User:Deacon of Pndapetzim/Dubhghall mac Ruaidhri

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Dubhghall mac Ruaidhri was the son, probably the oldest son, of Ruaidhri mac Raghnaill, a powerful ruler in the early thirteenth-century Hebrides.

Contents

[edit] Origins

Dubhghall's father Ruaidhri mac Raghnaill was the son of Somhairle, King of Argyll and the Isles, whose sons established three dynasties that dominated much of the western coast and sea-board of Scotland in the thirteenth-century]] and beyond. Ruaidhri himself has been subject to much historical speculation. According to some historians, he was allied to the MacWilliam kindred of northern Scotland who attempted to take the Scottish crown from King Alexander II of Scotland in the 1220s. There is also the strong possibility that Ruaidhri was the chief of the Mac Somhairle kindred who died at the battle of Ballyshannon in 1247.

In 1247 King Henry III's Justiciar in Ireland, Maurice fitz Gerald, attacked the King of Tír Chonaill, Maoilsheachlainn Ó Domhnaill, defeating and killing him at the Battle of Ballyshannon.[1] According to the Annals of Loch Cé, one of Maoilsheachlainn's allies who died at Ballyshannon was one Mac Somhairle, "Descendant of Somhairle":

Mac Somhairle, king of Argyll, and the nobles of the Cenel-Conaill besides, were slain.[2]

The Irish historian Seán Duffy proposed that this "Mac Somhairle" was Dubhghall's uncle, Domhnall mac Raghnall. Duffy's main argument is that there was a tradition in the seventeenth-century Book of Clanranald that Domhnall had been invited by the Irish at Tara to come "to take the headship of the Western Isles and the greater part of the Gaels.[3]

McDonald believed that this "Mac Somhairle" referred to Donnchadh mac Dubhghaill, while Sellar thought this "Mac Somhairle" to be Dubhghall's father Ruaidhri.[4] Alex Woolf more recently offered an extended case for the latter view, arguing on a number of grounds that Ruaidhri is the best candidate.[5]

[edit] Kingship of the "northern part of the Sudreys" (1248)

The Ballyshannon debate has implications for understanding the earliest notices of Dubhghall; probably not coincidentally, the earliest notices concerns the year following Ballyshannon:

Then came from west beyond the sea John [i.e. Eóghan], Donnchadh's son, and Dubhghall, Ruaidhri's son; and they both endeavored after this, that the king should give them the title of king over the northern part of the Sudreys. They remained with the king during the summer.[6]

The saga related that King Hákon gave his daughter to Harald, King of Man, and then resumed the story of Dubhghall and Eóghan:

[Hákon] gave the title of King to Eóghan, Donnchadh's son. And King Eóghan sat behind in Bergen, during the winter; but Dubhghall was with king Hákon.[7]

The reason why Eóghan and Dubhghall were in Norway in 1248 are open to historical speculation. One explanation, that used by R. Andrew McDonald, was that King Hákon IV, who in 1247 received coronation and papally sanctioned anointment as King of Norway, had demanded their fealty.[8] Alex Woolf suggested instead that the visit was prompted by the death of the "descendant of Somhairle" at the Battle of Ballyshannon in 1247, and that both Eóghan and Dubhghall were attempting to use the King of Norway to gained the Kingdom of the Isles for themselves.[9]

A complicating factor is the relationship between Haraldr Óláfsson, the King of Mann, and the king of Norway. The Chronicle of Man recorded under the year 1247 that Haraldr Óláfsson had gone to England to be knighted, and that King Henry III had given him great gifts; English records show that this in fact occurred in 1246, not 1247.[10] The potential significance though is that this probably meant some kind of informal submission to the English king, which would have threatened the Norwegian king with the loss of authority to a more substantial overlord.[10]

[edit] Eóghan of Argyll

The Chronicle of Man related that in 1250 King Hákon ordered Haraldr Óláfsson, King of Man, to come to Norway, where he was apparently detained; later in the year Eóghan of Argyll and Magnus Ólafsson arrived in Man, with Eóghan proclaiming himself "king of the Isles". The Chronicle alleged that the Manxmen were hostile to Eóghan, and that Eóghan was expelled.[11]

Hákon's Saga recorded that in 1253, King Hákon of Norway was preparing an expedition against Denmark; it related that

King Hákon had many noble men in this levy. There were three other kings: King Hákon the Young, King John [i.e. Eóghan] of the Sudreys, King Dubhghall.[12]

Alan Orr Anderson thought that "John" was a mistake for "Magnus", rather than referring to Eóghan of Argyll as elsewhere.[13]

[edit] Dubhghall takes kingship in the Hebrides

The Icelandic Annals recorded for the year 1249 that:

Dubhghall took kingship in the Sudreys.[14]


[edit] Killing of Jordan d'Exeter

Loch Ce, s.a. 1258

[edit] Hákon's 1263 campaign

Hákon's Saga

Told King Dubhghall that the army was to be expected from the east during the summer. And it was rumoured that the Scots would plunder in the islands during the summer: but King Dubhghall spread the rumour that forty ships were coming west from Northward, and the Scots were deterred by that.[15]

According to the same source, when Hákon did launch his attack, one of the chieftains accompanying him was Dubhghall's younger son Eric.[16]

Hákon

asked Eóghan to accompany him, as he was bound to do. But King Eóghan refused to do this; he said that he had sworn an oath to the Scottish king, and held larger dominions of him than of the king of Norway. He bad King Hákon to dispose of the dominion that he had given him.[17]

Following this, the saga relates that:

Then King Dubhgall's men also came to the king, and said that the chieftains Murchaid and Aonghas, who ruler over Kintyre, held the island of Islay, and were willing to submit to Hákon ... Aonghas and Murchaid gave the island of Islay into the king's power; and the king gave the island of Islay to Aonghas [on the same terms] as the other chiefs of the Hebrides held [their territories] of him.[18]


King Hakon sent forty ships up Loch Long (Skiþafiorð). There they found Magnus, King of Man, and King Dubhghall; Ailean, Dubhghall's brother; Aonghas, and Murchaid. And when they came into the firth, they took their boats, and drew them up to a large lake, which is called Loch Lomond (Sokolofni). Out across the lake lay a country that is called Lennox (Lofnath). There were many islands in the lake, and well-inhabited. The Norwegians waste these islands with fire. They burned also all the dwellings all around the lake, and did there the greatest damage.[19]

In 1263, Dubhghall fully participated in the campaign of King Hákon. Travelling through Arrochar and Loch Long, and dragging their boats across the land, he and his brother Ailean launched an attack on Lennox.

Ailean, brother of King Dubhghall, went far across Scotland and slew many men. He took many hundred head of cattle, and did much damage ... the battle-bold Ailean gave the people a hot extinction of life, in battle[20]

After the Battle of Largs, King Hákon withdrew from the Scottish campaign leaving it to his Hebridean underlings; before he departed Hákon's Saga related that he:

gave to [Dubhgall] the dominion that King Eóghan previously had previously had. He gave Bute to Ruaidhri and Arran to Murchaid. To Dubhghall he gave the castle that Guthorm Bakka-kólfr had occupied during the summer.[21]

[edit] Aftermath

That summer, the Scots went as far south as Man, and compelled Magnus, [the Manxmen's] lord, to give them oaths. But lord Dubhghall defended himself in his ships, and they took no hold of him And in the following spring [1265], he came to the Orkneys, and asked for men. With him there were his son Eric, and Eric Bosi and John Thiori.[22]

[edit] Death

"Dubhghall, King of the Hebrides, died",[23] while the Annals of Loch Ce reported

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Woolf, "Dead Man", p. 77.
  2. ^ Annals of Loch Cé, s.a. 1247.7, available here.
  3. ^ Duffy, "Bruce Brothers", p. 56.
  4. ^ McDonald, Kingdom of the Isles, p. 94.
  5. ^ Woolf, "Dead Man", pp. 77-85; see also Woolf, "Age of Sea Kings", p. 108.
  6. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, vol. ii, p. 548, where Anderson rendered the Sudreys as "Hebrides", whereas the modern word Hebrides does not, unlike Sudreys, include the Isle of Man.
  7. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, vol. ii, p. 549.
  8. ^ McDonald, Kingdom of the Isles', pp. 98-9; Sellar, "Hebridean Sea-Kings",pp. 203-4, gives no explanation for the visit.
  9. ^ Woolf, "Dead Man", pp. 83-4.
  10. ^ a b Woolf, "Dead Man", p. 84.
  11. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, vol. ii, pp. 567-8.
  12. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, vol. ii, p. 577.
  13. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, vol. ii, p. 577, n. 12.
  14. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, vol. ii, p. 554.
  15. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, vol. ii, p. 611.
  16. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, vol. ii, p. 611.
  17. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, vol. ii, p. 617.
  18. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, vol. ii, p. 618.
  19. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, vol. ii, p. 625.
  20. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, vol. ii, p. 626.
  21. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, vol. ii, p. 626.
  22. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, vol. ii, p. 649.
  23. ^ Anderson, Early Sources, vol. ii, p. 660.

[edit] References

  • Anderson, Alan Orr (1922), Early Sources of Scottish History A.D. 500 to 1286, vol. ii, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd 
  • Duffy, Seán (2002), “The Bruce Brothers and the Irish Sea World, 1306-29”, in Duffy, Seán, Robert the Bruce's Irish Wars: The Invasions of Ireland, 1306-1329, Stroud: Tempus, pp. 45–70, ISBN 0-7524-1974-9 
  • Duncan, A. A. M. & Brown, A. L. (1956–7), Argyll and the Isles in the Earlier Middle Ages, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (Edinburgh) 90: 192–220, <http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/PSAS_2002/pdf/vol_090/90_192_220.pdf> 
  • McDonald, R. Andrew (1997). The Kingdom of the Isles: Scotland's Western Seaboard, c. 1100-c.1336, Scottish Historical Review Monograph Series, No. 4. East Linton: Tuckwell Press. ISBN 1-898410-85-2. 
  • McLeod, Wilson & Bateman, Meg, eds. (2007), Duanaire na Sracaire: The Songbook of the Pillagers: Anthology of Scotland's Gaelic Poetry to 1600, Edinburgh: Birlinn, ISBN 1-84158-181-X 
  • Munro, Jean, & Munro, R. W. (eds.), Acts of the Lords of the Isles, 1336-1493, (Scottish History Society, Edinburgh, 1986)
  • Sellar, W. D. H. (2000), “Hebridean Sea-Kings: The Successors of Somerled, 1164–1316”, in Cowan, E. J. & McDonald, R. Andrew, Alba: Celtic Scotland in the Medieval Era, Edinburgh: Tuckwell Press, pp. 187–218, ISBN 0-85976-608-X 
  • Woolf, Alex (2004), “The Age of Sea-Kings: 900-1300”, in Omand, Donald, The Argyll Book, Edinburgh: Birlinn, pp. 94–109 
  • Woolf, Alex (2007), “A Dead Man at Ballyshannon”, in Duffy, Seán, The World of the Galloglass: War and Society in the North Sea Region, 1150–1600, Dublin: Four Courts Press, pp. 77–85, ISBN 1-85182-946-6 

[[Category:12th century births]] [[Category:13th century deaths]] [[Category:Medieval Gaels]] [[Category:People from Argyll and Bute]]