[44]. Chronica Rogeri de Hoveden (Rolls Ed.), iv. pp, 10, 12.
[45]. In the Chronicle of Melrose, under the date 1175, it is stated that “Laurentius, Abbot in Orkney, was made Abbot of Melrose.” But as his death is recorded in the year 1178, the priest here mentioned by Hoveden must have been a different person, though of the same name. At the same time, as this passage shows that Earl Harald had a hird-priest named Laurentius, it is not improbable that the so-called Orkney abbot, who was made abbot of Melrose, may also have been Harald’s family or court priest. Being himself the son of a Scottish earl, and allied by marriage first with the family of the Earl of Fife, and subsequently with the MacHeths, and having, moreover, such close relations with the abbey of Scone, it is not unlikely that he may have had Scottish priests about his family in preference to those of Norwegian extraction.
[46]. So says the Saga. Fordun says that the use of his tongue and of one eye was in some measure left him. The letter of Pope Innocent, addressed to the Bishop of Orkney, prescribing the penance to be performed by the man who mutilated the bishop, only mentions the cutting out of the tongue. It is as follows:—
“We have learnt by your letters that Lomberd, a layman, the bearer of these presents, accompanied his earl on an expedition into Caithness; that there the Earl’s army stormed a castle, killed almost all who were in it, and took prisoner the Bishop of Caithness; and that this Lomberd, as he says, was compelled by some of the earl’s soldiery to cut out the bishop’s tongue. Now because the sin is great and grievous, in absolving him, according to the form of the church, we have prescribed this penance for satisfaction of his offence, and to the terror of others:—That he shall hasten home, and bare-footed, and naked, except breeches, and a short woollen vest without sleeves, having his tongue tied by a string, and drawn out so as to project beyond his lips, and the ends of the string bound round his neck, with rods in his hand, in sight of all men, walk for fifteen days successively through his own native district, the district of the mutilated bishop, and the neighbouring country; he shall go to the door of the church without entering, and there, prostrate on the earth, undergo discipline with the rods he is to carry; he is thus to spend each day in silence and fasting until evening, when he shall support nature with bread and water only; after these fifteen days are passed he shall prepare within a month to set out for Jerusalem, and there labour in the service of the Cross for three years; he shall never more bear arms against Christians; for two years he shall fast every Friday on bread and water, unless by the indulgence of some discreet bishop, or on account of bodily infirmity, this abstinence be mitigated. Do you then receive him returning in this manner, and see that he observe the penance enjoined him.” (Epist. Innoc. III. Lib. iii. No. 77; Diplom. Norvegicum, vii. 3.)
[47]. Chron. de Mailros, p. 114; see also p. [lxxxi]. infra.
[48]. Magnus, son of the Earl of Angus, appears among those present at the perambulation of the boundaries of the lands of the Abbey of Aberbrothock on 16th January 1222 (Regist. Vet. de Aberbrothock, p. 163); but he seems to have been Earl of Angus as well as of Caithness at the date after mentioned. A charter of King Alexander II. to the chapel of St. Nicholas at Spey, dated 2d October 1232, is witnessed by M. Earl of Angus and Kataness (Regist. Moraviense, p. 123).
[49]. The title prefixed to the translation of this document by Dean Gule, made for William Sinclair of Roslin, in 1554, calls it:—“A Diploma or Deduction concerning the Genealogies of the ancient Earls of Orkney, drawn up from the most authentic records, by Thomas, Bishop of Orkney, with the assistance of his clergy and others, in consequence of an order from King Eirik of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, to investigate the rights of William Sinclair to the earldom.” But in the document itself King Eirik is spoken of as “our former lord of illustrious memory,” and the date is evidently erroneous. It is probably to be assigned to about 1443. It was first printed by Wallace in 1699, and subsequently by Jonæus in the appendix to the Orkneyinga Saga in 1780; by Barry in his History of the Orkneys in 1805; in the Bannatyne Miscellany, 1848; and by Munch in his Symbolæ, Christiania, 1850.
[50]. Among the documents found in the King’s Treasury at Edinburgh in 1282, were the letters addressed by the King of Norway (presumably Hakon) to the inhabitants of Caithness. The inhabitants of Caithness seem to have been also obliged by the Scottish King to give hostages for their fealty to him. In the accounts of Laurence Grant, Sheriff of Inverness, for the year 1263, there is a charge of £15:6:3 for the expenses of twenty-one hostages from Caithness, at the rate of one denarius (penny) for each per day for twenty-five weeks, “and then they were set at liberty.” (Compota Camerarium Scotiæ, i. p. 31.)
[51]. Acta Parl. Scot., vol. i. p. 82.
[52]. Iceland Annals, sub anno.