Scotland under her early kings, Volume 1 (of 2)

by Eben William Robertson

A. D. 1152.

Towards the close of a long and peaceful reign, Olave dispatched his son Godfrey to Norway, to obtain from Inge, who then ruled over that kingdom, a confirmation of his claim upon the throne of the Isles. Hardly had Godfrey left his home, when the three sons of the blind Harald, landing upon the coast of Man, asserted their claim to a share in the kingdom, as the lawful inheritance of their father. Olave agreed to submit the question to the general assembly of the Manxmen, and, on the 29th of June, both parties met at Ramsay, when Ronald Haraldson, rising under pretence of opening the conference, struck the unsuspecting Olave to the ground with his battle-axe, and proclaimed himself and his brothers kings of the Isles. A. D. 1153. Their usurpation, however, was of short duration, for upon the return of Godfrey Olaveson from Norway, the whole of the island chieftains at once declared in favour of Olave’s heir; and the sons of Harald, who were made over to their kinsman, suffered the usual punishment of a cruel age for their treacherous outrage upon his father.[380]

Shortly after his return to Man, overtures were made to Godfrey to cross over to Dublin and place himself at the head of the Northmen of Fingal, or Dublin Ostmen as they now began to be called. He willingly responded to the invitation, but by adopting this course, and by some of his subsequent proceedings, he appears to have provoked the serious enmity of one of the leading magnates of the Isles. After the conquest of Man by Godfrey Crovan, the original clans, whose connection with the Northmen of Dublin and the Isles has been already noticed, were confined to the north of the island; whilst the south, partitioned out amongst the Islesmen who had contributed to the success of Godfrey, remained in the possession of their descendants, and became the seat of the government, the locality of the episcopal see, and the favoured portion of the island. The names of the leaders in the sanguinary battle of Sandwirth, Ottir and Mac Maras, point to the different descent of their followers; and it appears to have been the policy of Godfrey Crovan and his descendants to preserve the distinction between North and South, and to maintain their own ascendancy by holding the balance between the two races.[381]

A. D. 1142.

About ten years before Godfrey became connected with the Dublin Ostmen, Reginald Mac Torquil, a grandson of Jarl Ottir who fell at Sandwirth—and, perhaps, also a member of the old Hy Ivar race, which probably still lingered in the north of Man—had either been chosen, or deputed, to assume the government of the Dublin Norsemen, this leadership remaining in the possession of his descendants until the capture of Dublin by the English.[382] The arrival of the king of Man must have interfered with the authority of Reginald, and, upon his return home, Godfrey appears to have directed his enmity still further against the family of Reginald by depriving Thorfin Ottirson of his possessions in the island. A. D. 1156 Thirsting for vengeance Thorfin sought out Somarled, who had married the sister of Godfrey Olaveson, undertaking to place one of the great chief’s sons upon the throne of the Isles in right of his maternal ancestry. Most readily was the offer accepted, and Thorfin, accompanied by Somarled’s eldest son Dugal, sailed amongst the northern islands, exacting the submission of their chieftains to the joint heir of the Isles and the Oirir-Gael, whilst Somarled, on his part, prepared to support his son’s claim with a powerful fleet of eighty vessels. 6th Jan. A. D. 1157. The proceedings of Thorfin could scarcely escape the notice of Godfrey, and he was fully prepared to meet the confederates when they appeared off the coasts of Man, where a desperate and bloody battle, lasting through a whole winter’s night, and terminating in favour of Somarled, led to the partition of the islands; the permanent cession of all the Sudreys, or Southern Hebrides, striking a fatal blow at the ancient ascendancy of the Gall-Gael. Not content, however, with his partial success, the lord of the Oirir-Gael aimed at the possession of the remainder, A. D. 1158. and in the following year, landing in Man, he completed his conquest by the reduction of that island, Godfrey flying before his sister’s husband, and passing the next seven years in exile at the court of Norway.[383]

The defection of Thorfin from Godfrey Olaveson was, probably, as fatal in its consequences to the sons of Mac Heth as it was advantageous to their powerful kinsman; for in the very year in which Somarled, relinquishing his attacks upon Scotland, turned all his energies towards acquiring the kingdom of the Isles, Donald Mac Malcolm was captured in Galloway, A. D. 1156. and sent to share his father’s imprisonment in Roxburgh Castle.[384] Three and twenty years of hopeless captivity must have bowed the spirit of the forlorn prisoner, and despairing of success when his son became the partner of his dungeon, Malcolm Mac Heth came to terms with his enemies. A. D. 1157. No account remains of the nature of the transaction by which he at length repurchased his liberty; of the claims which he relinquished, or of the concessions extorted by his opponents. Once only his name occurs in the chartularies of the period, when it appears amongst the signatures of the leading nobles who were in attendance at the court of their youthful sovereign at Dunfermlyn; and then, with one solitary and insignificant exception, the name of the once mighty leaders of the ancient race of Moray disappears for ever from the page of history.[385]

Three years had elapsed since the death of Stephen, and a very different monarch now filled the throne of England. A true descendant of the Norman conqueror, Henry Fitz Empress seems to have reunited, in his own character, the different qualities bequeathed by his mighty ancestor between his younger sons, and, together with the politic sagacity of his maternal grandfather, the young king displayed all the fiery passions of Rufus. Astute, ambitious, and little scrupulous about the means by which his ends were attained, his first aim was to re-establish the royal authority upon the destruction of the all but independent power achieved by many of the greater nobles. William Peveril, Hugo Mortimer, and the great Earl of Yorkshire—the same William Albemarle who won his earldom upon Cutton Moor—were either reduced to submission, or driven from the realm; and the once all-powerful Bishop of Winchester deemed it prudent to consult his safety in flight, seeking a surer refuge with his treasure in the monastery of Clugny. In pursuance of a similar line of policy, after the death of the Earl of Northampton, upon whom Stephen had conferred the Honor of Huntingdon, had again placed that fief at the disposal of the English king, Henry caused it to be notified to the young king of Scotland, that he expected the restoration of all the fiefs in the North of England which had been held by David in the name of the Empress Queen. Such was the light in which Henry now chose to regard the feudal dependance of the northern counties upon the king of Scots; for of all the contracting parties who joined in the treaty of Carlisle, eight years before, he alone survived, and, secure in the possession of the throne of England, he little regarded the word he had plighted in his days of exile and adversity to the firmest friend of his early youth.[386] Compliance was the only course left open to Malcolm, A. D. 1157. and meeting Henry at Chester, he made a formal resignation of the three northern counties, with the castles of Carlisle, Bamborough, and Newcastle on Tyne, putting forward his claims upon Huntingdon on the same occasion, and receiving immediate investment of the Honor, upon the same terms of homage as it had been held by David in the days of the first Henry.[387] A. D. 1158. In the following year the two kings again met at Carlisle, but the honour of knighthood which he appears to have expected was not conferred upon Malcolm, as a coolness had arisen about some long-forgotten point connected, probably, with the performance of feudal service for the fief of Huntingdon; for, in the ensuing year, after Malcolm had accompanied the English king in the expedition against Toulouse, A. D. 1159. which was rendered abortive through the royal scruples about attacking a town which contained the person of his own feudal superior the king of France, the coveted ceremony was performed at Tours, and the young king returned immediately to Scotland.[388]

The departure of their king to render feudal service as an English baron, was viewed with general disapproval by the Scots, to whom this phase of the English connection appears to have been always distasteful. For nearly twenty years David and his grandson had enjoyed in succession the advantages of their English fiefs, without the burden of their feudal obligations; as during the lifetime of Stephen, and for the first three years of his successor’s reign, no king of Scotland had ever met an English sovereign except at the head of a hostile army. Under these circumstances, the cession of all the advantages which had been acquired by David, the revival of a closer feudal connection with England, above all, the departure of the king for France, in direct opposition to the wishes of the great body of his native followers, aroused a spirit of disaffection; a formidable conspiracy appears to have been set on foot during his absence in France, and in his anxiety to win his spurs in the service of Henry, Malcolm risked the loss of his crown.

A veil of deep mystery enshrouds the proceedings of the conspirators. Foremost amongst their number was Ferquhard, Earl of Strathearn, whose father, Malise, had been the spokesman of the discontented Scots at the battle of the Standard; together with a certain Gilleanrias Ergemauche, and five other magnates, or “Mayster men,” as Wynton calls them, including perhaps the Earl of Ross and the Lord of Galloway, or his sons. A. D. 1160. Malcolm was holding his court at Perth, soon after his return from France, when the confederates suddenly surrounded the city, intending, either to secure the person of the king and dictate their own terms, or, as one historian affirms, to place his brother William on the throne. None of the race of Malcolm Ceanmore ever failed in the hour of danger, and the young king displayed, in this crisis, all the hereditary courage of his ancestry. Promptly assuming the offensive, he at once attacked the conspirators, drove them from the field, and following up his first success, led an army into Galloway, in the determination of crushing the insurrection at its source.[389]

The history of Galloway is a blank from the time when the father of Kenneth the First was slain upon the borders of Kyle, until the age in which the mutinous spirit of its unruly contingent to David’s army more than counterbalanced the utmost efforts of their reckless valour. Three centuries of antagonism appear to have engendered a feeling of bitter hostility between the Galwegians and their neighbours of Scottish Cumbria and the Lothians; whilst their continual encroachments upon the ancient kingdom of Strath Clyde must, from a very early period, have tended to throw the people of that province upon the protection of the Scottish kings, and materially to advance the policy which eventually placed a branch of the Mac Alpin family upon the Scoto-Cumbrian throne. At some remote era the Lord of Galloway became dependant upon the king of Scotland, and Fergus, the first known prince of the province, was an attendant on certain state occasions at the royal court, whilst he acknowledged the superiority of his contemporary David by the payment of a certain tribute in time of peace, and by a contingent of turbulent soldiery in war; resembling, in other respects, an ally rather than a vassal, and enjoying a considerable degree of independence within his hereditary dominions. He married Elizabeth, a natural daughter of Henry the First, and Afreca, his daughter by this union, became the wife of Olave and the mother of Godfrey, kings of Man and the Isles; the latter connection, apparently, involving him in the attempts of Somerled, Mac Heth, and others, who opposed the reigning family, either in the hope of advancing their own rival claims, or through a repugnance to the introduction of a novel system. It was in Galloway that Donald Mac Heth sought his last retreat, and amidst the mountains and moors of the same locality the discomfited conspirators seem to have hoped, after their defeat at Perth, to elude the pursuit of Malcolm. Twice was the king baffled in his attempts to penetrate the province; as much, probably, from the natural difficulties of the country, as from the magnitude of the opposition he encountered; but on the third occasion he was successful. Fergus, reduced at length to liege submission, retired, either of his own accord or from compulsion, into the monastery of Holyrood, where he died in the course of the following year; the whole of Galloway, thoroughly subdued, was brought into direct feudal subjection to the Scottish crown; and a conspiracy, which at one time threatened to entail the loss of a crown, through the energy and abilities of the youthful sovereign, or of his advisers, terminated in the acquisition of a principality.[390]