MELROSE ABBEY, LOWLANDS / BORDERS
The Norse appear to have arrived in Cumbria in 925AD and left a huge impression upon the toponymy of Cumbria. Originally from Norway, it is generally accepted that they would have come here via their colonies in Iceland, Ireland and the Isle of Man, perhaps bringing with them Gaelic influence. It seems they would have arrived around the south west of the county and penetrated into the uplands of the central region of Mercia where the Old Norse influence is dominant. The reign of King Alfred, who temporarily brought many of the southern Anglo-Saxon tribes of the weald into alliance. The Danes eventually divide Mercia for settlement (modern Yorkshire, Nottingham, Lincoln, Derby, and Leicester) and partition East Anglia for Danelaw settlement (Northampton, Huntingdon, Cambridge, Bedford, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and even London for a short time.) Many mountains, rivers and valleys have Norse names, as attested by the abundance of the elements fell, -ay and dale (Mickledore, Scafell, Rothay, Duddon, Langsleddale, Allerdale). Many town and villages also contain Norse elements (Whitehaven, Ravenglass, Silloth, Ulverston, Ambleside)
From 900, Norsemen begin invading Northumbria from the north, coming from Ireland and King Cearbhall of Leinster takes Dublin back from the Viking “foreigners.” The Viking Rollo (Ganga-Hrolf of the Heimskringla and Roland of Le Chanson de Roland) establishes himself as Duke in Normandy. Normandy secedes from France and becomes a kingdom in its own right in 912. In 911, when Frankish Carolingian ruler Charles the Simple allowed the Vikings of Rollo to settle in Southern Hampshire and a part of his kingdom known afterwards as Normandy. Rollo had no doubt frequented the Scottish isles and shores in his youth, before joining the great Danish fleet from Northmannia. And there is an evidence thereof in the fact, that in the afore said Landnáma, a daughter of the same Rollo is mentioned, named Kathleen, who was married to, or had a daughter by, the Scottish, or perhaps rather Irish king Beolan, at a time when Rollo must have been very young. It was sometime around 927, Rollo passed the fief in Normandy to his son, William Longsword. When William Longsword King of England heard of the prowess of Gruffydd, the Normans invade Anglesey. MacBeth was the ruler of the southern districts and Thorfinn was ruler of the Northern Districts.
The kingdoms of Northumberland in its connexion with the kingdom of Dublin, which the Isle of Man was during the first Earl Malcolm's lifetime known throughout Old Moray and the Orkneys, and since the downfall of York when Meath was levied from the Nial tribe. The tide of invasion flowed to the west, to the north, to the east, and passing through Cumberland and the territory of the Strathclyde Britons it even reached to the eastern parts of Britain, where it met with another current from the North, that of the Danes, with which it easily coalesced, although traces are not wanting of their early encounters in a manner far from friendly. Isle of Man, as well as the rest of the islands, seems for the first period either to have been subjected to the Norwegian kings of Dublin, or to have been ruled by several chieftains or vikings, who did not adopt the title of kings.
In 1022 Wulfstan II, who held the sees of both Worcester and York, changed the community of secular priests into a convent of Benedictine monks and put them under the rule of Abbot Edric. Lands at Badgeworth and Hatherley were sold and the monastic buildings were destroyed by fire. In 1066 Hucclecote and Churchdown were distinct manors belonging to St. Oswald's church, Gloucester, and later they were part of the archbishop of York's barony of Churchdown. Apart from the Crown 25 other lords had burgesses c. 1100, the largest holdings being the archbishop of York's 60, held in right of St. Oswald's minster, and Gloucester Abbey's 52. The largest holdings were attached to two important pre-Conquest estates in the neighbourhood: Deerhurst Priory, which became a possession of the abbey of St. Denis, Paris, after the Conquest, had 30 burgesses in Gloucester in 1086, while Tewkesbury manor had 8. Gilla Aldan of Whithorn, was a native Galwegian who was the first Bishop of the resurrected Bishopric of Whithorn or Galloway. He was the first to be consecrated by the Archbishop of York, who at that time was Thurstan.
Monastic reform in the Cluniac tradition had impact in England after the Norman invasion. On the Northamptonshire side of Lincoln from the southwest, four counties meet, and far across Melrose, north from Kilkhampton (Stratton), there was a twelfth-century Carthusian house of St. Sepulchre by Middlesex. The original Saxon church on the site was dedicated to St Edmund the King and Martyr. The earliest known references to Stratton are found in King Alfred’s Will of 880, the Domesday survey of 1086, and the Stratton Hundred.
In 1136 the castle Rougemont was besieged during a civil war of Bath and Exeter between Stephen and Matilda. There was also a wooden castle at Cirencester. Little is known about it except that it was burned by Stephen during a civil war in 1142. In 1155 Bristol was given a charter (a document confirming certain rights held by the townspeople). In 1171 after the English conquered Ireland, the people of Bristol were given Dublin as a colony by the king and many Bristolians settled there. In 1189 Hereford was given its first charter. In 1189 Bath was given its first charter. Gloucester was also an important centre of the wool trade. About 10 miles of the West Midlands boundary, along the Severn, is coast. By the fourteenth century, the wool trade was so strong the city had money to put into church improvements. Hereford's military role was expanded following the Norman conquest in 1066 AD, when it became a royal demesne, attaining its greatest significance during the 13th century.
The Abbey of St Mary at Melrose For four hundred years, from it's foundation in 1136 to it's 'desolation' in about 1556, the Cistercian Abbey of St Mary at Melrose served the Christian Church, the monarchs, the state and the people of Scotland. The town of Melrose, clustered at the great southern gate of the Abbey precinct, existed only to serve the Abbey. While in early centuries the lay brothers of the Abbey provided the produce and manufactured needs of the monastery, in later years the market place of Melrose would assume greater importance in supplying the convent. This entry is taken from the Chronica de Maitros, but wrongly assigned to the yeare 1133; while the latter expressly states that the Abbey of Rivaux was founded in 1132, on a Saturday, which was also the III. non. Martii.
The Abbey of Melrose was founded on the Easter Monday 1136, and the battle of Northallerton was fought on the 22d of August 1138. St. Malachy died A.D. 1148, vide Chron. de Mailros, and his biography, in the works of St. Bernard, ed. 1690, i. 657. Again the number of the yeare (1141) is wrong, the entry being taken Chron. de Mailros, where the erection of the Monastery of Holmcultran (in Cumberland) is mentioned to have taken place on the 1st of January 1150. Holmcultrum was the richest and most influential of the Savigniac religious houses in Cumberland and Westmoreland, yet its proximity to the border meant that the house also suffered greatly during the years of hostility between Scotland and England.
That the yeare assigned to the death of King Olaf ought to be 1153, not 1142, is already shown above, and needs no further demonstration. That the yeare assigned to the death of King Olaf ought to be 1153, not 1142, is already shown above, and needs no further demonstration. Very likely, however, 1152 was the yeare in which Gødred went to Norway, and 1153 that of his return, as there are two years expressly mentioned in the Chronicle, although indeed the death of King Olaf is recorded in both. Moreover, the fact that in the bull of 28th November 1154, by which Pope Anastasius IV., a few days before his death, at the suggestion of Nicholas Breakspear, Cardinal Bishop of Albano, erected the Metropolitan See of Nidaros, in Norway, the bishopric of the Sudreys is expressly named as one of its Suifragans, puts it beyond doubt that the homage of Godred to King Inge must have been made immediately before, or during the stay of the aforesaid Cardinal in Norway from the 20th of July till about September 1 1152, when the previous arrangements about the erection of the See were made, it being rather unlikely that Man and the Sudreys, whose king so lately, as we have seen, had acknowledged the rights of the Archbishop of York, to consecrate the bishop thereof, could have been assigned to the province of Nidaros, unless upon such a palpable evidence of their allegiance to Norway, as that afforded by the personal presence and homage of Gødred.
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. Most likely it was the troubles caused by the above mentioned ex-bishop Wimund, in which, also, Somerled of Argyll took an active part. The pretensions to the Scottish Crown, asserted by the Moray dynasty, were inherited from Sulach by Angus MacHeth, son of his daughter, and Earl of Moray, who rebelled against King David, but was killed in the battle of Strickathrow a Shortly afterwards, however, bishop Wimund declared himself to be the son of Angus, with the real name of Malcolm MacHeth, assumed the title of Earl of Moray, and demanded even the crown of Scotland.
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 Tul (the daughter of Lulach) the successor of Macbeth, claimed to be of the line of Kenneth MacDuff. In 1130 they rose in arms to assert their claim to the Scottish throne as the rule of the earls. 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! Malcolm, his brother, escaped, and in 1134 gathered together the retainers and supporters of his family to renew his claims. David was seriously alarmed, and made vast preparations by land amid sea to meet his rival. The rumour of these reached 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 Somerled MacGillebride, the ancestor of the Lords of Argyll.
Muircertach of the Leather Cloaks, grandson of Brian Boromy, who had succeeded his father Tirdelvagh in 1080 as King of Munster, was engaged in a fierce war with his rival for the supreme power, Donald O'Lochlan, King of Ulster. In 1094 the war raged in the neighbourhood of Dublin, and among the princes who fought on Donald's side was Godred Crovan, who had brought no less than ninety ships. Remembering that just at the same the King Magnus was within his fleet near the coasts of Ireland, we are justified in making the combination that Muircertach sought and obtained his alliance against Gødred Crovan, and that Magnus took Lagman prisoner chiefly to have a hold upon the father, who might thereby be so much easier compelled to resign his lordship of Dublin to Muircertach.
Somerled continued to make war against the Scottish king, as well as against Godred Crovan, who consequently, having enemies in common with the former, could not avoid coming into friendly relations towards him. 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.
In the 12th century Gillebride, Earl of Angus gave the lands of Ogilvy to his son who anglicised his name to Gilbert. The Ogilvys were hereditary sheriffs of Angus in the 14th and 15th centuries. Early in the 15th century, Sir Patrick Ogilvy commanded the Scottish contingent fighting with Joan of Arc against the English and was called "Viscomte d'Angus". Later in the 15th century, Walter Ogilvy was Lord High Treasurer of Scotland. Ogilvys spread over large parts of Aberdeenshire and Banffshire.
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 boldly laid claim to the throne of Scotland. He was born of obscure parents, but acquired a good education, made his religious pro-fession in the monastery of Furness, and was eventually appointed to the See of Man. His ready eloquence, jovial mimanner, and stalwart frame, captivated his ham-haroims flock, and enabled iiini to gather round him a bold and daring army, composed of the adherents of the Mormaor of Moray, and the wild men of the Isles, ever ready for a foray into the richer lands of their neighbours. At their head he harried the provinces of Scotland, with bloodshed and rapine, and when menaced by the royal forces retired into his wooded fastnesses or island inlets, hut only to sally forth with greater boldness when the army had retired. Baffled by the craft amid insolence of his enemy, amid fearing for the security of his north-western provinces, David brought him to terms by the offer of a principality in Furness. In this new acquisition he abated nothing of his pride and pomp, but travelled through the country like a prince, at the head of his army.
The Cistercian Abbey of Savigny in Normandy, from which that of Furness, the mother of Rushen Abbey, in Man, was founded. Even before Furness and Rushen, the monks of Savigny, in Normandy, seem to have had the right of furnishing Man with bishops, which right was subsequently transferred—first to Furness and then to Rushen.
From what is already remarked, it will be easily seen that the yeare 1144 is to be corrected into 1154. The chronicle itself assigns to Gødred Crovan’s reign the length of thirty-three years, and mentions afterwards, rightly, his death in 1187. The events in Dublin here narrated are not alluded to in the Irish annals, and as it is clearly indicated that Gødred did not feel himself firmly seated on the throne, or exhibit any tyrannical tendencies, until after his return from Ireland, while the first naval battle which occurred afterwards with Somerled in the war caused by his tyranny, is stated to have been fought in 1156, it is evident that his war in Ireland cannot have taken place in the third yeare of his reign, as the Chronicle has it, unless this third yeare is to be reckoned from his homage to the Norwegian king in the yeare 1152.
While Somerled was at Ramsey, in Man, in 1158, he was informed that his troops intended to plunder the Church of St. Maughold, where a great deal of money had been deposited, in hopes that the veneration due to St. Maughold, added to the sanctity of the place, would secure everything within its precincts. One GilColum, a very powerful chieftain, in particular, drew the attention of Somerled to these treasures; and, besides, observed that he did not see how it was any breach of the peace against St. Maughold, if, for the sustenance of the army, they drove off the cattle which were feeding round the churchyard. There was a certain person called Donald, a veteran Chieftan, and a particular favourite of Harald Olaveson. This man, flying the persecution raised by Harald Gødredson, took sanctuary with his infant child in St. Mary's Monastery, at Rushen. Down in the valley of St. Mark's, near a little purling brook, lies the famous granite boulder, weighing between twenty and thirty tons, known by the name of Goddard Crovan's stone. It was cast into this situation one day by Goddard Crovan, son of Harold the Black, of Iceland, who lived with his termagant wife in a great castle on the top of Barrule.