objecting to entrust the heir of Scotland within the power of John, of whose intentions they were, not unnaturally, suspicious. They were fearful, also, lest the English king should detain Alexander as a hostage for the delivery of De Vesci, and as William eventually deferred to their opinion, John was obliged to relinquish all hope of a conference, and return disappointed to the south.[507] During William’s contest with Earl Harald, Olave, the earl’s brother-in-law, and John Halkelson, sailed from the Orkneys to assist the son of the Norwegian Regent Erling in placing Sigurd Magnusson upon his father’s throne. Their fate was most unfortunate; the flower of the Orkneys assembled around the banner of Olave perishing, with both their leaders, in the disastrous battle of Floravagr; and their ill-omened expedition entailing the wrath of the conqueror upon Harald, who only made his peace with the indignant Sverer by yielding up to Norway the whole of the Shetland Isles. It was a diminished and impaired dominion, therefore, which Harald, upon his death in 1206, left as an inheritance between his three sons; [Sidenote: A. D. 1206.] Heinrek succeeding to his claims upon Ross, whilst David and John divided his possessions in Caithness and the Orkneys, the latter, upon the death of David, becoming the sole possessor of both his father’s earldoms.[508] To ensure the submission of Earl John to his authority, William, during the summer of 1214, proceeded as far as Moray, [Sidenote: A. D. 1214.] when the earl, unwilling to provoke the hostility of his sovereign, yielded at once to his terms, giving up his daughter and heiress as a hostage for his fidelity and allegiance. The king then returned by easy journeys towards the south, but he had far over-taxed his feeble strength, having risen from a bed of sickness to ensure the tranquil succession of his son. As he approached the Forth he expressed a wish to be carried to Stirling, a place for which he appears to have felt an especial fondness; and here he lingered over the autumn within the walls of that royal castle, from whence his failing sight could gaze upon one of the fairest prospects of his native land. He was never destined to see another year, and on Thursday, the 4th of December, he breathed his last, expiring in the seventy-third year of his age, and within five days of entering upon the fiftieth of a chequered and eventful reign.[509]