Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time

nd the North

we left at the date of the death of William the Lion in December 1214, when he was succeeded on the throne of Scotland by his son, Alexander II, a youth wh

Earl Thorfinn and first wife of Malcolm Canmore. The scene of the rising was, as usual, Moray; and Donald was aided not only by the inhabitants of that province, but also by a large force of Irish mercenaries. This

tly afterwards put down two rebellions, the one in Moray, as above stated, and the other in Galloway, a district which, however, he did not finally conquer till 1235, although Mac-in-tagart was knighted for a victory there in 1215, and soon after, by 1226, became Earl of Ross.1 In 1236, as a punishment for burning to death the Earl of Atholl, in revenge

eir lands by military service from the Scottish king, the whole of the mainland of Scotland may now be said to have been effectively incorporated into one

lcolm II at las

of Kerrera, near Oban, in 1249, leaving as his successor, his son Alexander III, then only in his eighth year, who was married in 1251, before his eleventh year, to Margaret, daughter of Henry III of England, then a child of about the same age as himself. The marriage was followed by a nine years' struggle

ent another embassy of an Archdeacon and a Scot, called in the Saga Misel, but more probably Frisel or Fraser, who, being found to be spies, tried to escape, but were caugh

dition, though probably this event happened later, with the aid of Richard of Moray, Bishop Gilbert's brother, a Norse landing at Unes or Little Ferry is said to have been repulsed in a battle at Embo, near Dornoch in Sutherland. In this battle Richard fell, and the Norse Prince was also killed, the Ri-Crois at Embo,

Canons with the Bishop as their head, five of them holding the dignities of Dean, Precentor, Chancellor, Treasurer, and Archdeacon, each of them during residence to minister there daily, as well as the Abbot of Scone, who was a Canon, but had a Vicar to perform his duties in his absence. The teinds (or tithes) of certain parishes were allocated to each member of

e at Scrabster, near Thurso, in 1245. It was probably during his episcopate that King Alexander II gave his open letter,7 directed to the sheriffs, bailies, and other good men of Moray and Caithness, and enjoining them to protect the ship of the Abbot and Convent of Scone and their men and goods from injury, molestation or dama

h a view to revenging the injury done to his subjects in the west.9 In the preparation for this in the spring of 1263, we find Jon Langlifson, whose mother Langlif was Harold Maddadson's youngest daughter, and who w

rland had been taken away from him, had died in 1239. Gillebride had then succeeded to both the reduced Scottish earldom of Caithness and the whole of the Orkney jarldom as successor in the Angus line of Magnus II; and Gillebride had died in 1256 leaving a son Magnus III. Like his predecessors, Magnus III seems to have found himself in the awkward position of being bound to serve two masters who were rapidly approaching a st

III's reign by William, son of Ferchar Mac-in-tagart, and Earl of Ross, had been made in 1261; and by 1262 or 1263, Freskin had died, leaving two dau

with King Hakon. For the Saga says,12 "with him from Bergen came

ers would support him to a man. Quitting Shetland, therefore, he sailed to Orkney, and his fleet lay first at Ellidarvik or Ellwick in The String off the south of Shapinsay, a few miles from Kirkwall. While it was here, King Hakon conceived the idea of sending a squadron of his ships to raid the shores of the Moray Firth, and there is little doubt that this project was aimed at the lands of the families of De Moravia in Sutherland and Moray. The question, however, was submitted to a council of the freemen of the fleet, who proved to be unwilling that any of them

e it was there that the annular eclipse of the sun, ascertained by astronomical calculation14 to have taken place on the 5th August 1263, was reported by the writer of the Saga to have been seen by him. While the fleet was here,

soon joined by King Magnus of Man, and Erling Ivar's son, and Andres Nicholas' son, and Halvard and Nicholas Tart, the last having made no land since he left Norway till he sighted the Lewis. Dougal, king of the Sudreys also joined King Hakon, and the fleet shortly afterwards reached Kerrera, near Oban in the Sound of Mull. The events which followed are recounted, in considerable detail and with much exaggeration on both sides, by Scottish and Norse chroniclers, but it is impossible to reconcile their different versions of the story of the battle of Largs. Nor does such detail, save in the result, affe

, whom the Northmen had taken, came. King Hakon gave them peace and sent them up into the country; and they promised to come down with cattle to18 him; but one of them stayed behind as a hostage. It happened that day that eleven men of the ship of Andrew Kuzi landed in a boat to fetch water. A little after, it was heard that they called out. Then men rowed to them from t

e Goa-fiord and let the Scottish man b

e Pentland Firth, while another was all but sunk in the Swelchie near Stroma, he sheltered for the night in the Sound north of Osmundwall, and finally land

radually failed, and after laying up his ships in Scapa Flow, and seeing to the welfare of his men, he lay down to die of a broken heart, listening as he sank to Masses indeed, but afterwards with gre

nus, where after a Solemn Mass it was temporarily buried in the Choir, and it w

as the immediate conquest of the Isle of

eat of his fleet there led directly to the cession by King Magnus, his successor, under the treaty of Perth in 1266, of all the Western Highlands

tgage securing 58,000 crowns, the unpaid balance of the dower of Margaret, wife of James III of Scotland and daughter of King Christian of Norway. The right to redeem them was frequently

Act of the Scottish Parliament, finally annexed to the Scottish Crown. But Norse law