Chapter IX (2)

In the following year, when King David invaded England at the head of as large a force as he could bring together from the entire country under his dominion, for the purpose of supporting the cause of his niece Matilda, the daughter of King Henry the First, and empress of Germany, he placed those Norman barons who belonged to the party of Stephen of Blois, and held possessions under King David as well as in England, in a position of great difficulty. Their feudal holdings in Scotland gave David a right as their overlord to their military service, while their policy in England was to support Stephen in his opposition to the claim of his niece Matilda to the English throne. One of the principal of these Norman barons, Robertus de Brus, who had great possessions in Yorkshire, but had adhered to King David from his youth, and held under him the extensive district of Annandale, repaired to the Scottish camp when David had advanced as far as the Tees, to remonstrate with him, and when he did not succeed, renounced his fealty to him. It is well worth quoting that part of his speech, as reported by Ailred, which details the part the Norman barons had taken in the Scottish events detailed in this chapter. ‘Against whom,’ he says to the king, ‘dost thou this day take up arms and lead this countless host? Is it not against the English and Normans? O king, are they not those from whom thou hast always obtained profitable counsel and prompt assistance? When, I ask thee, hast thou ever found such fidelity in the Scots that thou canst so confidently dispense with the advice of the English and the assistance of the Normans, as if Scots sufficed thee even against Scots? This confidence in the Galwegians is somewhat new to thee who this day turnest thine arms against those through whom thou now rulest,—beloved by Scots and feared by Galwegians. Thinkest thou, O king, that the majesty of heaven will behold thee, with unmoved eyes, do thy best to ruin those by whom the throne was gotten and secured to thee and thine? With what forces and by what aid did thy brother Duncan overthrow the army of Donald and recover the kingdom which the tyrant had usurped? Who restored Eadgar thy brother, nay more than brother, to the kingdom? was it not our army? Thou too, O king, when thou didst demand that part of the kingdom which that same brother bequeathed to thee at his death from thy brother Alexander, was it not from dread of us that thou receivedst it without bloodshed? Recollect last year when thou didst entreat the aid of the English in opposing Malcolm, the heir of a father’s hate and persecution, how keenly,—how promptly,—with what alacrity, Walter Espec and many other English nobles met thee at Carlisle; how many ships they prepared,—the armaments they equipped them with,—the youths they manned them with; how they struck terror into thy foes till at length they took the traitor Malcolm himself prisoner, and delivered him bound to thee. Thus the fear of us did not only bind his limbs but still more daunted the spirit of the Scots, and suppressed their tendency to revolt by depriving it of all hope of success. Whatever hatred, therefore,—whatever enmity the Scots have towards us, is because of thee and thine, for whom we have so often fought against them, deprived them of all hope in rebelling, and altogether subdued them to thee and to thy will.’

[Sidenote: Composition of king David’s army.]

Ailred tells us that King David’s army was composed not only of those who were subject to his dominion, but that he had been joined by many of the people of the Western Isles and the Orkneys still under Norwegian rule;[686] and the account which he gives of the different bodies of men which now formed his troops gives us a good idea of the heterogeneous elements of which the population of Scotland was at this time composed.

The first body of his army was composed of the ‘Galwenses’ or people of Galloway, who still bore the name of Picts, and who claimed to lead the van as their right. The second body was led by Henry, King David’s son, with soldiers and archers, to whom were joined the ‘Cumbrenses’ and ‘Tevidalenses,’ or the Welsh population of Strathclyde and Teviotdale. The third body consisted of the ‘Laodonenses’ or Anglic inhabitants of Lothian, with the ‘Insulani’ and ‘Lavernani’ or Islesmen and people of the Lennox; and the last body or rearguard was led by the king in person, and consisted of the ‘Scoti’ and ‘Muravenses,’ or the Scots of the kingdom proper extending from the Forth to the Spey, and the recently subdued people of Moray. Along with the king were many of the Norman and English knights who still adhered to him.[687]

During the remaining year of David’s reign he appears to have maintained his authority with a firm hand and unimpaired over these various races. We read of no further insurrections on their part against him, and all attempts to resist the encroachment of the Norman barons, with their feudal followers, on their territories seem to have been given up, though probably no great advance was made in the process of amalgamating these different nationalities into one people. In the last year of his reign, his only son, Prince Henry, died, leaving three sons, the eldest of whom, Malcolm, was only eleven years of age. The succession of a grandson to his grandfather was still a novelty to the Celtic population of the kingdom, and a greater infringement upon the law of tanistic succession than had yet been made, while the obstacle to his succession would be still greater if his grandfather’s death opened the throne to him while yet a minor. The aged monarch foresaw that after his death a conflict would once more take place between the laws and customs of the Teutonic and Celtic races, and lead to a renewed collision between them; and in order to avert this, he prevailed upon the earl of Fife, who was the acknowledged head of the constitutional body of the seven earls of Scotland, to make a progress with the youthful Malcolm through the kingdom, and obtain his recognition as heir to the throne.

David died in the following year, and, as might have been expected, the succession of Malcolm was viewed with dislike by the entire Gaelic population of the country, as well as by those districts more immediately under the power or influence of the Norwegians, and he had ere long to contend against the open revolt of the great Gaelic districts which surrounded the kingdom of Scotland proper. These were, on the north, ‘Moravia’ or Moray; on the west, ‘Arregaithel’ or Argyll; and on the south-west corner, separated from Scotland by the Cumbrian population, was the wild region of Galloway. It is remarkable that, while the race of native rulers of the first had come to an end in the preceding reign, we find the two latter suddenly starting into life under the rule of two native princes—Somerled, ‘regulus’ of Arregaithel, and Fergus, prince of Galloway, while no hint is given of the parentage of either. The Norwegians appear to have retained a hold over both districts till the beginning of the twelfth century, and it is probable that the native population had now succeeded in expelling them from their coasts, and that owing to the long possession of the country by the Norwegians, all trace of the parentage of the native leaders under whom they had risen had disappeared from the annals of the country, and they were viewed as the founders of a new race of native lords.[688]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1153-1165.
Malcolm, grandson of David, reigns 12 years.]

On the death of King David, his grandson was at once taken by those who had acknowledged him as heir, and crowned at Scone, and he is the first king of whom we have the fact of his coronation at Scone stated on contemporary authority.[689]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1154.
Somerled invades the kingdom with the sons of Malcolm
Maceth.]

This had no sooner been accomplished, than Somerled, the regulus of Arregaithel, rose against him in conjunction with his nephews, the sons of Malcolm mac Eth, and assailed the kingdom at all quarters.[690] The civil war had lasted three years, when, in the year 1156, Donald, the eldest son of Malcolm, was taken prisoner at Whitherne, in Galloway, by some of Malcolm’s adherents, and delivered over to him, when he was imprisoned in the castle of Marchmont along with his father.[691] Somerled, however, continued the war, and Malcolm found it expedient to neutralise the support he received from those who still adhered to the cause of Malcolm Maceth, by coming to terms with him. Accordingly he liberated Malcolm in the following year. William of Newburgh tells us that ‘he gave him a certain province, which suspended the incursion he had instigated.’ There is good reason for thinking that this province was the earldom of Ross,[692] a remote district over which King Malcolm could exercise but little authority; and he may have thought that his prisoner might expend his turbulent energy there with impunity—a view so far realised, as William of Newburgh further relates, that ‘whilst he was proudly proceeding through his subject province surrounded by his army like a king, some of the people who were unable to endure either his power or his insolence, with the consent of their chiefs, laid a snare for him.’ Obtaining a favourable opportunity, when he was following slowly and almost unattended a large party which he had sent forward to procure entertainment, they took and bound him and deprived him of both his eyes, and otherwise mutilated him. ‘Afterwards he came to us,’ says William of Newburgh, ‘at Byland, and quietly continued there many years till his death. But he is reported even there to have said that had he only the eye of a sparrow, his enemies should have little occasion to rejoice at what they had done to him.’[693] In the meantime events had occurred which led to a temporary peace between the king and Somerled. Olave, the Norwegian king of the Isles, had died in the same year as King David, and his son Godred had succeeded him. Somerled had married the daughter of Olave, by whom he had a son, Dugall; and three years after Godred’s accession, when his tyrannical mode of government had excited great discontent, Somerled took advantage of it to endeavour to have his son Dugall made king of the Isles. This led to a naval engagement between Godred and Somerled on the night of the Epiphany, or 6th of January 1156, in which there was great slaughter on both sides, and an agreement was made by which the Isles were divided between them. The contest, however, continued between them, and Somerled seems to have been glad to make peace with Malcolm in 1159.[694]

The opposition to Malcolm had as yet proceeded from the western districts over which Somerled ruled, and where the family of Malcolm Maceth found support, but this had been no sooner quieted by the conclusion of peace between them and the king, than he was exposed to a greater danger from the alienation of the Gaelic population of the kingdom of Scotland proper, and their native rulers, which he appears to have provoked by his apparent attachment to the king of England. He could hardly, from his extreme youth, be held responsible for the treaty in 1157, by which Northumberland and Cumberland were surrendered to the English monarch, but he had now attained the age of seventeen. In the previous year he had gone to Chester to meet the king of England for the purpose of obtaining knighthood at his hand, which, owing to some difference between them, was refused, but he now passed over to France and joined the king, who was besieging Toulouse, and served in his army.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1160.
Revolt of six earls.]

In consequence of news which reached Malcolm of the dissatisfaction in Scotland proper, he returned hastily, and on reaching the town of Perth, where according to Fordun he had summoned his nobles and clergy to meet him, he was besieged by Ferteth, earl of Stratherne, and five others of the seven earls of Scotland, who wished to take him prisoner, but failed in the attempt.[695] Neither the Chronicle of Melrose nor Fordun tells us the cause of the failure, but the latter adds that he was by the advice of the clergy brought to a good understanding with his nobles. But they soon found that he was prepared to act with vigour, and to show that he was, though young, capable of reducing all recalcitrant provinces to his authority.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1160. Subjection of Galloway.]

In the same year he thrice invaded the district of Galloway with a large army, and brought its inhabitants finally under subjection.[696]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1160. Plantation of Moray.]

According to Fordun, he likewise invaded the district of Moravia or Moray, ‘removed them all from the land of their birth, and scattered them throughout the other districts of Scotland, both beyond the hills and on this side thereof, so that not even a native of that land abode there, and he installed therein his own peaceful people.’[697] This statement is probably only so far true that he may have repressed the rebellious inhabitants of the district, and followed his grandfather’s policy by placing foreign settlers in the low and fertile land on the south side of the Moray Firth, extending from the Spey to the river Findhorn; and here he certainly did grant the lands of Innes and Etherurecard, extending from the Spey to the Lossie, to Berowald the Fleming, by a charter granted at Perth on the first Christmas after the agreement between the king and Somerled.[698]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1164.
Invasion by Somerled. His defeat and death at Renfrew.]

Malcolm had to sustain one other invasion of his kingdom ere he passed from this earthly scene at the early age of twenty-five. It proceeded once more from Somerled, who had now become more powerful by the addition of one-half of the Western Isles, which he held under the king of Norway, to his possessions on the mainland. What provoked this invasion we know not, but it proved fatal to himself. Having collected forces from all quarters, including Ireland, and assembled a fleet of 160 ships, he landed at Renfrew with the intention of subduing the whole kingdom, but was suddenly attacked by the people of the district and sustained an unexpected defeat, having been slain with his son Gillecolm.[699] This took place in the year 1164, nearly two years before Malcolm’s death, and was attributed by the chroniclers to divine interposition; but the author of a curious contemporary poem claims the credit for the merits of Saint Kentigern of Glasgow.[700] The rest of the country had remained quiet during the few concluding years of Malcolm’s reign, but he appears to have conciliated its Gaelic population, and won their regard, for the Ulster Annals tell us that in 1165 ‘Malcolm Cenmor or Greathead, son of Henry the high king of Alban, the best Christian that was to the Gael on the east side of the sea for almsgiving and fasting and devotion, died.’[701]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1166-1214.
William the Lyon, brother of Malcolm, reigns forty-eight
years.]

Malcolm was succeeded by his brother William, commonly called the Lyon King, who was crowned at Scone on Christmas eve of the year 1165, but no particulars of the ceremony are recorded.[702] His first proceeding was to claim from the king of England the restoration of Northumberland, which had been assigned to him as his appanage by his father David, but had been surrendered along with Cumberland during his brother Malcolm’s reign in 1157, and we find him invading England in 1173, with an army consisting mainly of those Highland Scots, whom, Fordun tells, men call ‘Bruti,’ and the Gallwegians.[703] In the following year William was taken prisoner by the English, when Fordun tells us the Scots and Gallwegians ‘wickedly and ruthlessly slew their Norman and English neighbours in frequent invasions with mutual slaughter, and there was then a most woeful and exceeding great persecution of the English, both in “Scotia” or Scotland proper and Galloway.’[704]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1174. Revolt in Galloway.]

This account is confirmed by Roger of Hoveden, so far as Galloway is concerned, where he had been himself sent by the king of England. He tells us that Uchtred, son of Fergus, and Gilbert, his brother, princes of the Gallwegians, immediately after the captivity of the king entered their own land, and expelled the king’s officers from its bounds, slew the English and Normans whom they found in their lands without mercy, and took and destroyed the fortifications and castles which the king had placed in their territory. They even proposed to the king of England to pass from the dominion of the king of Scots to that of the English crown. In short, it was a resistance by the Gaelic population to encroachments of the Norman and English barons, and shows the nature of the policy adopted by the Scottish king in subjecting these districts to his authority, and the extent to which it had been carried. The liberation of William from captivity in the following year arrested the progress of the insurrection.[705] According to Fordun the king led an army into Galloway, but ‘when the Gallwegians came to meet him under Gilbert, the son of Fergus, some Scottish bishops and earls stepped in between them, and through their mediation they were reconciled; the Gallwegians paying a sum of money and giving hostages.’[706]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1179.
King William subdues the district of Ross.]

Having thus quieted the Gallwegians, the king resolved to bring the district of Ross, which lay between the Moray and Dornoch Firths, under his authority. In the year 1179 he penetrated into that district at the head of his earls and barons, with a large army, subdued it, and in order to maintain his authority built two castles—one called Dunscath on the prominent hill on the north side of the entrance to the Cromarty Firth, to dominate over Easter Ross, and the other called Etherdover on the north side of the Beauly Firth, at the place now called Red Castle, to secure the district called the Black Isle.[707] Though William had thus for a time brought the northern districts under subjection to the royal authority, he was not permitted to retain them long without disturbance, and two years after he had to encounter the assault by a pretender to the crown, who found his chief support in the Gaelic population of these districts. This was Donald Ban, who called himself the son of William Fitz Duncan, and claimed the throne as lineal heir of Duncan, the eldest son of Malcolm Ceannmor, who had been himself king of Scotland.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1181. Insurrection in favour of Donald Ban Macwilliam.]

King William had purchased his liberation from captivity in England by the surrender of the independence of Scotland, and this probably created great dissatisfaction among the Celtic population of the kingdom north of the Firths, which finally broke out, in 1181, in a serious attempt to place the ancient kingdom of Alban with the northern districts under a separate monarch in the person of Donald Ban, whose descent from the marriage of Malcolm Ceannmor with the Norwegian Ingibiorg would commend his pretensions both to the native and the Norwegian leaders. He seems to have borne the name of Macwilliam, and this is the first appearance of a family name, which was to become more familiar to the kings of Scotland in connection with such insurrections. Invited, or at least encouraged, by a formidable party among the earls and barons of Scotland proper, he invaded the northern districts with a large force.[708] Fordun tells us that ‘for the whole time from the capture of the king of Scots to his liberation, the inhabitants of the southern and northern districts of the kingdom were engaged in mutual civil war with much slaughter;’ and this was probably true of the entire period from the surrender of the independence of the kingdom to its restoration, during which time Galloway and the districts beyond the Spey were more or less in insurrection, and a considerable party in Scotland proper were hostile to the king. On the 1st of January 1185, Gilbert, son of Fergus, lord of Galloway, died, and a part of the Gallwegians broke out into rebellion under a certain Gilpatrick; while Roland, the son of Uchtred, who had been slain by his brother Gilbert, espoused the cause of the king, and a battle took place between them in which Roland was victorious. One of the king’s officers, too, Gilcolm the Marescal, revolted from him and surrendered the king’s castle of Earn or Dundurn, at the east end of Loch Earn, to the king’s enemies, which shows that there was a party in Stratherne hostile to him, and infested Lothian with frequent attacks. As soon as he heard of the defeat of Gilpatrick, Gilcolm, who is termed by Fordun ‘a tyrant and robber chief,’ and whose name shows that he was of Gaelic, and probably of Gallwegian, descent, invaded Galloway with the view of putting himself at the head of the insurgents, and establishing himself as ruler in those parts of Galloway hostile to the king; but he, too, was defeated in battle by Roland on the 30th of September, and perished with many of his followers.[709]

After the defeat of the Gallwegian rebels, and the slaughter of Gilcolm and his followers, the earls and barons of the kingdom of Scotland proper appear to have become more reconciled to their legitimate monarch; and he felt the necessity of either slaying or expelling Macwilliam, who had now for six years maintained himself in the northern districts beyond the Spey, and been ravaging and devastating those parts of the kingdom which adhered to King William, if he would not lose his crown altogether;[710] but it was not till the year 1187 that he found himself in a position to advance against him. He then invaded Moravia or Moray at the head of a large army, and while he remained with the main body of the army at Inverness, sent his earls and barons with the Scots and Gallwegians to lay waste the more western parts of the province. They encountered Macwilliam in the upper part of the valley of the Spey, encamped on a moor called Mamgarvia, and a battle took place there on Friday, the 31st of July, in which Macwilliam was slain with many of his followers.[711] Two years after the independence of Scotland was restored by Richard the First, king of England, and the relations between the two kingdoms replaced on their former footing.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1196. Subjection of Caithness.]

The annexation of the district of Ross to the kingdom, and the suppression of this insurrection, seem, however, soon after to have brought the people of Caithness into closer contact with the royal authority. Although nominally held of the Scottish king, Caithness was possessed as an earldom by the earl of Orkney, who held his other earldom of the king of Norway, and thus the tie with Scotland was a slender one. The earl at this time was Harald, who was himself of the royal family, being son of Madach, earl of Atholl, whose father was a brother of Malcolm Ceannmor, and he had succeeded to the earldom of Orkney and Caithness through his mother, Margaret, the daughter of the Norwegian earl Hakon of Orkney, and his wife was a daughter of Malcolm mac Eth. According to Fordun, King William led an army into Caithness in the year 1196. Crossing the river Oikell, which separates Sutherland from Ross, he killed some of the disturbers of the peace, and subjected both provinces of the Caithness men—that of Sutherland and of Caithness—routing Earl Harald, who, says Fordun, had been ‘until then a good and trusty man, but at that time, goaded on by his wife, the daughter of Mached, had basely deceived his lord the king, and risen against him. Then, leaving there a garrison for the country, the king hurried back into Scotland.’[712] From the Chronicle of Melrose we learn that in the following year ‘a battle was fought near the Castle of Inverness, between the king’s troops, who had been probably left as a garrison there, and Roderic and Thorfinn, son of Earl Harald, in which the king’s enemies were put to flight, and Roderic slain, with many of his followers. King William then proceeded with his army to Moray, and the more remote districts’—that is, as Fordun tells us, the districts of Sutherland, Caithness, and Ross; ‘and, having taken Earl Harald prisoner, confined him in the castle of Roxburgh, where he remained till his son Thorfinn gave himself as a hostage for his father.’[713] Such are the Scotch accounts of these events; but Roger of Hoveden, a contemporary English writer, gives a somewhat different account. He says that, in 1196, King William entered Moray with a great army to drive out Harald, who had occupied that district, but before the king could enter Caithness, Harald fled to his ships. The king then sent his army to Thurso, and destroyed the castle. Harald then came to the king and submitted, and the king permitted him to retain half of Caithness on condition he surrendered his enemies to him in Moray, and gave the other half to Harald, grandson of Rognwald, a former earl of Orkney and Caithness. The king then returned to his own land, and Harald to Orkney. In the autumn the king returned to Moray, and went to Invernairn to receive the king’s enemies from Harald; but after bringing them to the port of Loch Loy, near Invernairn, he allowed them to escape, on which the king took him prisoner, and kept him in Edinburgh Castle till his son Thorfinn was delivered up for him. Harald the younger was afterwards slain in battle with the elder Harald, who then went to the king and offered to redeem his lands in Caithness with a sum of money. The king agreed to give him back the half of Caithness if he would put away his wife, the daughter of Malcolm Maceth, and take back his first wife, Afreka, sister of Duncan, earl of Fife; but he refused, on which the king gave Caithness to Reginald, the son of Somerled, for a sum of money, reserving the king’s annual tribute.[714] In consequence of an attack upon Caithness made in 1202 by Harald, in which he drove out Reginald’s men and made an outrage on the bishop, King William once more sent his army in the spring of that year to Caithness, but it was unable to penetrate beyond the border of the country, and as the king was preparing to follow by sea, Harald met him at Perth under the safe-conduct of Roger, bishop of St. Andrews, and came to an understanding with the king, by which he was restored to his earldom on payment of every fourth penny to be found in Caithness, amounting to 2000 merks of silver.[715]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1211.
Insurrection in favour of Guthred Macwilliam.]

Towards the close of William’s reign he had again to suppress a renewed attempt by the people of Ross to throw off the yoke by supporting the claims of the descendants of William Fitz Duncan. Fordun tells us that ‘Guthred, the son of Macwilliam, came about the Lord’s Epiphany (6th January), by the advice, it was said, of the Thanes of Ross, out of Ireland into that district, and infested the greater part of the kingdom of Scotland. But the king’s army was suddenly sent against him to kill him or to drive him out of the country, and King William himself went after him, and in the following summer built two towns there; but Guthred being seized and fettered through the treachery of his own men, was brought before the king’s son Alexander, at the king’s manor and place of Kincardine, and was there beheaded and hung up by the feet.’[716] An old chronicler, Walter of Coventry, represents what appears to have been the feeling of the Gaelic population towards the family of Macwilliam, and led to these frequent revolts. ‘This Guthred,’ he says, ‘was of the ancient lineage of the Scottish kings who, with the support of Scots and Irish, did, as well as his father Domnald, exercise constant hostilities against the modern kings, now secretly, now openly. For these modern kings affected more the Normans, as in race, so in customs, language, and culture, and the Scots being reduced to utter servitude admitted the Normans only to their friendship and service.’[717] During the remainder of his reign William had no further encounter with his Gaelic subjects, and died at Stirling on the 4th of December 1214.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1214-1249.
Alexander the Second, son of king William the Lyon, reigned
thirty-five years. Crowned by the seven earls]

He was succeeded by his son Alexander, who was then in his seventeenth year, and was crowned at Scone on the following day. We now learn some further particulars of the coronation of the Scottish kings, and we are told by Fordun that the bishop of St. Andrews, the head of the Scotch Church, and the seven earls of Scotland—the earls of Fife, Stratherne, Atholl, Angus, Menteith, Buchan, and Lothian—took Alexander, brought him to Scone, and there raised him to the throne in honour and peace, with the approval of God and man, and with more grandeur and glory than any one till then, while all wished him joy and none gainsaid him. So King Alexander, as was meet, held his feast in state at Scone on that day, viz., Friday, and the Saturday following, viz., the Feast of St. Nicholas, as well as the next Sunday.[718]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1215.
Insurrection in favour of Donald Macwilliam and Kenneth
Maceth.]

The young king had barely reigned a year when he had to encounter the old enemies of the crown, the families of Macwilliam and Maceth, who now combined their forces, and under Donald Ban, the son of that Macwilliam who had been slain at Mamgarvia in 1187, and Kenneth Maceth, a son or grandson of Malcolm Maceth, with the son of one of the Irish provincial kings, burst into the province of Moray at the head of a large band of malcontents. A very important auxiliary, however, now joined the party of the king. This was Ferquhard or Fearchar, called Macintagart, the son of the ‘Sagart’ or priest who was the lay possessor of the extensive possessions of the old monastery founded by the Irish Saint Maelrubha at Applecross in the seventh century. Its possessions lay between the district of Ross and the Western Sea, and extended from Loch Carron to Loch Ewe and Loch Maree, where the name of Maelrubha was long venerated as Saint Maree, and Ferquhard was thus in reality a powerful Highland chief commanding the population of an extensive western region. The insurgents were assailed by him with great vigour, entirely crushed, and their leaders taken, whom he at once beheaded, and presented their heads to the new king as a welcome gift on the 15th of June, when he was knighted by the king as the reward of his prompt assistance.[719]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1222.
Subjection of Arregaithel or Argyll.]

Of the districts which still maintained a kind of semi-independence of the Scottish crown as ancient provinces of Scotland, there now only remained the extensive region of Arregaithel or Argyll, forming the entire western seaboard of the country from the Firth of Clyde to Loch Broom, the northern part of which, however—North Argyll as it was called—consisting chiefly of the possessions of the ancient monastery of Applecross, were now brought by their lay possessor Macintagart into close connection with the crown. The remote and secluded position of Galloway too rendered it little amenable to the royal authority, and the Western Isles, one half of which were under the rule of a Norwegian petty king, and the other half belonged to the family of Somerled, still belonged to the kingdom of Norway. The attention of King Alexander was strongly drawn towards the necessity of bringing Argyll under subjection from the support its people afforded to the families of Macwilliam and Maceth. The head of the former family was at this time Gillescoph Mahohegan or Gillespic mac Eochagan, and he appears to have had the support of Roderic, son of Reginald, Lord of the Isles, and other chiefs of Argyll.

The account of these transactions is to be found in Fordun and Wynton alone, but there seems no reason to doubt their authority at this period. Fordun tells us that ‘during this time,’ that is, in 1221, ‘some unrighteous men of the race of Macwilliam, viz., Gillespic and his sons and Roderic, started up in the uttermost bounds of Scotland.’[720] Alexander was at the time at York, where he was betrothed to the English king’s eldest sister Joan, as yet a girl; but on his return with his bride Fordun tells us that ‘having raised an army out of Lothian and Galloway and other outlying provinces, the king sailed for Argyll, but a storm having arisen he was obliged to put back, and brought up at Glasgow in safety but not without danger. In the following year, however, after Whitsunday, he led back the army into Argyll. The men of Argyll were frightened. Some gave hostages and a great deal of money, and were taken back in peace, while others who had more offended against the king’s will forsook their estates and possessions and fled. But our lord the king bestowed both the land and the goods of these men upon his own followers at will, and thus returned in peace with his men.’[721]

Wynton gives the following account of it:—

The kyng that yhere Argyle wan,
That rebell wes till hym befor than;
For wyth his ost thare in wes he,
And athe tuk off thare fewté,
Wyth thare serwys and thare homage,
That off hym wald hald thare herytage:
Bot the ethchetys off the lave
To the lordys off that land he gave.
Oure the Mownth theyne passyd he sene,
And held hys Yhule in Abbyrdene.[722]

This expedition seems to have thus lasted from Whitsunday till near Christmas, and to have been confined to Argyll south of the Mounth, and thus was this region also brought under subjection to the crown. The rebels appear to have taken refuge in Galloway, and here we find them witnessing a charter in that year of lands in Galloway to the monks of Melrose. After the abbot of Melrose; Alan son of Roland of Galloway; Fergus son of Uchtred; Edgar son of Dovenald; Duncan son of Gilbert Earl of Carrick, all lords of Galloway, appear the following names:—‘Gileskop Macihacain; Giladuenan son of Duvegal; Gillecrist son of Kenedi; Iwan son of Alewain; Gillenef Okeueltal; Gilleroth son of Gillemartin; Makeg son of Kyin; and Gillefakeneshi son of Gillin;’[723] all no doubt fully justifying Fordun’s epithet of ‘iniquus.’ The only account he gives of their fate is that ‘God gave them over, with their abettors, into King Alexander’s hand; and thus the land was no longer troubled by their lawlessness.’[724] In the following year, while the king was keeping his birthday at Forfar, John, earl of Caithness, who was son of Earl Harald the elder, came to him there and purchased back a part of his earldom which the king had taken from him the previous year on account of his having been supposed to be privy to the outrage committed by the people of Caithness on their bishop, Adam, whom they had burned in his own house.[725]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1235.
Revolt in Galloway.]

Galloway appears to have been still a constant source of disquiet to the kingdom. Alan, the son of Roland, lord of Galloway and Constable of Scotland, died in the year 1234, leaving three daughters, who were married to Norman barons, and one son, considered illegitimate, who during his father’s lifetime had married the daughter of the king of Man. The Norman barons divided the territory between them; ‘but,’ we are told in the Chronicle of Melrose, ‘the inhabitants of that land preferring one master rather than several, went to our lord the king with the request that he himself would accept the lordship of that inheritance, but the king was too just to do this. Thereupon the Gallwegians were angry above measure, and prepared for war. Moreover, they devastated with fire and sword some of the royal lands contiguous to themselves,’ and the king resolved to make a final effort to reduce it entirely to obedience.

‘In the following year our lord the king,’ says the chronicler, ‘mustered an army, and entered Galloway. Having reached a spot convenient for the purpose, he determined there to pitch his tents, for the day was now drawing towards evening. The Gallwegians, however, who had all day been hiding among the mountains, knew the place better, and, trusting to their local acquaintance with its difficulties, offered the king battle. In truth, the place was filled with bogs, which were covered over with grass and flowers, amongst which the larger portion of the royal army had involved itself. At the beginning of the battle the earl of Ross, called Makintagart, came up and attacked the enemies in the rear, and as soon as they perceived this they took to flight, and retreated into the woods and mountains, but they were followed up by the earl and several others, who put many of them to the sword, and harassed them as long as daylight lasted. On the next day the king, acting upon his accustomed humanity, extended his peace to as many as came to him, and so the surviving Gallwegians, with ropes round their necks, accepted his offer.’[726]

The illegitimate son of Alan, lord of Galloway, however, Thomas, went over to Ireland with Gilrodh, who incited him to his rebellion, and was no doubt the Gilleroth, son of Gillemartin, who appears among the followers of Gillescop Mahohegan, from whence he soon after returned, bringing with him a fleet and a body of Irish, with the son of one of their chieftains. ‘The Scots,’ we are told, ‘fled before him, and in their hasty flight arrived at a piece of water, in which many perished by means of that accursed army;’ but the bishop of Galloway and the abbot of Melrose, as soon as they heard of it, went, accompanied by the earl of Dunbar and his troops, to the district of Galloway, and informed Gilrodh that he must either make his submission to the king, or engage the earl’s army in battle. Perceiving his inferiority in numbers, Gilrodh followed their advice, and the king placed him for some time in the custody of the before-mentioned earl. Being thus deprived of all counsel and assistance, the bastard was obliged to sue for the king’s peace. He was imprisoned for a short time in Edinburgh Castle, and then the king gave him his freedom; and we hear no more of any resistance to the royal authority in this quarter, and they seem to have acquiesced in their incorporation into the kingdom.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1249.
Attempt to reduce the Sudreys, and death of the king at
Kerrera.]

There now remained but one object to be accomplished to complete the amalgamation of the different outlying provinces of the kingdom occupied by a Celtic population, and that was to wrest the possession of the Western Isles from the kingdom of Norway. Alexander first attempted to obtain the islands by treaty, and sent two of his bishops to Hakon, king of Norway, to ascertain if he would voluntarily surrender the islands as having been unjustly wrested from the Scottish crown by Magnus Barefoot; but Hakon refused, on the ground that Magnus had won them from Godred, king of the Isles, and that his right to the Isles had been confirmed by the king of Scots. The king then proposed to purchase the Isles, but this likewise was refused; and though the negotiations were frequently renewed, the Scots received no other answer.[727] In the year 1249, however, Harald, son of Olave, the Norwegian king of Man and the Isles, died, and was succeeded by his brother Reginald, who began to reign in the Isle of Man on the sixth of May, and was slain on the thirteenth of the same month near Russin, in the Isle of Man. The succession was then claimed by Harald, son of Godred Don, whose father was brother of Olave, the father of the slain king.[728] Alexander seems to have considered this a favourable opportunity to endeavour to obtain the Isles by force of arms, and having collected forces throughout all Scotland, he prepared for a voyage to the Hebrides, and determined to subdue these islands under his dominion. According to the Saga, he declared ‘that he would not desist till he had set his standard east on the cliffs of Thurso, and had reduced under himself all the provinces which the Norwegian monarch possessed to the westward of the German Ocean.’[729] With this view he sent to one of the island kings of the family of Somerled, and appointed a meeting with him in the islands, when he endeavoured to persuade him to renounce his allegiance to King Hakon, and to surrender to him the castle of Cairnburgh, in the Treshinish Isles, on the west coast of Mull, and three other castles, but without success, and the further prosecution of his enterprise was arrested by death. He was seized with severe illness, and having been carried to the island of Kerrera, on the coast of Lorn, he died there. The Scottish army then broke up, and removed the king’s body to Scotland. The Saga reports that the king had seen a vision while lying in the Sound of Kerrera, in which Saint Olave of Norway, Saint Magnus of Orkney, and Saint Columba appeared to him, and prophesied evil to him if he would not abandon his purpose;[730] but how Saint Columba, whose successors had suffered such evils at the hands of the Northmen, should have appeared in such company is not explained.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1249-1285.
Alexander the Third, his son, reigned thirty-six years.]

[Sidenote: Ceremony at his coronation.]

King Alexander was buried in the church of Melrose on the 8th of July 1249, and was succeeded by his son Alexander, a boy in his eighth year.[731] Notwithstanding his extreme youth he was crowned at Scone on the 13th of July 1249, and Fordun gives us a very graphic account of the ceremony. Walter Comyn, earl of Menteith, and all the clergy, having ‘joined unto them some earls—viz., Malcolm, earl of Fife, and Malise, earl of Stratherne, and a great many other nobles—led Alexander, soon to be their king, up to the cross which stands in the cemetery at the east end of the church. Here they placed him upon the celebrated coronation stone, which was covered with silken cloths interwoven with gold, and the bishop of St. Andrews, assisted by the rest, consecrated him king.’ The boy king then received the homage of the feudal baronage of the kingdom, and a strange ceremony followed, probably now for the first time, and intended to mark the cordial acceptance of the king by the entire Gaelic population as the heir and inheritor of a long line of traditionary Gaelic monarchs. A Highland sennachy advanced, and, kneeling before the fatal stone, hailed him as the ‘Ri Alban,’ and repeated his pedigree according to Highland tradition through a long line of Gaelic kings, partly real and partly mythic, till he reached Gaithal Glas, the ‘eponymus’ of the race.[732]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1250.
Relics of Queen Margaret enshrined before the seven earls and
the seven bishops.]

It is probable that the seven earls, though not specifically mentioned by Fordun, took part in this ceremony, as he tells us that in the following year, ‘on the 19th of June,’ the king and the queen, his mother, with bishops and abbots, earls and barons, and other good men, both clerics and laymen, in great numbers, met at Dunfermline, and took up, in great state, the bones of the blessed Margaret, sometime queen of Scots, out of the stone monument where they had lain through a long course of years, and them they laid with the deepest devoutness in a shrine of deal set with gold and precious stones;[733] but when we turn to the Chartulary of Dunfermline, we find from an inquisition taken in the year 1316, that the enshrining took place ‘in the presence of King Alexander the Third, the seven bishops, and the seven earls of Scotland.’[734]

During the earlier years of Alexander’s reign, the Comyns seem to have held the principal sway in Scotland, at the head of whom was Walter, earl of Menteith; but when he had reached the age of fourteen, Henry, king of England, had an interview with him at Rokesburgh, the result of which was that the bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, and the earl of Menteith, who were at the head of the national party, were disgraced, and a regency appointed of the earl of Dunbar and others, who were more favourable to the king of England, for the seven years that would elapse till Alexander attained majority.[735]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1263.
War between kings of Norway and Scotland for the possession
of the Sudreys.]

During this time no attempt appears to have been made to renew the contest for the Western Isles, but when the king attained the age of twenty-one, he announced his intention of subduing the Hebrides if life were granted to him. The war was commenced by the earl of Ross, the son of that Macintagart who had proved so important an auxiliary to the crown, with others of the Ross-shire chiefs, with a kind of guerilla warfare against the isle of Skye and those other islands which lay opposite their territories. In the summer of 1262 letters reached the king of Norway from the kings of the Sudreys complaining of these hostilities, and warning the king of King Alexander’s avowed intention of wresting the islands from him by force, upon which King Hakon resolved to anticipate by an expedition to the Sudreys with a large force to repress these hostilities, and confirm the island chiefs in their allegiance to him. He accordingly, in the beginning of 1263, issued orders for collecting his forces, which were to assemble at Bergen towards the commencement of summer.

On the 15th of July Hakon sailed with a large fleet, consisting, according to the Saga, of upwards of 120 sail, and in a few days arrived in Orkney, and anchored in Elwick harbour in Shapinshay, opposite Kirkwall. King Alexander was not idle in preparing for the impending attack. He repaired the fortifications of Inverness, Wigtown, Stirling, and other castles, and increased their garrisons. He built vessels, and strongly garrisoned the castle of Ayr, where the chief attack was expected. On the 10th of August Hakon sailed from Orkney with his fleet, which had been reinforced, doubled Cape Wrath, swept past Lewis, and entered the Sound of Skye, where he anchored south of the island of Raasay. Here he was joined by Magnus, king of Man, and other Norwegian barons. He then proceeded through the Sound of Mull to Kerrera, where the forces gathered in the Isles were already assembled. From Kerrera, he sent 50 ships under the command of King Magnus and some Norwegian barons, and of King Dugald, of the family of Somerled, to Kintyre, and 15 ships to Bute, while he himself brought up at Gigha. The castles of Dunaverty in Kintyre and Rothesay in Bute having capitulated, he now sailed with the whole fleet and anchored in Lamlash harbour in Arran. King Alexander was stationed with the greater part of his forces at Ayr, on the opposite mainland, and negotiations now commenced for a peace, in which the Norwegian endeavoured to get his right to the whole islands acknowledged, while the Scots merely protracted them till the summer should pass and the bad weather of autumn set in. In this they were successful, and it was late in September when they were broken off. King Hakon then sent 60 of his ships under leaders of Somerled’s family to sail into Loch Long and ravage the adjacent districts, while he himself prepared to land with the main force at Largs, to which place the Scottish king had moved, and was encamped there with his army. A great storm, however, broke out on the night of the 30th of September, and lasted two days. Ten of the vessels sent to Loch Long were wrecked, and the main fleet off Largs suffered greatly.[736]

Of the battle of Largs which followed we have two accounts, one in the Norse Saga of Hakon IV., the other by Fordun; and it is possible that while the one makes too light of the Norwegian loss, the other may make their defeat more complete than it really was. Fordun’s account is that, ‘on the very day that both the kings had appointed for battle, there arose at sea a very violent storm which dashed the ships together; and a great part of the fleet dragged their anchors and were roughly cast on shore whether they would or not. Then the king’s army came against them and swept down many, both nobles and serfs, and a Norwegian king; Hakon’s nephew, a man of great might and vigour, was killed. On account of this the king of the Norwegians himself, sorrowing deeply, hurried back in no little dismay to Orkney, and while wintering there, awaiting a stronger force to fight it out with the Scots, he died.’[737] Although the Saga does not admit that the Norwegians were defeated, it states that five days after the battle King Hakon departed with his fleet, and sailed through the Western Isles till he arrived in the Orkneys, where he remained while the most part of the troops sailed to Norway; and while the Saga makes the most of the grants he is said on his return to have made to those Sudreyan kings of the family of Somerled who adhered to him, and even avers that, ‘in this expedition King Hakon regained all those provinces which Magnus Barefoot had acquired and conquered from the Scotch and the Sudreyans,’ it is obvious from the results that the expedition had in reality failed. King Hakon died in the Bishop’s Palace at Kirkwall on the 15th of December 1263, and was succeeded by his son Magnus as king of Norway. The results of the battle of Largs and the death of King Hakon substantially left the Western Isles at the mercy of King Alexander; and Fordun tells us that he no sooner heard of King Hakon’s death than he got a strong army together and made ready to set out with a fleet towards the Isle of Man. When he had reached Dumfries on his way, King Magnus of Man met him, and agreed to do homage for his petty kingdom which he was to hold of him for ever. The king then sent the earls of Buchan and Mar, and Alan the Hostiary, with a band of knights and natives, to the Western Isles, ‘where they slew those traitors who had the year before encouraged the king of Norway to go to war with Scotland. Some of them they put to flight, and, having hanged some of the chiefs, they brought with them thence exceeding great plunder.’[738]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1266.
Annexation of the Western Isles to the crown of Scotland.]

King Magnus of Man died on the 24th of November 1265, and this paved the way for a treaty between the kings of Scotland and of Norway, by which, for payment of a sum of 4000 marks and an annual payment to the crown of Norway of 100 marks, the Isle of Man and all the Sudreys were finally ceded to King Alexander, the Orkneys and Shetland being excepted; and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction and metropolitan rights of the archbishop of Drontheim over Man and the Isles reserved. The treaty was concluded in July 1266, and thus were the Sudreys or Western Isles finally annexed to the kingdom of Scotland.[739]

Alexander III. had two sons, Alexander and David, and one daughter, Margaret, who was married to Eric, king of Norway, but in the course of three years he was left childless. His son David died at Stirling at the end of June in the year 1281. On the 9th of April 1283 his daughter Margaret died, leaving an only daughter Margaret, commonly called the Maid of Norway, and on the 28th of January following died Alexander, prince of Scotland.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1283.
Assembly of baronage of the whole kingdom at Scone on 5th
February to regulate succession.]