The last and by far the most memorable expedition of Hako was against the Scots. The chief incentive to this war was the attempt of Alexander III. to recover the Hebrides, which, as we have before observed[165], had been subdued by Magnus Barefoot. Not that they were then subdued for the first time. The truth is, that they had frequently been reduced to the Norwegian yoke as far back as the ninth century, and from that time had, at intervals, paid tribute to that power. More frequently, however, they had asserted their independence. Colonies, too, from the mother-countries, had assisted to people those islands, which Harald Harfagre and his successors had regarded as no less a dependency than the Shetlands or the Orkneys. In the time of Magnus the number of those colonists increased; and there were not a few nobles of the isles who could trace their pedigree to the royal line of Norway. But their position drew them into the sphere of Scottish influence: to Scotland, and not to the distant North, they must look for allies in their frequent wars with one another; and the eagerness of the Scottish monarchs to establish their feudal superiority over them brought the two parties into continual communication. In 1244, two bishops arrived in Norway to induce Hako to renounce all claim to the Hebrides. They told him that he could have no just right to them, since Magnus Barefoot had only gained possession of them by violence—by forcibly wresting them from Malcolm Canmore. The king replied with more truth that Magnus had not wrested them from the Scottish king, but from the Norwegian Gudred, who had thrown off the allegiance due to the mother-country. Defeated in their historical arguments, they had recourse to one which with a poor monarch they hoped would be more convincing—the pecuniary argument. They besought him to say what sum he would demand for their entire cession. “I am not so poor that I will sell my birthright!” was the reply, and the prelates returned. Alexander III., however, would not abandon the hope of annexing these islands to his crown; and he commenced a series of intrigues among the Highland chieftains. The vassals of Hako began to complain of the vexatious hostilities to which they were subject, especially from the thane of Ross, and to beg immediate aid. The atrocities which they detailed, we should scarcely expect to find in a Christian people, and in the thirteenth century: we should rather assign them to the period when the pagan Northmen ravaged the coasts of these islands. In great anger Hako convened a diet at Bergen, and it resolved that the aid required should be immediately furnished. [Sidenote: 1263.]