Scandinavian-Britain

MAN AND THE ISLES 235and replaced them by" his own people." This extensionof the Scottish power at the expense of theNorse went on during the reigns of William the Lion(1166-1214) an d Alexander II. (1214-1249), whocrushed repeated revolts in Galloway, Moray and Ross,and added all the mainland, including Caithness, tothe Scottish kingdom. The last act of Alexander II.was an unsuccessful attempt to add the Hebrides tohis power.OneRagnvald of Man reigned for thirty-eight years.of the incidents of his troubled reign was an attack onthe island by King John of England (1210), invadingacountry until then no part of the English realm, butpolitically under Norway. On Ragnvald's depositionby his brother Olaf the Black, Hakon Hakonarson,king of Norway, tried to reassert his power over theHebrides, which had ceased to pay the accustomedtribute ;but the expedition he sent under HakonOspak was defeated by Olaf the Black, who remainedin Man until 1237, with Godred Don, his nephew, asviceroy over the northern Isles the central;Hebridesbeing still under the family of Sumarlidi, whose greatgrandsonJohn, lord of the Isles, was in possession atthe time when Olaf the Black's sons, Harald andRagnvald (Ronald), having died, there was a failure inthe direct descent of the Manx crown (1249), whichgave Alexander II. his opportunity to annex theIslands an opportunity which failed on this occasion,but recurred before long to his successor.Alexander II. had tried at first to win the Hebridesby negotiations with Hakon of Norway, on the ground