The Earls of Orkney and Shetland

The Earls of Orkney and Shetland were descended from Norwegians jarls who left their homeland to seek dominions overseas in the wake of Harold Fair Hair’s (863-933) establishment of strong royal power in Norway. In Orkney the Norsemen established a House which wielded great power not only over Orkney and Shetland and the Western Isles, but also over Caithness and Sutherland, thanks to power given to them by the Scottish kings. Thus, while Orkney and Shetland were Norwegian subject lands, in the mainland domain of Caithness (a Scottish earldom) the earls also owed allegiance to the king of Scots. The southern part of this territory was known as Sutherland (the southern land) from the viewpoint of the men from the Northern Isles.

The Scottish kings were glad to accept the friendship of these Norsemen and both Malcolm II and Malcolm III made marriage alliances with the earls.

The Earls of Orkney and Shetland were the strongest rulers in the western Viking lands.

They dominated the seas round the north-west of Scotland and ruled the North of Scotland and the Northern Isles between the Tenth and the Twelfth Centuries with little interference from the Scottish and Norwegian kings whose authority they nevertheless had to formally acknowledge. The Norwegian kings visited with large warfleets on occasion, and during these expeditions Orkney served as vital supply bases. From Orkney, Viking kings such as Eric Bloodaxe, Harald Hardrada and Magnus Barelegs journeyed to further their political ambitions elsewhere in the British Isles.

The earldom's time of independent power was numbered. In the Twelfth century across Europe powerful monarchies were rising who were dedicated to rid their countries of earls, thus creating tightly ruled kingdoms. Norway and Scotland were no exception, and both regarded the Earls of Orkney and Caithness as a threat to their national administration.

Scotland's natural borders included the waters and islands around the shores of Scotland. The determination of Scottish kings to exert their authority was evident as early as the Thirteenth century, when Alexander III first attempted to buy the Hebrides from Haakon of Norway then repulsed a Norse invasion at the Battle of Largs. (See Alexander III article for the full story of the Battle of Largs.)

By 1265 the Scots had taken control of all the Western Islands, and in 1266, by the Treaty of Perth, Norway ceded to Scotland all her possessions save Orkney and Shetland for a cash payment of 4 000 marks, and a perpetual ‘annual’ of 100 marks. In 1281, as Eric the heir to the throne of Norway married Margaret, daughter of Alexander III, Scotland and Norway entered into a friendship which proved lasting. (Their daughter Margaret, known as the Maid of Norway, inherited the throne as a child when her Scottish grandfather prematurely died.) However, it was inevitable that at some point in the future the kings of Scotland would make all efforts to retrieve Orkney and Shetland.

By the Fifteenth Century it seemed an anachronism for the offshore islands of Orkney and Shetland to belong to another country. The days of far-flung empires had passed, and national borders were now recognised as the true limits of sovereign power. Often, however, Orkney or Shetland provided a haven for any Scots criminal or political undesirable escaping the hand of royal justice. This, and the Earls’ allegiance to both Scotland and Norway, caused occasional embarrassment to both countries.

During this time relationships between Scotland and the combined kingdoms of Norway and Denmark once more deteriorated. The cause of this problem was the sum of 100 marks that Alexander III had promised as part of the Treaty of Perth agreement to pay annually to the king of Norway in recognition of the cession of the Western Isles to Scotland. Occasionally payments lapsed and in the 1450s King Christian of Denmark and Norway began to make complaints. James II (1437-60) was determined to stop paying the money and to force King Christian to give up Orkney and Shetland and in 1460 sent ambassadors to a meeting in Bourges arranged between the Scots and Danes by Charles VII of France.

It was decided that a marriage settlement would solve the problems and to this end arrangements were made in 1468 for the new king of Scotland, James III, to marry King Christian’s daughter, Margaret. Her father, unable to pay much of her promised dowry, pledged instead the sovereignty and his royal estates in Orkney and Shetland. By 1472 the dowry still remained unpaid and James annexed the Earldom of Orkney and the Lordship of Shetland to the Scottish Crown. The Scottish kings had at last succeeded in gaining control of the mainland and all the islands of Scotland.

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