"They then held a Thing on the fell above the homestead where the earl was. Rafn the Lawman was then with the bishop, and prayed the bishop to spare the men; also he said he was afraid how things might go. Then a message was sent to Earl John with a prayer that he would reconcile the bishop and the freemen; but the earl would come never near the spot. Then the freemen ran down from the fell and fared hotly and eagerly. And when Rafn the Lawman saw that, he bade the bishop devise some plan to save himself. He and the bishop were drinking in a loft, and when the freemen came to the loft, the monk went out at the door; and was straightway smitten across the face, and fell down dead inside the loft. And when the bishop was told that, he answered, 'That had not happened sooner than was likely, for he was always making our matters worse.' Then the bishop bade Rafn tell the freemen that he wished to be reconciled with them. But when this was told to the freemen, all those among them who were wiser were glad to hear it. Then the bishop went out and meant to be reconciled. But when the worse kind of men saw that, those who were most mad, they seized Bishop Adam, and brought him into a little house and set fire to it. But the house burned so quickly that they who wished to save the bishop could do nothing. Thus Bishop Adam died, and his body was little burnt when it was found. Then a fitting grave was bestowed on it,[9] and a worthy burial. But those who had been the greatest friends of the bishop, then sent men to find the King of Scots. Alexander was then King of Scots, the son of King William the Saint. But when the king was ware of these tidings" (he took it) "so ill that men have those miseries in mind which he wrought after the burning of the bishop, in maiming of men and manslaying, and loss of goods and banishment out of the land."
From the above account of the matter, it appears that Earl John, who was responsible for law and order in Caithness at the time, although invited by Rafn the Lawman to intervene, and although he was on the spot, did nothing, saying "he could give no advice" and "that he thought it concerned him very little," and adding that "two bad things were before them, that it was unbearable" and that "he could suggest no other choice,"[10] that is, but to pay the bishop's tithes, however exorbitant, or not pay them, or possibly to make an end of him. It is clear also that the monk who was with the bishop was to blame for his exactions. But there is some excuse in the fact that Bishop John had been censured by Rome for his neglect in collecting the dues of Rome or Peter's Pence as greatly as Bishop Adam was blamed by the people of Caithness for his greediness. There is no need to brand Bishop Adam as a voluptuary for excessive drinking and immorality.[11]
These events took place in 1222, and King Alexander, urged by the remainder of the bishops in Scotland, at once marched into Caithness with an army, and took vengeance on the bishop's murderers by mutilating a large number of those concerned and seizing their lands,[12] while in 1223 the Pope excommunicated them and also interdicted them from their lands.
The Annals of Dunstable, however, paint Earl John in much blacker colours, and state that he himself caused the bishop, who was escaping from the fire, to be cast into it again, and the bodies of two others previously slain, his nephew and the monk, to be thrown upon him, and that King Alexander forfeited half John's earldom.[13]
The Saga says that the king forfeited Earl John's lands for the murder of the bishop. Wyntoun, however, states that afterwards, at Christmas festivities at Forfar,
"Thare borwyd that erle than his land
That lay unto the Kyngis hand
Fra that the byschape of Cateness,
As yhe before herd, peryst wes."[14]
By this "borrowing," however, Earl John recovered only the reduced earldom above described, that is without the Lordship of Sutherland, to which William de Moravia, Hugo's son, had succeeded between 1211 and 1214, and without that south-western portion of it, which, as stated, had been given to Gilbert de Moravia by Hugo in 1211, and without the Moddan family's lands near Loch Coire and in Strathnaver and Caithness, and without Harald Ungi's moiety or half share of the Caithness earldom; and, as already stated, the lands appertaining to this share were probably occupied by his family as represented by Gunni and Ragnhild, Eric Stagbrellir's youngest daughter, and by the members of the Moddan clan, and the retainers of the Erlend line.