Bury, Lancashire.
KIRKWALLENSIS seems to have been led into an error respecting the Orkneys.
It is true that Orkney and Shetland belonged to the crown of Norway, to
which the Scottish family of St. Clair, or Sinclair, rendered military
service for the earldom. It was not, however, to an English king, but to
James III. of Scotland that Christian gave the hand of "the Maid of
Norway." In the marriage preliminaries the latter thus stipulates
respecting the dower:--"Rex cedit sexaginta aureorum Rhenensium
[florenorum] millia, ejus summæ priusquam è Danæ regno sponsa digrediatur
numeraturus aureorum decem millia, quod verò reliquum esset supplerent
insulæ regni Norvegici, jam memoratæ, _Orcades_, una cum jurisdictione ac
cæteris eodem pertinentibus, hac tamen lege, ut insulas eas, eousque teneat
Scotiæ Rex sub firma _hypotheca_ donec vel ipse, vel ejus heredes, Daniæ ac
Norvegiæ Reges, æqua vicissim portione easdem redimant." This article was
afterwards embodied in the marriage contract:--"Et terræ insularum Orchaden
Regi nostro Jacobo _impignoratæ, ad Norvegiæ reges revertentur_," &c. Both
documents are preserved in Torfæus (_Orcades_, pp. 188--191.). Mr. Auker's
discovery of the original is, however, an interesting circumstance, as it
would seem that the marriage in question was but the result of an attempt
to settle amicably an ancient dispute respecting the sovereignty of the
Hebrides--"vetus controversia de Hæbudis et Mannia magnis utriusque populi
cladibus agitata"--which the king of France, as umpire, had been unable to
pronounce upon, in consequence of the loss or concealment of the original
instruments.