Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Scandinavian Britain - III. The Norse Settlements - 5. Man and the Isles
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that the Islands had been wrested from the Scottish
kingdom by Magnus Barefoot, but the Norwegian
crown maintained a claim which had held good for
some four centuries. At last, however, it was not so
much a question of ancient rights as of practical politics.
The kingdom of Scotland, once a small realm on the
east coast (p. 131), had grown into a great power,
which could hardly tolerate upon its border an alien
state, turbulent and dangerous in the semi-independence
of petty rulers. Consequently Alexander III,
on coming of age (1262), prepared to carry out his
father’s policy of annexing the Islands. Hákon of
Norway next year bought a great fleet to resist the
threatened encroachment. He was joined by Magnus,
king of Man, the last son of Olaf the Black, and
Dugall, lord of the Isles. After their triumphant
progress to the Clyde, Alexander was ready to make
terms, claiming only Arran, Bute and the Cumbraes.
A storm wrecked the Norse fleet, and an accidental
encounter brought on the battle of Largs. Both sides
claimed the victory, but the effect of the battle was to
send Hákon north to Orkney, where he died soon
afterwards, and Magnus of Man did homage to the
Scottish Crown. In 1266 a treaty between Norway
and Scotland ceded Man and the Hebrides to Alexander ;
the ecclesiastical rights of the archbishop of
Trondhjem being retained. King Eirík of Norway
married the Princess Margaret of Scotland, and it was
only by the death of their daughter Margaret in
Orkney (1290) that the last link was broken.
But still the Islands kept many of their Norse
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