Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time Part 6

The diocese of Caithness, which then was co-terminous with the earldom and comprised all the above districts which now form the modern counties of Caithness and Sutherland, had in 1165 been in existence for about thirty-five years; its chief church being at first at Halkirk in Caithness and thereafter being the old Church of St. Bar at Dornoch, but it was scantily endowed, and therefore its clergy were but few.[31] Its Bishop was Andrew, a Culdean monk of Dunfermline, and probably Abbot of Dunkeld, who had been promoted to the see of Caithness before 1146, and died at Dunfermline on the 30th December 1184. Ingigerd, Earl Ragnvald's daughter, would at this time be a young wife and mother living with some of the elder of her six children, probably near Loch Naver, on part of the Moddan family lands there with her husband, Audhild's son Eric Stagbrellir, until their sons, Harald Ungi, Magnus, and Ragnvald, should grow up. But these sons, possibly on their father's death, and certainly before 1184, when young Magnus Mangi was killed[32] at the battle of Norafjord, emigrated to Norway to obtain the Orkney jarldom about ten or fifteen years after King William's accession; while of Ingigerd's daughters, Ingibiorg, Elin, and Ragnhild, nothing is recorded at this time, though Ragnhild appears later on, and one of her sisters is believed to have married Gilchrist, Earl of Angus during the last twenty years of the twelfth century. The other may have married in Norway, or died young and unmarried.

All these children and their descendants successively according to s.e.x and seniority would have claims as being of the line of Erlend Thorfinnson, to half the Caithness earldom and Jarl Ragnvald's lands there, claims which, however, it would be impracticable, while Harold Maddadson lived, to enforce.

Harold Maddadson's children by his first wife, namely Henry of Ross, Hakon, Helena and Margaret would, in 1165, all be born, but would be well under twenty-one, while of his second family, if Gormflaith was born by 1135, which is unlikely, his eldest son, Thorfinn could have been born, and some of the others. Thorfinn is mentioned by name in a grant[33] of a silver mark per annum to the Church of Scone issuing out of Harold's lands, of which the date is after 1166, but no one can say how much before the 30th December 1184, the date of the death of one of its witnesses, Andrew, Bishop of Caithness.

If the union with Gormflaith took place after 1174, no child of that union would exist until 1175. That this is in fact true is rendered more probable because their union is not mentioned in the _Flatey Book_ until after the death of Sweyn in 1171. But the pa.s.sage is of doubtful authenticity, (see Rolls Edition p. 224), and inconclusive even if genuine. From the various allusions to Harold's union with Gormflaith, it would seem that Harold lived with her before he married her for many years, but married her legally after his first wife Afreka's death after 1198 when William the Lion stipulated that he should take Afreka back, and the subsequent legal marriage might in those days, under the Canon and Roman law, suffice to make Gormflaith's children, though born in adultery, legitimate and capable of succeeding to the earldom (see Dalrymple's Collections, p. 221).

In 1165 Sweyn Asleifarson, the great Viking, would be cruising on the northern and western coasts with Harold's son, Hakon, on board, until their deaths in Dublin in 1171.

As for those in authority, Harold Maddadson would have as contemporaries, Freskyn of Duffus till his death between 1166 and 1171, and his son William till his death near the end of the 12th century, when Hugo, son of William, would succeed to the Morays.h.i.+re estates, though probably he had previously obtained a grant of the land then known as Sudrland or Sutherland, which is defined above.

Hugo probably received this grant after William the Lion's first conquest of Sutherland and Caithness in 1196, shortly before the time when, as we shall see, Harald Ungi obtained in right of his mother a grant of half Orkney from the Norse king, and another from the king of Scotland of half Caithness, and probably a confirmation of his t.i.tle to the Moddan lands in Strathnaver and in Halkirk and Latheron, to which he was heir in right of his father and grandmother Audhild of the Moddan line. But this half of Caithness would be conferred on Harald Ungi subject to the prior grant of Sudrland to Hugo Freskyn.

For Harold Maddadson must, in the opinion of so eminent an authority as Lord Hailes, have been forfeited in 1196, if not earlier, for both he and his son Thorfinn were then in open rebellion against the Scottish Crown.[34]

Further deprivations of lands, it is conjectured, must have attended Harold Maddadson's later rebellions, and the events which must have led to those deprivations may now be recounted, though it is very difficult to reconcile Scottish and Norse records during the period.

In 1179 King William the Lion had marched an army into Ross, and subdued it to his sway; and, ere he left it, caused two castles of Eddirdovir on the site of Redcastle in the Black Isle on the Beauly Firth, and of Dunskaith[35] on the northern Suter of Cromarty, which is full of Norse remains, to be built, to enable him to hold his conquests.

Two years later he made war on Donald Ban MacWilliam, who claimed the Scottish Crown itself, as the third son of William FitzDuncan only son of Duncan II, who was himself the eldest son of Malcolm Canmore by Malcolm's first marriage, so productive of civil war in Scotland, with Ingibjorg, widow of Earl Thorfinn. Civil war ensued, and lasted for six or seven years, when, by good luck, Roland of Galloway fell in with a force of the rebels at an unknown spot called Mamgarvie near Inverness, and routed them, killing Donald Ban MacWilliam there on the 31st July 1187.[36]

In 1196, Harold Maddadson, who through the ambition of Gormflaith had, as we have seen, designs on Ross and Moray, sent an expedition southwards to occupy those districts, of which probably Gormflaith's father, Malcolm MacHeth, had been Earl at his death after 1160. But William collected an army,[37] and, after defeating Harold's son Thorfinn near Inverness, crossed the Oykel, entered Sutherland, subdued it and Caithness, and pursued Harold up to his castle at Thurso, and destroyed it in his sight. Harold then submitted, and promised to surrender his son and heir, Thorfinn, as a hostage, with others of his friends to be delivered to the king at Nairn. Harold left all his hostages close by at Lochloy, and went alone to the king at Nairn, and endeavoured to excuse himself by offering two grandsons to the king and stating that Thorfinn was his heir[38] and could not therefore be given up; but was taken prisoner himself and lodged in Edinburgh Castle, till his son Thorfinn came to take his place. On this occasion Harold Maddadson was deprived of Sudrland or Sutherland, which had been given to Hugo Freskyn; and in the next year, or soon after, half of the earldom of Caithness, which the _Flatey Book_ states Jarl Ragnvald had held,[39] was conferred by King William the Lion on Harald Ungi or The Young, as grandson of Jarl Ragnvald, and son of Eric, who, however, had to make good the grant by conquest.

Harald Ungi had, as stated above, already obtained a grant from King Sverri of half Orkney by a visit to the Norwegian Court.

In order to enforce his rights under both these grants, Harald Ungi collected a force, and, together with Sigurd Murt, and Lifolf Baldpate, the first husband of his youngest sister Ragnhild, invaded Orkney, while Harold the Old fled to the Isle of Man; but, on his namesake following him thither, he doubled back to Orkney, and, after killing all the adherents of his enemies there, crossed over to Caithness with a strong force. In a pitched battle "near Wick," said to have been fought at Clairdon near Thurso, he slew Harald Ungi, and utterly defeated his army, in 1198.[40] Harold the Old then endeavoured to make terms with the king, and offered him a large sum for the redemption of Caithness. The king, however, attached as conditions to any regrant, that the earl should put away Gormflaith, the daughter of MacHeth, and take back his wife, Afreka of Fife, and deliver up Laurentius, his priest, and Honaver, son of Ingemund, as hostages.[41] The earl, on his part, refused the terms; and, the earldom thus remaining forfeited, King William at once invited Ragnvald Gudrodson, the great Viking king of the Sudreys and Man, and then his friend and ally, to a.s.semble a force and drive Harold out of Caithness, promising to confer that earldom upon his general, if successful in the campaign.

Ragnvald Gudrodson, it may here be noted, had, if we pa.s.s over his own illegitimacy, in the absence of direct male heirs of Earl Hakon since Erlend Haraldson's death in 1156, probably the best t.i.tle to receive a grant of the jarldom of Orkney and Shetland and the earldom of Caithness of all the surviving descendants of Earl Thorfinn Sigurd's son. For Ragnvald Gudrodson was the grandson of Ingibjorg, Earl Hakon's elder daughter, while Harold Maddadson was the son of Ingibjorg's younger sister, Margret of Athole. Ragnvald Gudrodson's t.i.tle was, but for his own illegitimacy (in spite of which he held his own kingdom) equal, if not superior to that of all survivors of the Erlend Thorfinnson line, which was now represented in the male line only by another Ragnvald the son of Eric Stagbrellir, who would claim, in default of male heirs of Jarl St. Magnus, through the female line of Erlend Thorfinnson, as being descended successively from Gunnhild, Erlend's daughter, her son Ragnvald Jarl and Saint, and Ingigerd his only child. And there is no proof that Ragnvald Ericson was alive at this date, or that he ever returned from Norway to prefer his claim.

Ragnvald Gudrodson forthwith collected a great army in Ireland and the Sudreys and invaded Caithness,[42] and, meeting Harold Maddadson in battle at Dalharrold,[43] where the River Naver issues from the loch, drove him northwards down the strath to the coast, whence he escaped to Orkney. The Saga says simply that Harold stayed in Orkney, and this location of the battle near Achness rests solely on tradition, which, however, in the Highlands, is often a solid enough foundation.

King William next conferred the earldom on Ragnvald Gudrodson, for, it is said, a considerable sum of money, reserving his own annual tribute.

On receiving the earldom, Ragnvald Gudrodson left in charge of Caithness six[44] stewards, of whom Lagmann Rafn was the chief, and went back to the Isle of Man. Harold had one of these stewards murdered by an a.s.sa.s.sin, and returned with a large force to Thurso to punish the Caithness folk; and, when Bishop John interceded for the people of his diocese, Harold, whom he had irritated by refusing to collect the Peter's Pence which the Earl had given to Rome, would not listen to him, but mutilated him, probably in 1201, nearly blinding him, and all but cutting out his tongue, though afterwards the bishop regained his sight and speech in some measure, and may have lived to administer his diocese till 1213. It is noteworthy that Pope Innocent III, in his letter of 1202, does not directly blame Harold for the illtreatment of the bishop, but Lumberd, a layman, whose penance the letter prescribes.

Harold then drove out the stewards, and they fled to the Scottish king, who made the best amends he could to them,[45] and Rafn, the Lawman, seems to have returned and to have lived and enforced the law in Caithness until at least 1222.[46]

To punish Earl Harold, King William at once had Harold's son Thorfinn blinded and so mutilated in Roxburgh Castle that he died there.

William also collected a large army and marched in person to Eysteinsdal or Ousedale near the Ord of Caithness, and Harold, though he is said to have brought together seven thousand two hundred men, avoided battle and evaded the king's pursuit.[47] Harold also began negotiations with King John of England and received a safe conduct for a journey to England to see him.[48]

Later in the year Harold is said to have recovered his earldom through the intercession of Bishop Roger of St. Andrews, for a payment of two thousand pounds of silver, which Munch conjectures may have been handed over to Ragnvald Gudrodson to replace the sum which he had paid to the king for the earldom; and it is true that we hear no more of Ragnvald in connection with Caithness, though he lived until 1229. At the same time, we can hardly believe that Harold, as the _Flatey Book_ says, received back "all Caithness as he had it before that Earl Harald the Young took it from the Skot-king."[49] What happened probably was, that Harold Maddadson, who had been stripped by King Sverri of Shetland in 1195,[60] was allowed by King William in 1202 to keep part of his Caithness earldom upon payment by its inhabitants of a fine of every fourth penny they possessed. Otherwise his son David could not have succeeded to any part of Caithness, as he undoubtedly did, when, four years later, in 1206, his father's long and chequered career of sixty-eight years in the earldom was closed by his death at the age of seventy-three.

Ugly of countenance, but of great bodily strength and stature, crafty, self-seeking, treacherous and wholly unscrupulous, he is still known in the North as "the wicked Earl Harold," yet the Saga cla.s.ses him with Sigurd Eysteinsson and Thorfinn Sigurdson as one of the three greatest of the Jarls and Earls of Orkney and Caithness.

On the mainland, no new earldom north of the Oykel was conferred on anyone for a further period of thirty years. It was, in fact, neither the policy nor, save in very exceptional cases, the practice of the Scottish kings to grant earldoms to men with powerful followings and vast territories;[51] for these made them, especially in remote situations, almost independent rulers, and dangerous enemies, and it was undesirable to increase their importance by additional dignities.

It was, on the contrary, usual by charter to create barons and other military tenants, who should hold their lands, described in their charters, by military service, in male succession direct from the Scottish Crown, and liable to forfeiture for disloyal conduct. Nowhere were military tenants so essential as they then were in the extreme north of Scotland on lands immediately adjoining the territories of Norse jarls owing double allegiance, and therefore of doubtful loyalty to the Scottish Crown. For this reason also no part of the lands of the Erlend line would be granted to the line of Paul, as an addition to their own.

From what has been above stated, it will appear that we have treated the well known history, int.i.tuled _The Genealogie and Pedigree of the Earles of Southerland_ and written down to 1630 by Sir Robert Gordon, Baronet of Gordonstoun, and continued by Gilbert Gordon of Sallach[52]

until 1651, as mere fiction as regards all persons before William, first Earl. "Alane Southerland, Thane of Southerland," Walter "first Earle," Robert, second earl, who is alleged to have founded "Dounrobin Castell" were purely fict.i.tious persons. "Hugh Southerland, Earle of Southerland nicknamed Freskin" existed, but never was an earl, as Sir Robert well knew, because he quotes charters right up to his death, in which he was styled simply Hugo Freskyn. The _Sutherland Book_ also wholly omits William MacFrisgyn, second Lord of Duffus and Strabroc, the son and heir of Freskyn I and the father of Hugo. A revised pedigree of the early generations of Freskyn's family will be found in an Appendix to this book, and it is believed to be correct. At the same time it is in conflict as to the first three generations with so high an authority as the late Cosmo Innes, and Sir William Fraser followed him. However this may be, it is abundantly clear, from contemporary and undoubtedly authentic records still happily extant, that in the twelfth century Freskyn de Moravia and his immediate successors were the guardians appointed by one Scottish king after another to protect the fertile coast lands of Moray and Nairn alike against the race of MacHeth from the hills and the Norse invader from the sea; and that on the extensive territories which they possessed, they built stately castles and endowed cathedrals and churches with lands and t.i.thes, providing from their family not only high ecclesiastical dignitaries to serve them, but distinguished soldiers and administrators to give them peace; services which their successors in the thirteenth century were, in their turn, destined to repeat and continue in Sutherland, Strathnavern and Caithness, when the old Norse earldom there had been broken up and effectively incorporated in the kingdom of Scotland.

CHAPTER VIII.

_Earls David and John._

On the death of Earl Harold Maddadson in 1206, he was followed in the earldom of Orkney, without Shetland, by his elder surviving son, David, who also, it would seem, was allowed to succeed to the Caithness earldom and some of its territory. But out of the Caithness earldom there had been taken the lands forming the Lords.h.i.+p of Sudrland or Sutherland held by Hugo Freskyn from about 1196, and this comprised, as already stated, the parishes of Creich, (then including a.s.synt), Dornoch, Rogart, Kilmalie (now Golspie), Clyne, Loth, and by far the greater part of the parishes of Kildonan and Lairg. Out of these lands Hugo granted, as already stated, to his relative Gilbert de Moravia, Archdeacon of Moray from 1204 till 1222, and to his heirs and a.s.signs whomsoever, all Creich and much of Dornoch parish up to the boundaries of Ross, and the date of this grant was probably about 1211. The Mackays were beginning to occupy the western parts of Strathnavern, their t.i.tle being probably their swords, and they held their lands "manu forti," their country being a refuge for their Morays.h.i.+re kinsmen, the MacHeths, who were in constant rebellion. The eastern portion of Strathnavern, and particularly the neighbourhood of Loch Coire and Loch Naver, and all the Strathnaver valley were probably insecurely held by members of the Erlend and Moddan family after Harald Ungi's death at the battle of Clairdon in 1198; and Gunni, probably a grandson of Sweyn Asleifarson, who had married Ragnhild, Harald Ungi's youngest sister, after the death in the same battle of Lifolf Baldpate, her first husband, became chief of the Moddan Clan there and in Caithness. After 1200 Ragnhild had by Gunni a son called Snaekoll Gunni's son, who thus became, on his father's death, the chief representative in Scotland, both of the Moddan family and of the line of Jarls Erlend Thorfinnson, St. Magnus, and St.

Ragnvald, and of Eric Stagbrellir and of Earl and Jarl Harald Ungi; and Snaekoll afterwards laid claim to their possessions in Orkney, as the sole male representative of this line. Gunni and Ragnhild must have held the Strathnaver lands, and the Moddan family lands in Caithness, formerly Earl Ottar's estates, till their deaths, and Snaekoll was their sole known male heir. The Harald Ungi share of the Caithness earldom lands, which _The Flatey Book_ and _Torfaeus_ state that Jarl Ragnvald had held, does not appear to have been granted to David, or to any successor to the Caithness earldom of his line, or to any other person at this time. Indeed, the line of Paul were the last persons to whom such a grant would be made.

It was, therefore, to a very much reduced territory and earldom that David succeeded in 1206, as Earl of Caithness. We hear almost nothing of him, save that for the latter part of the eight years of his rule,[1] more or less inefficient probably through ill health, he shared the earldom and what had been left to him of its lands with his younger brother John. David died without issue in 1214[2] probably soon after Hugo Freskyn, and David was succeeded by his brother John in the jarldom of Orkney and in the reduced earldom of Caithness as sole jarl and earl.

Immediately after David's death, King William the Lion, who had, in 1211, suppressed a rebellion in Moray of the Thanes of Ross under Guthred son of Donald Ban MacWilliam whom a few years later he captured and beheaded,[3] came to Moray again; and, about the 1st of August 1214, King William demanded, and received[4] Earl John's daughter, whose name is not known, as a hostage for her father's loyalty, and a guarantee of the peace then made, under which John was probably recognised as earl and as ent.i.tled to his reduced territory.

His daughter may, at this time, have been her father's sole heiress, although she did not remain so, because we find that he had a son who lived till 1226, called Harald. Meantime Bishop Adam, after the death in 1213 of Bishop John, his half-blinded and mutilated predecessor, succeeded to the Episcopal See of Caithness,[5] and seems to have reversed Bishop John's policy of leniency to his flock by exacting from them heavier and heavier t.i.thes, as years went by.

In 1217, King Hakon's rival, Jarl Skuli, thought Earl John so promising a traitor as to send him letters forged with the Norse king's seal.[6] In 1218 John was present at Bergen to witness the ordeal successfully undergone by King Hakon's mother in order to prove that king, then a boy, to be her son by the late King Hakon Sverri's son, and so rightly ent.i.tled to the Norwegian crown.[7]

After Earl John's return from Norway, the bishop's exactions of t.i.thes of b.u.t.ter reached such a pitch that the Caithness folk met near his house at Halkirk, and demanded that the earl should protect them against the bishop's rapacity, and, either at the earl's suggestion or without any opposition on his part, they attacked the bishop in his house, which was close to _Breithivellir_ (now Brawl) Castle, where John lived. The Saga gives the following description of this affair:--[8]

"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 t.i.thes, 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 Lords.h.i.+p 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.

In 1223, Earl John was again at Bergen, with Bishop Bjarni of Orkney and others, to consider the rival claims of King Hakon and Jarl Skuli to the Norse crown,[15] and in 1224 he went thither again to leave his only son, Harald, as a hostage for his own loyalty.[16] In 1226, Harald was drowned at sea, probably on his return voyage, thus leaving John without any male heir, and save for his nameless hostage daughter or her children, if any, without any direct lineal heirs for the jarldom and earldom of Orkney and of Caithness respectively.

In 1228 John sent presents to the Norse king, and received in return a good long-s.h.i.+p and many other gifts; and in 1230 John is found aiding Olaf, King of Man, a friend of the Norse king, by giving him a like vessel, "The Ox," to enable him to complete his voyage back from Norway to his own kingdom, and in the same year John rendered a.s.sistance to the Norse expedition, which had attacked the South Hebrides, by harbouring its s.h.i.+ps in Orkney on their voyage back to Norway.[17]

From the above facts it is clear that Earl John, though he owed allegiance to both kings, was more inclined to favour Norway than Scotland, and that he was more constantly in attendance at the Norse, than at the Scottish Court. At the same time it became more and more likely that he would have to choose between his two masters, as war for the Sudreyar or Hebrides was already certain to break out between the two countries, and, save for civil war in Norway, would have broken out at once.

Snaekoll[18] Gunni's son, as the sole male representative of the Erlend Thorfinnson, St. Magnus, St. Ragnvald, Eric Stagbrellir and Harald Ungi line remaining in Scotland, who had probably about this time succeeded, or at least was recognised as next heir to the Moddan family estates in Strathnaver and Caithness, approached Earl John in 1231, and demanded from him Jarl Ragnvald's lands in Orkney. But the earl, who held Orkney in its entirety as the representative of the line of Paul and of Harold Maddadson, who had seized it when Jarl St. Ragnvald died in 1158, refused to give Snaekoll any part of those lands; and Snaekoll, failing to obtain any redress, sought the aid of Hanef, formerly a page, but now Commissioner in Orkney, of the Norse King, and demanded his help in recovering his lands there. Snaekoll and Hanef with a large following accordingly crossed the Pentland Firth to Thurso to enforce the claim, but the earl again angrily refused to restore the lands in Orkney, and it would seem that he was also unwilling to let Snaekoll have his rights in Caithness.[19]

Each party occupied separate lodgings in Thurso with their separate followings, and Hanef and his friends, warned by a messenger of the earl's reported design of killing them, forestalled it by attacking the earl first, and they slew him with nine wounds in the cellar of his lodgings. After the affray they crossed over to Orkney, where they fortified the small but ma.s.sive castle[20] or tower of Kolbein Hruga or Cobbie Row, in the Island of Vigr or Wyre, now called Veira, near Rousay in Orkney, and provisioned it for a siege, which lasted the whole winter, and was raised only after both sides had come to an agreement that all questions arising out of the earl's death at Thurso, should be referred, not to the Scottish courts, but to the Norse king, Hakon, in Bergen.

Both parties, with their witnesses, accordingly crossed the North Sea in 1232, and Hakon heard the case, and punished the partisans of Snaekoll, some with death and others with imprisonment. Snaekoll himself, who, as the heir of Jarl Ragnvald, was too valuable a p.a.w.n to be sacrificed, was retained, and lived long in Norway with Earl Skuli, and afterwards with King Hakon.[21] It is noteworthy that a _gaedinga_ s.h.i.+p (no Jewish s.h.i.+p,[22] as Torfaeus states, but a s.h.i.+p of the _gaedingar_ or _lendirmen_ of the Earl of Orkney) was, on the return voyage, lost at sea; and, bearing in mind the large number of Orkney notables who had been slain at the battle of Floruvagr in Norway in 1194, men of means and standing must have been scarce in Orkney for long after this time.

There is a tradition mentioned by Alexander Pope of Reay,[23] the translator of the _Orcades_ of Torfaeus, that Snaekoll, being deprived of his rights in Orkney by King Hakon, returned late in life to Caithness, where the Norse King could not deprive him of anything, and lived in that county at Ulbster. If so, why did he return?