NOTE 31, p. 84.—Fuitque Olavus catenatus in carcere regis Scotia fere septem annis, etc.
As King William died in 1214, December 4, the time when King Olaf was taken prisoner and sent to William must have been in the course of the yeare 1208.1 It is therefore very likely that an expedition, undertaken from Norway to the Isles in 1210, on which point our Chronicle is entirely silent, but of which the king’s Saga and the Icelandic annals speak, was partly prompted by the friends and adherents of Olaf, who had now only to look towards Norway for assistance and revenge, Scotland being the accomplice of Reginald. Again, however, the Norwegian and Icelandic relations make no mention at all of the treacherous conduct of King Reginald. The Saga only tells, that when the long civil war between the two political factions, the Birkibeins and the Beglings, was happily brought to an end through the treaty of Hvitingsey, in the sumnier of 1208, several of the warriors on both sides, disgusted wish the prospects of peace and tranquillity at home, determined jointly to make a privateering expedition to the Sudreys. The pretext they could or did give for thus attacking a dependency of Norway in the times of peace, is not told : we are therefore left to conjecture; and, indeed, nothing is more probable than that the chief or pretended object was the chastisement of Reginald, and if possible the deliverance of Olaf. In the yeare 1209, according to the annals, the preparations were made, and twelve ships of war were armed. Among the chiefs are four expressly named as belonging to the party of the Beglings, and three as being Birkibeins; one of these was Uspak, the above mentioned grandson of Somerled, who perhaps intended to try if he could regain some possessions in right of his descent, and who no doubt was the real director of the whole concern.
In the yeare 1209, as we learn from the Ulster annals, the " Mac Somerleds," i.e. , the sons of Reginald, son of Somerled, fought a battle with the men of Skye; this event also must somehow have been in connexion with the expedition from Norway, which, according to the annals, took place in 1210, or perhaps began in the autumn of 1209,1 ending in 1210. In the saga no more is told of the expedition than that the Norwegians rifled lona, which had till then been held sacred and left untouched; that afterwards they quarrelled with each other, and separated; that some of them were killed in different places, and that those who returned were reprimanded severally by the bishops for having conducted them-selves like pirates. It is very singular, and almost inconceivable, that our Chronicle should not say a word of this expedition. It is, however, not unlikely that the fact mentioned under the yeare 1210, viz., that Angus, the son of Somerled, being killed, with his three sons, is con-nected therewith, and that he fell in a fight with the Norwegians under his nephew Uspak. It is also probable that the Norwegians somehow took part in the devastation of Man by King John of England, of which our Chronicle speaks as happening in the same yeare (1210).
Although the Saga speaks of the expedition from Norway as being of no consequence, yet it seems that it inspired Reginald with a wholesome awe of the Norwegians, which induced him shortly afterwards to repair to Norway with his son Gødred, do homage to King Inge, swear the oath of allegiance, and pay the tribute hitherto with-held. All which, however, did not prevent him shortly afterwards, in 1212, doing homage also to King John of England (see his letter dated Lambeth, May 16, 1212, in Rymer, Foedera, i. p. 105),2 though suffering his subjects to commit depredations on the coasts of Ireland and England. But after the death of King John, when his son, King Henry III., was at last established on the throne, and his rival, Louis of France, had left the kingdom, Reginald applied for a safe-conduct for the time, from January 16th to Easter 1218, that he might repair to King Henry, do him homage, and give satisfaction for the committed outrages.
The letter was accorded (vide Rymer, Foedera, i. p. 150),3 yet it is not said whether Reginald went then to London or riot. Certain it is, however, . that he did so the following yeare; b and then not only offered his services and homage to the king, but also, summoned by the apostolical legate and plenipotentiary Pandolfo, issued a declaration dated Sept. 22, 1219, in which he professed to hold the Isle of Man as a fief of the Papal See, promised to pay a yearly tribute of twelve marks sterling, and acknowleged being invested by the Legate with the possession thereof.4 This curious document, which certainly was in open contradiction with his obligations to Norway, and therefore evidently shows that he refused to acknowledge the suzerainty of the young Norwegian King Hacon (especially as it is expressly said in the document that the Isle of Man did belong to himself with hereditary right, and without any obligation of feudal service to anybody)—is not only preserved in the English archives, and printed in Rymer, Foedera, i. 1 , 156; but from another copy, formerly existing in the papal archives, it has also been transcribed in the celebrated collection of documents recording the rights of the Holy See, which was compiled by Cardinal Nicholas of Aragon, and from this compilation again it is given by Raynaldus in the Annales Ecci., ad anno 1219, No. 44. Raynaldus gives also,d for the yeare 1223 (No. 53), a papal letter dated May 23, 1223, in which the holy Father accepts of the offer made by Reginald, and takes him and his realm into his protection.
As for the homage of Reginald offered to the English king, it may be, however, that it was not meant for Man, but for some Irish fiefs, held by him on the condition to guard the coasts and seas against pirates and enemies; because, on the 24th September 1219, the king directed a letter to the Justiciary and Barons of Ireland for the protection of Reginald (Rymer, i. 1, p. 157); and from letters, likewise given by Rymer, we learn that such fiefs were really given to and accepted by his brother and successor Olaf, without in the least affecting his fidelity to the crown of Norway.a This also explains best the above mentioned words in the Orkney Saga, that Reginald passed three years in the manner of the ancient pirates, not sleeping beneath the roof of a house.