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Villains: Rivals for the Kingdom

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Kings, Usurpers, and Concubines in the 'Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles'

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Abstract

If the Manx sea kings descended from Godred Crovan represent the heroes of the Chronicles, the territorial rivals of these kings are depicted unfavourably in the text. These include Somerled (d. 1164), the ruler of Argyll and Kintyre, and his descendants, whose rise is claimed to have caused the break-up of the Kingdom, as well as the Scottish kings Alexander II and III, whose territorial ambitions in the western seaboard caused the Kingdom of Man and the Isles to be integrated into the Scottish Kingdom. The Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles presents a unique Manx perspective on significant developments in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Scottish history.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    W. Stokes, ed. and trans. “The Annals of Tigernach,” Revue Celtique 18 (1897), 9–59, 150–303 at 195; electronic version online at CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: A Project of University College Cork College Road, Cork, Ireland (2010) at http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T100002A/index.html

  2. 2.

    Cronica Regum Mannie & Insularum. Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles BL Cotton Julius A vii, ed. G. Broderick, 2nd ed. (Douglas, 1995; repr. 1996; 1st ed. 1979), f. 37v [hereafter CRMI].

  3. 3.

    On Somerled and his descendants see W.D.H. Sellar, “Hebridean Sea Kings: The Successors of Somerled, 1164–1316,” in E.J. Cowan and R.A. McDonald (eds.), Alba: Celtic Scotland in the Medieval Era (East Linton, 2000), 187–218; R.A. McDonald, The Sea Kings: The Late Norse Kingdoms of Man and the Isles, c. 1066–1275 (Edinburgh, 2019), chapter 5; and R.A. McDonald, The Kingdom of the Isles: Scotland’s Western Seaboard, c. 1100–c. 1336 (East Linton, 1997).

  4. 4.

    The Saga of Hakon, and a Fragment of the Saga of Magnus, with Appendices, trans. Sir G.W. Dasent. Icelandic Sagas and Other Historical Documents Relating to the Settlements and Descents of the Northmen on the British Isles (London, 1894), vol. 4, 270, chapter 264. The modern edition of the text is Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, eds. Þ. Hauksson, S. Jakobsson, and T. Ulset, 2 vols. (Reykjavík, 2013); there is no modern translation.

  5. 5.

    CRMI, f. 48r–48v.

  6. 6.

    CRMI, f. 48v.

  7. 7.

    The traditional view is represented by the seventeenth-century “History of the MacDonalds,” in Highland Papers, ed. J.R.N. MacPhail, 4 vols. (Edinburgh, 1914–1934), i, 5–9; cf. K. MacPhee, Somerled: Hammer of the Norse (Castle Douglas, 2004); but compare, for example, McDonald, Kingdom of the Isles, chapter 2, and see further n. 8 below.

  8. 8.

    See McDonald, Kingdom of the Isles, chapter 2; R.A. McDonald, “Man, Somerled, and the Isles: The Rise of a New Dynasty,” in S. Duffy and H. Mytum (eds.), New History of the Isle of Man Volume III: The Medieval Period 1000–1406 (Liverpool, 2015), 58–78. Recent genetic studies indicate that Somerled was of Norse ancestry: B. Sykes, The Blood of the Isles: Exploring the Genetic Roots of Our Tribal History (London, 2006), 254–262, and B. Sykes, Adam’s Curse: A Future Without Men (New York and London, 2004), chapter 16.

  9. 9.

    A. Woolf, “The Origins and Ancestry of Somerled: Gofraid mac Fergusa and ‘The Annals of the Four Masters,’” Mediaeval Scandinavia 15 (2005), 199–213 at 211.

  10. 10.

    Woolf, “Origins and Ancestry of Somerled,” 211.

  11. 11.

    “Ceannaigh Duain t’Athar, a Aonghas (Pay For Your Father’s Poem, Aonghas),” in Duanaire na Sracaire. Songbook of the Pillagers: Anthology of Scotland’s Gaelic verse to 1600, eds. W. McLeod and M. Bateman, trans. M. Bateman (Edinburgh, 2007), 80–90.

  12. 12.

    Woolf, “Origins and Ancestry of Somerled,” 199–213, at 212–213.

  13. 13.

    G.W.S. Barrow, Kingship and Unity: Scotland 1000–1300, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh, 2003), chapter 7.

  14. 14.

    On Alexander II’s policies towards Argyll and the Isles see N. Murray “Swerving from the Path of Justice: Alexander II’s Relations with Argyll and the Western Isles, 1214–1249,” in R. Oram (ed.), The Reign of Alexander II, 1214–49 (Leiden and Boston, 2005), 285–305.

  15. 15.

    See, for example, D. Alexander, T. Neighbour, and R. Oram, “Glorious Victory? The Battle of Largs, 2 October 1263,” History Scotland 2, no. 2 (March/April 2002), 17–22.

  16. 16.

    On these events see E.J. Cowan, “Norwegian Sunset—Scottish Dawn: Hakon IV and Alexander III,” in N. Reid (ed.), Scotland in the Reign of Alexander III 1249–1286 (Edinburgh, 1990), 103–131; E.J. Cowan, “The Last Kings of Man, 1229–1265,” in S. Duffy and H. Mytum (eds.), New History of the Isle of Man Volume III: The Medieval Period 1000–1406 (Liverpool, 2015), 97–117; and McDonald, Kingdom of the Isles, chapter 4. On the Treaty of Perth see R. Lustig, “The Treaty of Perth: A Re-examination,” Scottish Historical Review 58 (1979), 35–57.

  17. 17.

    Annals of Furness in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, ed. R. Howlett, 4 vols. (London, 1884–1889), ii, 549; the annals were probably produced more or less contemporaneously and preserve original information from 1260 to 1298: See the introduction to Chron. Stephen, ii, lcccviii–lxxxix.

  18. 18.

    Barrow, Kingship and Unity: Scotland 1000–1300, chapter 7.

  19. 19.

    N. Reid, “Alexander III: The Historiography of a Myth,” in N. Reid (ed.), Scotland in the Reign of Alexander III 1249–1286 (Edinburgh, 1990), 181–213.

  20. 20.

    CRMI, f. 47r.

  21. 21.

    E.J. Cowan, “Norwegian Sunset—Scottish Dawn,” 107–110. King Hakon IV had recently annexed Iceland, bringing an end to the era of the Icelandic commonwealth, so as an Icelander, Sturla was probably sympathetic to the plight of the Hebridean chieftains. On Sturla see now J.V. Sigurðsson and S. Jakobsson (eds.), Sturla Þórðarson: Skald, chieftain and Lawman (Leiden and Boston, 2017).

  22. 22.

    Hakon’s Saga, trans. Dasent, 270; see the discussion in Reid, “Alexander III: The Historiography of a Myth,” 184.

  23. 23.

    Hakon’s Saga, trans. Dasent, 270.

  24. 24.

    Hakon’s Saga, trans. Dasent, 248.

  25. 25.

    Cowan, “Norwegian Sunset—Scottish Dawn,” 106–107.

  26. 26.

    CRMI, f. 49v.

  27. 27.

    CRMI, f. 50r.

  28. 28.

    Chronicon de Lanercost, ed. J. Stevenson (Edinburgh, 1839), 97–98; translated in Early Sources of Scottish History, A.D. 500–1286, ed. and trans. A.O. Anderson, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1922, repr. Stamford, 1990), ii, 672–673.

  29. 29.

    There must be a certain irony in the fact that the death of Alexander III in 1286 generated verses, preserved in the early fifteenth-century Chronicle of Andrew of Wyntoun, lamenting “Our golde was changit in to lede” and asking Christ to “Succoure Scotland, and ramede/That stade is in perplexite”: The Triumph Tree: Scotland’s Earliest Poetry AD 550–1350, trans. T.O. Clancy (Edinburgh, 1998), 297; discussion in C. Jones, “Inclinit to Diuersiteis: Wyntoun’s Song on the Death of Alexander III and the ‘Origins’ of Scots Vernacular Poetry,” Review of English Studies New Series 64 no. 263 (2013), 21–38.

  30. 30.

    C. Edwards, “Thomas of Erceldoune [called Thomas the Rhymer] (fl. late 13th cent.), Supposed Author of Poetry and Prophecies,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2006. 22 August 2018. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-8833

  31. 31.

    Scotichronicon by Walter Bower in Latin and English, gen ed. D.E.R. Watt, 9 vols. (Aberdeen, 1987–1997), vol. 5, bk. X, chapter 44, 428–429.

  32. 32.

    The Acts of Alexander III King of Scots 1249–1286, ed. C. J. Neville and G. G. Simpson. Regesta Regum Scottorum IV Part I. (Edinburgh, 2012), no. 171; C. McNamee, “The Isle of Man under Scottish Rule, 1266–1333,” in S. Duffy and H. Mytum (eds.), New History of the Isle of Man, Volume III: The Medieval Period 1000–1406 (Liverpool, 2015), 121.

  33. 33.

    The Lanercost chronicle names four bailies: Godred MacMares, Alan fitz Count, Maurice Okarefair (or Akarsan) and Reginald the King’s Chaplain: Lanercost, 64.

  34. 34.

    Annals of Furness in Chronicles of the reigns of Stephen, ii, 570–571; trans. Scottish Annals from English chroniclers, A.D. 500–1286, ed. and trans. A.O. Anderson (London, 1908; repr. Stamford, 1991), 382–383.

  35. 35.

    McDonald, Manx Kingship, 102–107; G. Broderick, “Irish and Welsh Strands in the Genealogy of Godred Crovan,” Journal of the Manx Museum 8 (1980), 32–38.

  36. 36.

    Annals of Furness in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, ii, 570–571; trans. Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers, ed. and trans. Anderson, 382–383. Further discussion in McDonald, Sea Kings, epilogue.

  37. 37.

    Foedera, conventiones, litterae, et cujuscunque generis acta publica, inter reges Angliae et alios quosvis imperatores, reges, pontifices, principes, vel communitates habita aut tractata, ed. T. Rymer, 10 vols. (Hagae Comitis, 1739–1745), i, pt. iii, 74; Monumenta de Insula Manniae, or a Collection of National Documents Relating to the Isle of Man, ed. and trans. J.R. Oliver, 3 vols. (Douglas, 1860–1862), ii, 110–111.

  38. 38.

    The Register of the Priory of St. Bees, ed. J. Wilson (Durham, 1915), no. 497, 489.

  39. 39.

    See C. McNamee, “The Isle of Man under Scottish Rule, 1266–1333,” 118–150.

  40. 40.

    CRMI, f. 50r.

  41. 41.

    See C. McNamee, “The Isle of Man under Scottish Rule, 1266–1333,” 118–150.

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  1. Department of History, Brock University, St Catharines, ON, Canada

    R. Andrew McDonald

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McDonald, R.A. (2019). Villains: Rivals for the Kingdom. In: Kings, Usurpers, and Concubines in the 'Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles'. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22026-6_4

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