Between the years 1248 and 1252 a deadly game of thrones played out in the Kingdom of Man and the Isles, a transmarine realm situated in Atlantic Britain and stretching from the Isle of Man in the south to Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. The catalyst for the crisis was the tragic drowning of King Harald of Man (r. 1237â1248), aged only about in his mid-twenties, along with his new bride, Cecilia, the daughter of the Norwegian king, and their entire retinue in a shipwreck in the treacherous waters off Sumburgh Head in Shetland in the autumn of 1248. Following the tragedy, King Haraldâs brother, Reginald (Rognvald ), succeeded him in the kingship, but events then proceeded from bad to worse, as Reginald was assassinated mere weeks into his reign, and a vicious struggle over the kingship raged down to the year 1252. The principal protagonists in the struggle were Reginaldâs brother and eventual successor, Magnus (d. 1265), famous as the last reigning member of the dynasty; Harald, the son of Godred Don, a grandson of the earlier Manx king Rognvald (d. 1229) and so a member of the royal kindred; and Ewen, son of Duncan (d.c. 1268), a descendant of the Hebridean chieftain Somerled , a kinsman of the Manx kings, and a major player Irish Sea and Hebridean politics from the 1240s to 1260s:
These passages are taken from the thirteenth-century text known as the Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles, the single most important historical text for the late Norse Kingdom of Man and the Isles from the late eleventh to late thirteenth centuries. An important characteristic of the text is its focus upon the ruling dynasty of Man and the Isles, and, as these passages suggest, it is full of dramatic episodes relating to power-struggles in the kingdom that present an impressive array of both heroes and villains. Apart from the mysterious assassin Ivar about whom little is known, there is Harald , the son of Godred Don (the son of King Rognvald Godredsson ), demonized as an usurper ; there is reason to think (see below) that Ivar was somehow associated with Harald and we might well wonder whether the assassination of Reginald and the usurpation of Harald were not in some manner connected. Then there is âJohn son of Dougal,â properly Ewen son of Duncan (fl. 1248â1268), a member of a rival dynasty of sea kings that makes regular appearances in the Chronicles, and he appears in a similar guise as a would-be usurper . Set against these figures, the heroes of these passages are the brothers Harald (r. 1237â1248), Reginald (assassinated 1249), and Magnus (r. 1252â1265)âthe sons of King Olaf Godredsson (r. 1226â1237), the ârightfulâ kings of Man and the Isles. Lest there is any doubt about the oppositional characterizations of these individuals as heroes and villains, a carefully positioned miracle story inserted into the text at this point reinforces the illegitimacy of Harald , the son of Godred Don, and demonstrates that God is on the side of the rightful line of kings represented by the drowned Harald and his brother Magnus (more on the miracle in Chaps. 5 and 6).In the year 1249 Reginald son of Olaf began reigning in Man on 6th May. On the 30th day of the same monthâŠhe was killed by the knight Ivar and his men in a meadow near the church of the Holy Trinity in Rushen to the south of the same church. He was buried in St. Maryâs Church, RushenâŠThen Harald , son of Godred Don, usurped the title and dignity of king in Man for himself and banished practically all the chieftains of King Harald , Olafâs son. In their place he introduced his own chieftains and nobles from exileâŠIn the year 1250 Harald , son of Godred Don, summoned by a letter, went to the court of the lord king of Norway. The king was angry with him for presuming to seize a kingdom to which he had no right, and he detained him in Norway intending never again to let him return to the Sodor Isles. The same year Magnus , son of Olaf , and John [Ewen], son of Dougal [recte Duncan; see chapter four], with some Norwegians came to Man and landed at the port called Ronaldsway. John [Ewen] son of Dougal sent envoys to the people of Man, who said, âJohn, King of the Isles, orders you to do this and this.â When the Manxmen heard John being called King of the Isles and not Magnus son of Olaf , they were very angry and refused to hear the envoysâ words further.1
Mention of Medieval Manx hero-kings will inevitably call to mind Godred Crovan , the conqueror of the Isle of Man in 1079, the victor of the great battle at Sky Hill, and the founder of a dynasty of sea kings that held power in Man and the Hebrides for over a century and a half after his death in 1095. Famous in Manx legend as King Orry, he might have gone down in Manx history as Godred the Conqueror.2 This study, however, is not about Godred Crovan as a hero of Manx history, although he will certainly have his place in the examination that follows. Its emphasis is, rather, upon Godredâs descendants, the members of the dynasty that he established, both well behaved and poorly behaved, and the manner in which they are presented in the Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles which tells us most of what we know about them.
This little book has two aims. First, it explores heroes and villains from the folios of the Manx chronicle. It will begin with some obvious heroes and obvious villains, and progress from there to some less obvious ones, with what will, I hope, turn out to be some rather surprising revelations. In the course of the investigation, however, we will encounter the problem of trying to understand exactly what the compiler of the Chronicles was hoping to accomplish by producing the work: in other words, as in any historical investigation, we have to consider how we know as well as what we know. In the final analysis, we will see that there is in fact a crucial link between the heroes and villains of the chronicle and the very nature of the text itself; as we shall see, the vilification of Harald son of Godred Don and Ewen son of Duncan in the passage cited above is far from accidental.
Before we embark on our investigation, a few quick comments on terminology and conventions utilized throughout. First, I use the terms âheroesâ and âvillainsâ loosely without any reference to classical, historical, philosophical, or literary-critical definitions, where the term âheroâ in particular has a well-defined set of criteria. Nevertheless, some sort of descriptors is necessary. Since practically any terms will evoke at least some literary connotations, since the material in question is rather storied at times, and since the principal figures do fall clearly into categories of good and bad, âheroesâ and âvillainsâ seem the most appropriate way of describing the individuals at hand. Second, the principal text utilized throughout, the so-called Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles (see further below) has been described in many different ways over the years. For the sake of convenience I will refer to it in shorthand as the Chronicles, or the Manx chronicle, or sometimes simply the chronicle. Unless otherwise noted, I always use and cite the most recent scholarly edition by George Broderick (1995), and I refer to folio rather than page numbers for the sake of a convenient concordance with this edition.3
Finally, a word on the forms I have used to render personal names. The complex linguistic situation in Man and the Isles in the period under consideration, where both Gaelic and Norse were spoken, and where Latin was the principal language of learning, means that a potentially bewildering array of forms may be, and has been, utilized for personal names by authors writing on the subject. Thus, for example, King RÇ«gnvaldr of the Icelandic sagas was known in Gaelic as Raghnall, and, to further complicate matters, in Latin sources like the Manx chronicle he becomes Reginaldus. There is no accepted scholarly convention for rendering these names, and I will, therefore, for the sake of convenience, use anglicized formsâalthough I do so with the caveat that the underlying linguistic situation is far from clear. Where I cite passages from the Manx chronicle I have allowed names to stand in the Latinized form utilized by George Broderick, with the result that Rognvald appears as Reginald .4
Before we delve into the heroes and villains of the text, we must begin with a brief discussion of the nature of the document itself.
Bibliography
- Chronica Regum Manniae et Insularum. The Chronicle of Man and the Sudreys, with an English translation and historical notes by P.A. Munch. 1860. Christiana [Oslo].
- Chronica Regum Manniae et Insularum. The Chronicle of Man and the Sudreys, with an English translation and historical notes by P.A. Munch. 1874. Revised by Rev. Goss. Douglas.
- The Chronicle of Man and the Isles: A Facsimile of the Man...