1060
Godred the son of Sytric (i.e., Sigtryggr), who reigned in Man, when Gødred Crowan came there, seems, to judge from his patronymic name, to have belonged to the dynasty of Dublinian kings; perhaps even he was himself King of Dublin. The Irish annals say, that when Diarmid, King of Leinster (AD. 1052), had vanquished and put to flight the King of Dublin, Eachmargath (in the sagas called Marga~r), son of Ragnvald (Reginald), he was for some time Lord of Dublin, together with his son Murchad, who made the Island of Man tributary (AD. 1060), having defeated " Mac Reginald" (the son of Ragnvald).
1072
After the fall of Diarmid, however, in 1072, we find on the royal throne of Dublin one Gødred, " grandson of Ragnvald," who died in 1075,and after him another Gødred, called " Mananagh " (he of Man), who ruled till 1094, and died in 1095, being, as we shall see, no other person than Gødred Crowan. b Now it seems scarcely to admit of any doubt that the first mentioned Gødred, grandson of Ragnvald, was no other person than the Gødred, son of Sytric, in our Chronicle, and that, consequently, the anonymous " Son of Ragnvald," who was defeated by Murchad in 1060, was Sytric or Sigtrygg, the father of Gødred.
It must be supposed that Gødred, having hereditary right to Dublin, returned thither immediately after the fall of Diarmid the usurper. To be sure, the Chronicle of Man assigns to the death of Gødred the yeare 1051, which, as the battle of Stanford bridge is said to have taken place in 1047, ought to signify 1070. Yet we have already had instances enough to prove that the years of Christ given in the earlier part of the Chronicle are generally erroneous, and must be corrected by comparison with other statements.
As Gødred Crowan (as will be seen hereafter) died in 1095, and our Chronicle states expressly that he reigned over Man for sixteen years from the time of the conquest, this event must have taken place in 1079 or 1080, in 1074 or 1075 (signified by 1056). Here, therefore, is a miscalculation of four (or rather twenty-three), or five (twenty-four) years, and this difference, added to 1070 (1051), in which our Chronicle places the death of Gødred, make exactly 1074 or 1075. Moreover, there still exists a letter, written in AD. 1074, by Gødred, " Rex Hiberniæ " to Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury, requesting the consecration of Gillepatrick, elected bishop of Dublin after the demise of Duncan, and as this Gødred cannot possibly be Gødred Crowan, it must have been Gødred the son of Sigtrygg, who, accordingly, was still living in 1074.
1077
Man and the isles came under the dominion of Gødred Crovan, who, according to the Chronicon Manniae, put an end to all freeholds. As to the extension of the authority of this parliament over the whole of Sodor, when we come to consider how frequently the connexion of Man with the other islands, both before and after Gødred Crovans days, was severed, we shall be led to doubt even the existence of such a parliament. But, if it existed, it would probably have been put an end to by the conquest of Gødred Crovan in 1077, as all the inhabitants of Man became his tenants, he having, according to the Chronicle, " granted to the few Islanders, who had remained with him, the southern part of the Island, and to the surviving Manxmen the northern portion, on condition that none of them should ever presume to claim any of the land by hereditary right. Hence it arises that, up to the present day, the whole Island belongs to the king alone, and that all its revenues are his."
When Gødred assumed the government of his kingdom, he was in the bloom of youth and beauty; majestic in his stature; magnanimous in his sentiments; and heroic in his actions. These graces, uniting with a remenbrance of his father's virtues, gained the adoration of his own subjects, and the admiration of the neighbouring kingdoms. From the celebrity of his virtue and heroism, the people of Dublin and the nobility of the Province of Leinster elefted him their King. But this singular honour involved him in various contests, and subjected him to future misfortunes. Murchard, King of Ireland, opposed him; but Gødred, having routed the enemy, seated himself on the throne to which he had been raised by the suffrages of the people. His absence however occasioned discontents among his hereditary subjects; which were fomented by the factious and turbulent. To calm these he returned to Man: and having severely punished some of the disaffected; Thorfinus, a subtle, sullen, and ferocious Chief, fled to Somerled, Thane of Argyle, and brother-in-law to Gødred. This bold and ambitious Prince was soon instigated by Thorfinus, to invade the Western Isles, which he soon reduced. In the mean time, Gødred equipped a fleet of eighty vessels, and engaged him at sea. A dreadful conflict ensued; which terminating in a doubtful victory, occasioned a division of the kingdom of the Isles. Gødred retained Man; and the other Islands were ceded to Summerled.
The Norwegians had also, and have yet, another name parallel to "Sumarliši," viz. Vetrliši, the first part of which is the word vets-, i.e., Winter; literally translated, it means "Winter-Wanderer," and is used as a noun appellative to designate a bear who has gone to take his winter-sleep. It seems very likely that also Sumarliši originally has been used in the same manner, to designate the bear, roving about in the summer; and that the skalds or poets have since applied both as proper designations for the Vikings, either wandering about for prey in the summer, or taking to their snug hearths in the winter; but that, as it happened so often in Norway and Iceland, the general denonmination because a surname for certain persons, and this surname again in succeeding generations the real and family name of descendants called after them. From this digression, which may not be superflous for the better understanding of what follows, we return to the "Mac Harold" above mentioned. For three successive years he maintained hinmself at Inniscathaig, till, in the yeare 976, he was attacked and killed, along with his two sons, by the celebrated Brian Boroimhe, whose name now begins to appear in the Irish annals.
[Donald MacTeige was nephew to Murktaghm O'Brien, being a brother's son. He had already given considerable trouble in his own country, and a desire to get rid of an impracticable kinsman may have had its weight in leading the Irish King to accede to the request of the Manxmen. Olave, the youngest son of Gødred, heir to the Manx throne, was at that time a minor, residing at the English court. This is sufficient to account for the appointment of a regent or guardian, without associating it within a dependency on Norway.]
The name Tadc, Tadg, or Teige, is a not uncommon Irish name, and appears especially to have occurred in the O'Brian family. The youngest son of Brian Boromy, who was present at his death, and according to the Njala Saga, lost his hand by the same blow which cut off the head of his father, was called "Tadg," in the Saga Taškr; and it is not improbable that the Dompuald or Donald, who was sent to Man by Muircertach, himself the grandson of Brian, was a descendant of Tadg, or at least a kinsman of the O'Brians. That the Manxmen should apply to Muircertach for a governor seems to prove that King Magnus must have entrusted him with a kind of plenipotentiary power, or lieutenancy, during his absence, which trust, however, Muircertach must be supposed not to have kept conscientiously.
1087
In the Chronicles of Ulster, purporting " that the grandsons of Ragnvald," accompanied by the son of the King of Ulster, went to Man with a fleet, but were killed. These must have been the brothers of Gødred, and perhaps even his son, the exiled Fingall, of whom no more is said in our Chronicle, although there is no mention made of his being killed when Gødred Crowan conquered the island. Very likely, therefore, he retired to Ireland, his proper home, from whence he afterwards made the unsuccessful expedition just mentioned. All these facts, however, seem sufficiently to prove that during the interval between the death of Gødred the son of Harold, in 989, and the accession of Gødred Crowan, in 1079, or 1080, the Island of Man must have been au appendage of the Norwegian kingdom of Dublin, whereas it would appear that the Isles chiefly belonged to the Earls of Orkney.
1080
As to the tale of the manner in which Gødred Crowan conquered Man, and became the real owner of the soil, it seems very likely that this is a kind of anachronism, and that tradition, not supported by authentic records, has assigned to the Gødred, what, if after all it was a real fact, belonged to another Gødred of much earlier times, the hero of popular legends, who was identified with the Gødred of later days, because the historical traditions in the island itself did not Teach farther backward. A legendary character pervades the whole narrative. What especially seems to remind us of an age much earlier than 1080, is the account of Gødreds having acquired the personal property of the soil, excluding the hereditary rights of the inhabitants.
1094-1102
King Magnus having helped Muircertach O' Brien to take Dublin, in 1102, on the last expedition of Magnus to the West.
But as it is sure enough that the capture of Dublin by Muircertach took place in 1094, and it has been sufficiently shown that the author of the Saga sometimes assigns to one of the three expeditions. What became of Lagman the Saga does not tell, but finding him afterwards as King of the Isles, and remembering the statement in the Saga of King Haakon, that King Magnus conquered the Isles from Gødred, we must needs guess that he was made free on condition that his father not only ceded Dublin to Muircertach, together with Lagman, did homage to the Norwegian king, and acknowledged him as their liege lord.
It is said in the annals of Ulster that Gødred died in the yeare after his expulsion, from the plague; or, according to another translation, of a broken heart; if the latter be the right one, his grief may have been caused partly by his reverses in Ireland, partly by the feuds between his sons. For, from what is explained above, it would appear that the rebellion of Harold against his brother Lagman, had begun during the lifetime of Gødred; the seven years of Lagman's reign being no doubt to be reckoned from 1089 or perhaps even 1085, the very yeare when the war broke out between Muircertach and Donald.
Lagman's death on his voyage to Jerusalem being known at home in 1096 or 1097 (the yeare 1075 or 1095 given in the Chronicle cannot possibly be admitted, being the death-year of Gødred), he must have left his country early in 1096, and cannot have gone very far when death overtook him. It was no doubt his intention to join the Crusaders, now flocking together on their first expedition under Peter of Amiens. The catastrophe of his brother Harold probably occurred in the latter part of 1095, immediately after the death of Gødred.
From Ordericus Vitalis, Muircertach O' Brien had broken the treaty; and the troubles in the Isle of Man just mentioned might in themselves alone have afforded sufficient reason for Magnus to revisit that part of his dominions. Moreover, we learn from Fordun, that,in 1097, Eadgar, son of King Malcolm, appeared in Scotland with an English army, and made fierce war upon Donald Bane, the protegë of King Magnus, who had reascended the throne in 1095, after the fall of Duncan, and this war, which ended with the captivity of Donald, was not brought to an issue, when Magnus arrived in Scotland in 1098.
1095-1098
The death of Gødred the Conqueror is expressly stated in the Irish annals to have taken place. In the Norwegian Saga of King Haakon IV., the accuracy of which is amply proved, it is said that King. Magnus took the Isles from Gødred, which shows that Gødred must needs have outlived at least the first expedition of Magnus to the Western Islands, which took place in 1093-94. Consequently, the final conquest of Man by Gødred, which is stated in the Chronicle itself to have been effected about sixteen years before his death, must have taken place in 1079, or 1080, not in 1075, as the Chronicle has it; that is to say, when the nineteen years are added, of which all the numbers, given in the codex from A.D. 1046 downwards till 1093 are shortcoming.
King Magnus made his second expedition to the West in 1098, and in so far the Chronicle is right, but it errs greatly in speaking of one expedition only, and of the fall of King Magnus, which did not occur till 1103, on his third expedition, as if it happened on his second one. The whole entry comprises, accordingly, a space of six years, from 1098 till 1103 inclusive. Nor is the motive here assigned to his enterprise the true one, as everybody may see, even with out further explanation; it may have been a legend or tradition, current in Man; but even this tradition seems to have been derived from what is told in the Saga of the grandfather of Magnus, King Harold, that on the eve of his sailing for England in 1066, he had the shrine of St. Olaf opened, cut the nails and the hair of the Saint, and having re-closed and locked the shrine threw the key into the sea; it is expressly added that the shrine was not opened for the next 180 years, so that it is impossible that King Magnus could have done it.1 The real motive why Magnus issued forth on this expedition was evidently, as the Saga tells, to secure his power in the Orkneys and the Western Islands.
The fleet of King Magnus is stated by Ordericus to have contained sixty ships, while our Saga gives the number of 160. This is to he explained in this way, that the total number of ships collected in Nor way was 160, but that the effective force, with which he arrived at Man, and Anglesey, consisted only of sixty. The fleets of the Norwegian kings in those days were formed of two distinct parts, the leišangr ships, i.e., those furnished and manned by the population at large, distributed for this purpose into certain districts, and those belonging to the king himself and his barons; the former being generally of the smaller kind, and the crew not obliged to serve for more than two months a year, did not count for much, hut the chief and really formidable force consisted of the other part, being large, well-built ships, strongly manned by select and well-trained warriors, and obliged to serve for an indefinite time. So it therefore must also have been the case with the fleet of King Magnus, that shortly after his arrival in the West the leišangr part returned, while the main force, being sixty sail strong, remained.