page_title: Ailéan mac Ruaidhrí
section_title: Norwegian magnate
hierarchical_section_title: Ailéan mac Ruaidhrí / Norwegian magnate
caption_attribution_description: English: Map created for the Wikipedia article concerning Ailéan mac Ruaidhrí (died ×1296).
context_page_description: Ailéan mac Ruaidhrí was a leading figure in the thirteenth-century kingdoms of the Isles and the Scotland. He was a son of Ruaidhrí mac Raghnaill, and thus a member of the Clann Ruaidhrí branch of Clann Somhairle. Ailéan was a brother of Dubhghall mac Ruaidhrí, King of Argyll and the Isles, a significant figure who held power in the mid thirteenth century. At the time, the rulers of the Isles were fiercely independent of the Scottish Crown, and owed nominal allegiance to the distant Norwegian Crown. In 1259, Dubhghall's daughter married the son of King of Connacht, and Ailéan is recorded to have commanded the woman's tocher of one hundred and sixty gallowglass warriors.
  When the Scottish Crown encroached into Isles in the 1260s, Dubhghall and Ailéan were noted supporters of the Norwegian cause. Both men played a prominent role in the Norwegian campaign against the Scots in 1263. Following the collapse of the operation and further pressure, the Norwegians agreed to hand the Isles over to the Scots. Although Dubhghall is last attested resisting the Scots later that decade, Ailéan and most of his Clann Somhairle kinsman integrated themselves into the Scottish realm.
context_section_description: With the aforesaid death of Alexander II in 1249, the Scottish invasion of the Argyll and the Isles came to an abrupt end. About a decade later, the latter's son and royal successor, Alexander III, came of age and took steps to continue his father's westward expansion. In 1262, the year after yet another failed attempt by the Scottish Crown to purchase the Isles, the thirteenth-century Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar reports that the Scots lashed out against the Islesmen in a particularly savage attack upon the inhabitants of Skye. Thus provoked, Hákon assembled an enormous fleet—described by the Icelandic annals as the largest force to have ever set sail from Norway—to reassert Norwegian sovereignty along the north and western coast of Scotland. In July 1263, this armada disembarked from Norway, and by mid August, Hákon reaffirmed his overlordship in Shetland and Orkney, forced the submission of Caithness, and arrived in the Hebrides.
  In early September, Hákon's fleet of Norwegians and Islesmen entered the Firth of Clyde. When negotiations between the Scottish and Norwegian administrations broke down, the saga identifies Magnús Óláfsson, King of Mann and the Isles, Dubhghall, Ailéan, Aonghus Mór Mac Domhnaill, and Murchadh Mac Suibhne, as the commanders of a detachment of Islesmen and Norwegians who entered Loch Long, portaged across land into Loch Lomond, and ravaged the surrounding region of the Lennox. According various versions of the saga, this contingent consisted of either forty or sixty ships—a considerable portion of Hákon's fleet.
  Ailéan's actions are specifically acclaimed by the saga, which states that he took several hundred head of cattle, and caused much destruction throughout mainland Scotland. This inland campaigning appears to be corroborated by Scottish exchequer records, as John Lamberton, Sheriff of Stirling is reported to have incurred expenses for the upkeep of "vigilant men" at Stirling Castle for the time when the Norwegian forces were in the area. There is reason to suspect that the operation in Loch Lomond is evidence that the Norwegians and Islesmen were directing their fury at the territories of the Stewarts. Furthermore, by penetrating into the Earldom of Lennox, and possibly striking further east inland, Hákon's adherents would have been encroaching into the Earldom of Menteith.
  Meanwhile, at the beginning of October, Hákon's main force clashed with the Scots at Largs, and withdrew into the Hebrides. Once regrouped with the detachment of Islesmen, the saga records that Hákon rewarded his overseas supporters. Since Eóghan had refused to aid the Norwegians cause, Dubhghall and Ailéan were awarded his forfeited island territories. A certain Ruðri (fl. 1263) is stated to have received Bute, whilst Murchadh got Arran.
  Although the saga declares that the operation was an overwhelming triumph, it seems to have been an utter failure instead. Not only did Hákon fail to break Scottish power, but Alexander III seized the initiative the following year, and oversaw a series of invasions into the Isles and northern Scotland. Recognising this dramatic shift in royal authority, Magnús Óláfsson submitted to Alexander III within the year, and in so doing, symbolised the complete collapse of Norwegian sovereignty in the Isles. Dubhghall, on the other hand, contrasted many of his compatriots from the Isles, and stubbornly refused to submit to the Scottish Crown. In 1266, almost three years after Hákon's abortive campaign, terms of peace were finally agreed upon between the Scottish and Norwegian administrations. Specifically, with the conclusion of the Treaty of Perth in July, Hákon's son and successor, Magnús Hákonarson, King of Norway, formally resigned all rights to Mann and the islands on the western coast of Scotland. In so doing, the territorial dispute over Scotland's western maritime region was finally settled.
caption: Locations relating to the expedition into the Lennox.
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