THE CHRONICLE OF MAN AND THE SUDREYS
What might have been the reasons which compelled Olaf, no doubt reluctantly, to send his son to Norway, and acknowledge the suzerainty of King Irige (here called Hinge) is difficult to say. Most likely it was the troubles caused by the above mentioned ex-bishop Wimund, in which, also, Sornerled of Argyll took an active part. The pretensions to the Scottish Crown, asserted by the Moray dynasty, were inherited from Sulach by Angus Mac Heth, son of his daughter, and Earl of Moray, who rebelled against King David, but was killed in the battle of Strickathrow. Shortly afterwards, however, bishop Wimund declared himself to be the son of Angus, with the real name of Malcolm Mac Heth, assumed the title of Earl of Moray, and demanded even the crown of Scotland.b He found a great many followers; and, indeed, his pretensions seem to have been rather well founded; in the Orkney Saga he is absolutely called " Malcolm, Earl of Moray," without the least hint as to his being an impostor.
The Meirose annals style " Malcolm Mac Heth." Somerled of Argyle gave him his daughter in marriage, and subsequently the powerful Earl of Orkney, Harold, married his daughter. Assisted by Sornerled he ravaged for a time the western shores of Scotland, until King David succeeded in cap-turing and confining him in the castle of Roxburgh (1134). His sons, however, fled for refuge to Somerled, who revived the war after the death of David (1153). Meanwhile David seems to have taken his revenge with a strong hand; it is even said, we do not know upon what authority, that about 1135 he conquered the islands of Man, Arran, and Bute, which, however, cannot be right as far as regards Man, the fact being not mentioned in the Chronicle; so far, however, we may perhaps infer, that David threatened Man, so that Olaf found it advisable to put himself and his kingdom under the protection of the Norwegian kings. At the same time the powerful Welsh prince Cadwallader, who in 1142 was engaged in a fierce war with his brother Owen Gwynedd of Moninouth, seems to have infested Man for, while Caradoc tells that he raised a great force of warriors from Ireland and Scotland (i.e. the Sudreys), the Orkneyinga Saga records, that " a Welsh chieftain " made great ravages in the Sudreys.
Afterwards Pope Adrian IV., the only Englishman who ever sat on the throne of St. Peter. Dunham thus sets forth the circumstances of the visit of N. Breakspear, Cardinal of Albano, to Norway, which resulted in this bull of Anastasius IV. At the tinme of his visit three brothers, Sigurd, loge, and Eystein, were contending for the throne; and complaints, recriminations, quarrels, treachery, bloodshed, succeeded each other, when the arrival of the papal legate suspended for a time the sanguinary proceedings of these princes. The Norwegian monarchs had long demanded a primate of their own instead of being dependent on the archbishops of Lund. In both objects he was successful. The three kings laid down their arms; united in showing the highest deference to the legate; and beheld with joy the creation of a metropolitan see at Trondheim, with a jurisdiction, not over Norway merely, but Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, the Shetlands, the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and Man. In return, the chiefs and people readily agreed to pay the tribute of Peter’s pence.
Heth, Mormaor, or Earl, of Moray, who, with his confederates, was defeated by Alexander I. on the Moray Firth, left two sons, Angus and Malcolm, who, through their mother, the daughter of Lulach, the successor of Macbeth, claimed to be of the limie of Kenneth MaC(luff. In 1130 they rose in arms to assert their claim to the Scottish throne. David was absent in England; but Edward, the soil of Siward, the Constable of Scotland, defeated them at Strickathrow, not far from the northern Esk. Their leader Angus, the Earl, or King of Moray, fell with four thousand of his men. the Western chieftains, who, fearing for their island fastnesses, seized Malcolm and delivered him to David, by whom he was sent a prisoner to Roxburgh castle. It was this Malcolm, not the imposter Wimund, who had married a sister of Somemled Mac Gillebride, the ancestor of the Lords of Argyll. In 1156, Donald, the son of Malcolm, endeavoured to renew the contest, but he was captured in Galloway, and sent to share his father’s imprisonment. the captivity of his son bowed the spirit of the fatTier, and he came to terms with Malcolm IV the Maiden., by whom lie was lil)el-ated in 1157. His name appears amongst the signatures in the chartulary of Dunfermline, where, with the leading nobles of the country, he was no doubt in attendance at the court of his youthful sovereign. Wimund, bishop of Man and the Isles, sometime about 1151 assumed the name of Mac Heth and made his religious pro-fession in the monastery of Furness, and was eventually appointed to the See of Man.
To understand these affairs thoroughly, we subjoin the following exposé. Malcolm MacHeth being, as we have told above, taken prisoner in 1134, and confined in the castle of Roxburgh, where also his son Donald was put in 1156, he was, nevertheless, released by King Malcolm, who even ceded to him some possessions in Cumberland, evidently fearing his father-in-law, the powerful Somerled. Malcolm MacHeth, however, exercised such a tyranny towards his subjects and confined him in the monastery of Bellaland in Yorkshire.
[After the liberation of Malcolm Mac Heth from Roxburgh castle, Somerled seems to have niade his peace with the King of Scotland, but for some unknown cause he again broke out in open rebellion in 1164, landing suddenly on the coast of Renfrew with the whole force of Argyll and the Isles, strengthened by a body of auxiliaries from Ireland. Tradition says that he fell by treachery, together with his son Gillecolum. His followers dispersed on the death of their leader. Thus perished in an obscure skirmish the mighty chieftain of the Oirir Gael or Scottish Scandinavians of the coast, who built up the house of the Lords of Lorn and Argyll on the ruins of the ancient kingdom of the Gall, Gael, or Scandinavian and Gaelic population of the Isles, formerly centered in Man. Burton says that Somerled himself was reputed to be of Celtic origin. The Celtic language prevailed both in Man and the Isles, and on the north-west of the mainland of Scotland —Burton, i. 215-6, ii. 103. Robertson, i. 359.]
Immediately, therefore, after his flight from Man, we find him at the court of King Malcolm, where he witnessed the confirmation of a document in 1159 (Anderson, Dipl. Scot., No. 25); in the next yeare we find him at the court of King Inge in Norway, who seems to have confirmed him in his royal rights, as it is said in the Icelandic annals that in 1160 he got the title of King of the Sudreys. During his stay with King Inge he took a conspicuous part in the battle upon the ice near Oslo, on the 4th of February 1164, where Inge was killed; he commanded even a wing of Inge’s army, but declared treacherously for the enemy, King Hacon, and thereby might be said to have been the chief cause of Inge’s death.
Either could not or would not give Gødred any assistance, at least not till 1164, when Magnus, being more firmly established on the throne, and crowned (in the month of September), had probably taken Gødred into grace and received his homage; for till this time it appears that Gødred remained in Norway, abandoning his kingdom entirely to Somerled, nor is it likely that he would have returned even then, if he had not received the welcome news that Somerled was killed in the battle at Renfrew. The division which is said to have been made in 1156 between Gødred and Somerled, and to have caused the ruin of the kingdom, ought perhaps more properly to be said to have been effected between Gødred and Dubhgal or Dimgald, the son of Somerled. The islands allotted to Dugald, through this division, were no doubt those which lay nearer to Argyle, and of which, indeed, we find afterwards the descendants of Dugald in possession.
Vivian, Cardinal-priest of St. Stephen, in Monte Coelio, is mentioned in several chronicles. The Chronicle of Melrose mentions his arrival in Scotland in the yeare 1176, saying of him " conculcans et comminuens omnia quæque, expeditus capere nec impeditus rapere,"—and states, that returning from Ireland in 1177, he held a council of the Scotch prelates at Edinburgh. See moreover Roger Hoveden (Savile, p. 553), and Bromton (Twysden, p. 110), where it is expressly stated that he was sent to visit not only Scotland, Ireland, and the Isles, but also Norway; to which country, however, he never came. Bromton says that he landed in England the 22d of June 1176, without the consent of the king; who, therefore, would not allow him to go farther till he had sworn not to do anything against him; having complied with the request he got letters of safe conduct to Scotland, whence, about Christmas, he visited Man, where he staid a fortnight, continuing his journey to Ireland, where he encouraged the inhabitants of Downshire to hold out against John de Courcy. Afterwards, therefore, as a punishment, he was put into prison by John, but released after a short while, held a council at Dublin, and returned to Scotland, where he is said to have created so great dissatisfaction by his avarice that the Pope was obliged to recall him.
As it is expressly stated that Olaf was three years old in 1176, when the solemn wedding took place between his father and mother, he must have attained his 14th, not only his 10th year, at his father’s death. From the supplementary narrative, p. 82, we learn that Reginald, if not immediately at his accession, at least sometime afterwards, assigned to Olaf the island of Lewis for maintenance.
In the Icelandic Saga of the celebrated chief and physician Rafn Sveinbiarnarson it is told rather at length, how this Rafn and the bishop-elect Gudmund, sailed from Iceland towards Norway in the yeare 1202, were driven by storms to Sandey, one of the Sudreys, where they happened to find King Olaf and the bishop, and were compelled by the former to pay a tax, at first calculated at fifty marks, but afterwards, as the Icelanders showed fight, abated to fifteen marks.1 Sandey being no doubt Sandera, one of the southernmost of the long series of islands called Long Island, beginning with Lewis, it is evident that Olaf did not get this island only, but also the others, North-Uist, Harris, South-Uist, Benbecula, etc.,—down to the southernmost point. Reginald, the elder brother, was, according to the Orkney Saga, regarded as one of the most warlike princes in the western parts of Europe at his time; once, it is stated, he passed three entire successive years in the manner of the ancient sea-kings, always on board his ship, never during the whole period for one single hour living beneath the roof of a house.
The powerful Orkneyan earl, Harold son of Madadh, Earl of Atholl, had for a long period been on bad terms with King William of Scotland. It is very probable that Harold was one of the six earls who rebelled against King Malcolm in 1160, in order to place William of Egremont, grandson of Duncan, on the throne; and that he also supported the son of William, Donald Bane, who aspired to the throne, and from 1180-1187 maintained himself in Moray and Ross, till he was killed in the battle of Macgarvey (July 31 , 1187). It is expressly stated that Harold was instigated to hostilities against the Scottish king by his second wife Hoarfiad (Gormiath), daughter of the above mentioned Malcolm Mac Heth, Earl of Moray, alias bishop Wimund. When, therefore, a rival to the earldorns of Orkney and Caithness appeared in the person of Harold the younger (grandson by a daughter of Earl Ragnvald), who had got the title of earl from the Norwegian king about 1175, King William embraced his interests, and gave him the half of Caithness, which of course he must have taken from Harold the elder; and although it is not said expressly, yet we may safely infer, that from this time incessant or frequent feuds raged between the two rivals.