John, Earl of Orkney, seems to have gone to Norway to take the oath of allegiance to King Hakon immediately after his accession, for we find in the Icelandic Annals that he was betrothed to King Eirik’s daughter in 1299. The statement is explicit, and though it may seem strange to us that an infant scarcely two years of age should be betrothed to a man of forty, Munch makes the remark that such unlikely contracts were by no means so unusual in those days as to oblige us to discredit the statement. In fact, we find this same King Hakon betrothing his own daughter when an infant of one year to a man who, though he was much younger than Earl John, was nevertheless a full-grown man. But Earl John seems to have died shortly after the betrothal, for we find that Ingibiorg was betrothed anew in 1311, and John’s successor in the earldom appears on record in 1312, with Ferquhard, Bishop of Caithness, witnessing the confirmation by King Robert I. and Hakon V. (at Inverness, 28th October) of the prior treaty executed at Perth, 6th July 1266, between King Alexander III. and Magnus IV. (the son of the unfortunate Hakon), by which the Kings of Norway ceded for ever the Isle of Man and all the other islands of the Sudreys, and all the islands in the west and south of the great Haf, except the isles of Orkney and Shetland, which were specially reserved to Norway. In consideration of this the King of Scotland became bound to pay to the King of Norway and his heirs for ever an annual sum of 100 marks, within St. Magnus’ church, in addition to a payment of 4000 marks to be paid within the space of four years.