(Vol. vii., pp. 105. 183.)
That the Orkney and Zetland Islands were transferred by Denmark to
Scotland in 1468, in pledge for payment of part of the dower of the
Princess of Denmark, who was married to James III., King of Scotland,
under right of redemption by Denmark, is an admitted historic fact; but
it is asserted by the Scottish, and denied by the Danish historians,
that Denmark renounced her right of redemption of these Islands. The
question is fully discussed, with references to every work and passage
treating of the matter, in the first introductory note to the edition of
_The General Grievances and Oppressions of the Isles of Orkney and
Shetland_, published at Edinburgh, 1836. And the writer of the note is
led to the conclusion that there was no renunciation, and that Denmark
still retains her right of redemption. Mr. Samuel Laing, in his _Journal
of a Residence in Norway_, remarks, that the object of Torfæus'
historical work, _Orcades, seu Rerum Orcadensium Historiæ libri tres_,
compiled by the express command of Christian V., King of Denmark, was to
vindicate the right of the Danish monarch to redeem the mortgage of the
sovereignty of these islands; and he adds, that in 1804, Bonaparte, in a
proclamation addressed to the army assembled at Boulogne for the
invasion of England, descanted on the claim of Denmark to this portion
of the British dominions. In a note he has the farther statement, that
in 1549 an assessment for paying off the sum for which Orkney and
Zetland were pledged was levied in Norway by Christian III. (_Vide_
Laing's _Norway_, 1837, pp. 352, 353.) From the preceding notice, it
would appear, that Denmark never renounced her right of redemption, now
merely a matter of antiquarian curiosity. And it is pertinent to
mention, that the connexion of Orkney and Zetland was with Norway, not
Denmark. I observe in the Catalogue of MSS., in the Cottonian Library in
the British Museum (Titus C. VII. art. 71. f. 134.), "Notes on King of
Denmark's Demand of the Orcades, 1587-8," which may throw some light on
the matter.
In the historical sketch given by Broctuna, Kenneth II., King of
Scotland, is said to have taken the Orkneys from the Picts A.D. 838; and
that they remained attached to that kingdom till 1099, when Donald Bain,
in recompense of aid given to him by Magnus, King of Norway, gifted all
the Scotch isles, including the Orkneys, to Norway. This is not what is
understood to be the history of Orkney.
In the middle of the ninth century, Harold Harfager, one of the reguli
of Norway, subdued the other petty rulers, and made himself king of the
whole country. The defeated party fled to Orkney, and other islands of
the west: whence, betaking themselves to piracy, they returned to ravage
the coast of Norway. Harold pursued them to their places of refuge, and
conquered and colonised Orkney about A.D. 875. The Norwegians at that
time destroyed or expelled the race then inhabiting these islands. They
are supposed to have been Picts, and to have received Christianity at an
earlier date, but it is doubtful if there were Christians in Orkney at
that period: however, Depping says expressly, that Earl Segurd, the
second Norwegian earl, expelled the Christians from these isles. I may
remark, that the names of places in Orkney and Zetland are Norse, and
bear descriptive and applicable meanings in that tongue; but hesitate to
extend these names beyond the Norwegian colonisation, and to connect
them with the Picts or other earlier inhabitants. No argument can be
founded on the rude and miserable subterraneous buildings called Picts'
houses, which, if they ever were habitations, or anything else than
places of refuge, must have belonged to a people in a very low grade of
civilisation. Be this as it may, Orkney and Zetland remained under the
Norwegian dominion from the time of Harold Harfager till they were
transferred to Scotland by the marriage treaty in 1468, a period of
about six hundred years. What cannot easily be accounted for, is the
discovery of two Orkney and Zetland deeds of the beginning of the
fifteenth century prior to the transfer, written not in Norse, but in
the Scottish language.