William on the ground of illegitimacy, and the case was debated in the consistorial courts. A sentence was pronounced in her favour on 29 April 1494, by the Commissioner for the Bishop of Aberdeen, but an appeal was made to Rome, and matters dragged on apparently until settled by a decree arbitral about 1507, when Duffus went to the opposing claimant, while the Caithness lands were given to Christina. As a result she on 27 November 1507, in terms of a contract between herself, her spouse, her son and heir and his tutor, on one part, and William, now of Duffus, on the other part, renounced her frank tenement of the lands of Duffus.12 |