The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. II] OF SCOTLAND 209
with Reginald, the Norwegian king of Man and the Isles, it
is nearly impossible to distinguish between the acts of the
two princes.
Reginald, however, appears on the death of his brother
Dugall, to have been designated " dominus insularum," and
sometimes even " rex insularum," and " dominus de Ergile
and Kintyre," under which title he grants certain lands to the
abbey of Saddell, in Kintyre, which he had founded.
These titles, however, did not descend to his children, and
he was succeeded in his paternal inheritance by his eldest
son, Roderic, who, on the conquest of Argyll by Alexander II.,
considerably increased his powers by agreeing to hold his lands
of the king as crown vassal ; and after this period he is generally
styled Dominus de Kintyre. Roderic appears to have adopted
the Norwegian habits of piracy in their fullest extent, and to
have become, in everything but his birth, one of that race.
He was one of the most noted pirates of his day, and the
annals of the time are full of the plundering expeditions which
he made. In these habits he was not followed by his sons
Dugall and Allan. Dugall ruled over his Gaelic possessions
in the usual manner of a Celtic chief, and when Ewen had
at length agreed, in 1249, to desert the Norwegian interest
for that of Scotland, bore the Norwegian title of king of the
Isles until his death.
On Haco's
acquired great
expedition to the Western
accession to his territories.
Isles, king Dugall
Few of the Island
chiefs had afforded so much assistance to Haco, or taken such
an active part in his expedition as Dugall, and Haco therefore
bestowed upon him all those parts of Ewen of Lorn's territories
which had fallen into his hands. King Dugall appears to
have died without descendants, and his brother Allan succeeded
to the possessions of this branch of the Siol Cuinn. On the
cession of the Isles, .\llan, along with the other Hebridean
chiefs, transferred their allegiance to Alexander III. of Scotland ;
for his name is found among the barons in the list of those
who assembled at Scoon in 1284, to declare Margaret, the
maid of Norway, heiress to the crown ; and on that occasion
he is designed "
Allangus, fiHus Roderici." On this occasion,
when Alexander appears to have been willing to purchase the
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