The line of Orry came to an end at the beginning of the eleventh
century. Scotland was then under the sway of the tyrant Macbeth, and,
oddly enough, a parallel tragedy to that of Duncan and his kinsman was
being enacted in Man. A son of Harold the Black, of Iceland, Goddard
Crovan, a mighty soldier, conquered the island and took the crown by
treachery, coming first as a guest of the Manx king. Treachery breeds
treachery, duplicity is a bad seed to sow for loyalty, and the Manx
people were divided in their allegiance. About twenty years after
Crovan's conquest the people of the south of the island took up arms
against the people of the north, and the story goes that, when victory
wavered, the women of the north rushed out to the help of their
husbands, and so won the fight. For that day's work, the northern wives
were given the right to half of all their husband's goods immovable,
while the wives of the south had only a third. The last of the line of
Goddard Crovan died in 1265, and so ended the dynasty of the Norsemen in
Man. They had been three hundred years there. They found us a people
of the race and language of the people of Ireland, and they left us
Manxmen. They were our only true Manx kings, and when they fell, our
independence as a nation ceased.