Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time; or, The Jarls and The FreskynsGray, James
History
Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time; or, The Jarls and The Freskyns
Gray, James
Caithness (Scotland) -- History; Freskin family; Sutherland (Scotland) -- History
We may now try to state how things stood in the north at the date
of his accession. Soon after this time his grandfather's friend, the
first Freskyn, died between 1166 and 1171, and was succeeded by his
son William MacFrisgyn, whose son Hugo would then be quite young.
Harold Maddadson had in 1165 been for twenty-six years Earl of
Caithness, and Jarl of Orkney and Shetland for nineteen years jointly
with Ragnvald, and for seven years sole jarl of those islands.[30] He
had probably put away his first wife Afreka of Fife about 1165, but he
afterwards lived with Gormflaith, the daughter of Malcolm MacHeth from
a date which cannot be fixed with certainty. Led by her, it is said,
Harold was openly hostile to the Scottish king, of whom, however, he
held the earldom of Caithness, which at that time included not only
the parishes of Creich, Dornoch, Rogart, Kilmalie or Golspie, Clyne,
Loth, and most of Kildonan and of Lairg, then called by the Norse
Sudrland, but also the districts of Strathnavern, Eddrachilles, and
Durness (where Mackay refugees had not yet permanently settled) as
well as Ness, which is now known as the County of Caithness.
The diocese of Caithness, which then was co-terminous with the earldom
and comprised all the above districts which now form the modern
counties of Caithness and Sutherland, had in 1165 been in existence
for about thirty-five years; its chief church being at first at
Halkirk in Caithness and thereafter being the old Church of St. Bar
at Dornoch, but it was scantily endowed, and therefore its clergy were
but few.[31] Its Bishop was Andrew, a Culdean monk of Dunfermline,
and probably Abbot of Dunkeld, who had been promoted to the see of
Caithness before 1146, and died at Dunfermline on the 30th December
1184. Ingigerd, Earl Ragnvald's daughter, would at this time be
a young wife and mother living with some of the elder of her six
children, probably near Loch Naver, on part of the Moddan family lands
there with her husband, Audhild's son Eric Stagbrellir, until their
sons, Harald Ungi, Magnus, and Ragnvald, should grow up. But these
sons, possibly on their father's death, and certainly before 1184,
when young Magnus Mangi was killed[32] at the battle of Norafjord,
emigrated to Norway to obtain the Orkney jarldom about ten or fifteen
years after King William's accession; while of Ingigerd's daughters,
Ingibiorg, Elin, and Ragnhild, nothing is recorded at this time,
though Ragnhild appears later on, and one of her sisters is believed
to have married Gilchrist, Earl of Angus during the last twenty years
of the twelfth century. The other may have married in Norway, or died
young and unmarried.
All these children and their descendants successively according to
sex and seniority would have claims as being of the line of Erlend
Thorfinnson, to half the Caithness earldom and Jarl Ragnvald's lands
there, claims which, however, it would be impracticable, while Harold
Maddadson lived, to enforce.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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