Unreadiness, then, was the last thing to be looked for in the Isles host thereafter. Somerled spent the rest of that day, with no further visitors from Renfrew, prospecting every stretch and aspect of that difficult and wide-scattered watery terrain, seeking to position his forces to take advantage of every pool, ditch, mere and swamp, in mutual support and effective defence; for it must be a defensive battle, in the first instance, to lead, hopefully, to something much more aggressive. The aim was to founder this first mainland army in the bogs, to frustrate and depress it and so dispel the myth of Norman invincibility; and thereafter to strike on inland, southwards, through Cunninghame, Kyle and Carrick, but always keeping sufficiently close to the coast to remain in touch with the fleet, to eventually link up with the Celtic Galloway forces. Fergus had died three years earlier, immured in Holyrood Abbey, and the new Earl Uhtred was a very different character, who needed leading. Somerled intended to lead, there, and take advantage—for, however unruly and savage, the Gallowegians were magnificent fighters and implacable in their hatred of the Normans, impatient now with Uhtred’s lack of initiative. Then, with all the South-West in his hands and the North risen again in revolt, he would turn on the South-East, the Norman base-area, it was to be hoped himself now with the reputation of invincibility. But, first, the Norman armoured military might must be shown to be vulnerable.
By nightfall, then, the Isles host was spread far and wide over those Renfrew marshes in a formation which, on the face of it, looked like no formation at all, indeed a scattered confusion and reckless squandering of strength and resources. In fact it was a most careful exploitation of the strange terrain, with every apparently isolated unit in a position to back up its neighbour or to cut off its attacker, every re-entrant in the wetlands a trap, every spine of firmer ground ripe for ambush, every flank protected. Somerled intended to swallow up the Steward and all his proud chivalry on his own doorstep. He gave Dougal his first command in the field, the left wing based on the Clyde itself, so that in the event of disaster he could retire to the shipping; Saor and the MacMahon took the right, necessarily the most hazardous and furthest from possible rescue; whilst he himself commanded the vital centre, at Bargarran. From Dougal’s far left to Saor’s extreme right there could have been as much as three muddy, meandering miles. From whatever direction or angle the Steward might choose to attack, he would not find an exploitable gap in that curious front.
Orders were explicit. Although attack during darkness was not anticipated there must be no reliance on that. Sentries and guards were to be posted and kept on the alert along the entire front all night, no camp-fires were to be lit, no lights shown. Direct communication with the centre was to be maintained throughout by all commanders.
It was not far off midnight when Somerled and Gillecolm finished their final tour of examination of all positions and returned to their sail-cloth tent, satisfied that nothing more could be done, meantime. They would snatch an hour or two’s sleep, but first they would have a bite of oaten bannock and a mouthful of wine. Somerled called his cup-bearer, young Murdo MacIan, Cathula’s nephew, who sleepily brought the refreshment, in the darkness—for the King would be the last to contravene his own orders about no lights.
However, before they were finished the youth was back, to announce that there were in fact lights showing, out in the marshland, in the general direction of Renfrew, moving lights. Somerled went to look, at the tent-door. There were indeed winking yellow lights out there, perhaps half-a-dozen of them, all fairly close together and fairly evidently moving towards Bargarran, however slowly and spasmodically.
“It seems that we may have visitors,” he commented. “Their purpose at this hour, who can tell? They may be of no note or significance. Only if they are, bring them to me. I require to sleep . . .”
Gillecolm was already asleep and his father almost so when young MacIan re-entered the tent, a gleam of light behind him.
“Messengers, my lord King,” he declared. “From the Normans. From this Steward, they say.”
“So! Have them in, then.”
Three somewhat mud-spattered individuals were ushered in, bringing a lamp with them. Two Somerled recognised from the previous afternoon visit, although de Carteret was not one of them.
“You are abroad late,” Somerled greeted them. “What brings you here at this hour?”
“We have a message for you, Sir King, from the High Steward,” one said. “A letter.”
“Ah—the Steward chooses a strange time to send his letter. It must be important?”
“Most urgent, my lord.” The speaker held out a folded and sealed paper.
Somerled, still sitting on his couch, took it and broke the seal, to spread out the paper. “Bring the lamp closer,” he directed.
The man with the light, who looked like a servant, standing a little way behind the other two, came forward—and doing so, seemed to trip and stagger. Flinging out his arm to recover balance, he dropped the lamp, which overturned. The flame was extinguished. The man cursed briefly.
“Fool! Clumsy oaf!” the spokesman exclaimed. “You, page—go bring in another lamp.” The glow of light from the door showed that there were more of the lamps lit out there.
MacIan turned and went out.
“What is to do?” Gillecolm, awakened no doubt by the falling lamp, asked, sleepy-voiced.
“It is a letter. From the Steward. They bring more light . . .”
Those were the last words ever spoken by Somerled MacFergus, in this life at least. The scrape of steel stilled them, as dirks were drawn. The first two visitors launched themselves upon the sitting man, daggers plunging, whilst he who had dropped the lamp flung himself on the recumbent Gillecolm. Not much light filtered into that tent but enough for expert assassins to do their work. Father and son, scale-armour laid aside for the night and clad only in their shirts, died together, hearts pierced by many accurate stabs. Only a gasp and groan or two sounded, as their faces were swiftly, efficiently muffled by cloaks.
“A good night to you, my lord King,” the spokesman said, quite loudly although his voice was uneven. “Have we your leave to go?”
Out into the night the three men pushed, dirks hidden now. Young MacIan seemed to be having difficulty in persuading one of the other lamp-carriers to give up his light.
“You will not need that now, page,” the spokesman declared, the only man who had uttered throughout, save for that curse from the lamp-dropper. “Your king has the message. He will now sleep. You are to escort us past the guards, on our way back . . .”
The youth, and two of the sentries, went with the deputation as far as the edge of the marshland and then turned back.
They did not notice, therefore, although others did, that oddly the visitors extinguished all their lamps almost immediately thereafter, to proceed through that miry wilderness in darkness.
As Somerled had predicted, the Normans attacked at first light—by which time the Isles army was in a state of complete confusion and disarray, with the word that their lord was dead borne from mouth to mouth, from unit to unit. Saor and Dougal took charge, after a fashion, but both were really more concerned with getting Somerled’s and Gillecolm’s bodies back to the ships, and thereafter extricating the army from its extended position, than in giving battle. There was some fighting, inevitably, but mainly as a rearguard action, as the Isles host withdrew to the Clyde, none having any heart to continue with the campaign. Some casualties were sustained but not many—although the Steward and Bishop thereafter claimed it all as a great victory and God’s judgement on apostates, heretics and traitors. The Normans, of course, found the terrain almost impossible to fight over, and most of the Islesmen’s casualties were inflicted by the arrows of the dreaded bowmen.
With no sign of the northern earls back at Dumbarton, the great fleet turned and sailed whence it had come, sorrowing.
Young MacIan, the cup-bearer, did not sail home with the rest. The word had got swiftly round that he had faile
d his master and was blameworthy. His body was found, stabbed also, before the embarkation. Curiously enough the real assassins found it convenient to adopt a similar line, and it became the accepted version in mainland Scotland that Somerled and his son had been slain by their own servant, although they called him page.
HISTORICAL NOTE
Just who was responsible for the assassination of Somerled and his son has never been established; none of course suggested that either the High Steward or the Bishop of Glasgow had anything to do with it, however joyful they were at the result. The bodies were buried at Saddell Abbey, where Somerled’s tomb is pointed out to this day.
The kingdom of Argyll and the Isles, although never conquered, did not long survive the death of its creator. It was divided up between Somerled’s surviving sons, into three great lordships, under Dougal, Ranald and Angus who all called themselves kings but were scarcely that. Dougal, who never had much real interest in Man, took Lorn, Mull, Jura and lesser isles; and from him is descended the Clan MacDougall. Ranald got Kintyre and Islay; he it was who changed the Abbey of Saddel into a Cistercian monastery later that 12th century; it would be nice to say that the Clanranald descended from him, and it did, in fact, but took its name from a much later Ranald; however, his son, Donald of Islay, gave his name to the great clan of MacDonald. Angus, Somerled’s third surviving son, got Bute, Arran and lands to the north, and although he no doubt left progeny, no clan, so far as I know, takes its name from him. Clan Donald it was which carried on the designation “of the Isles”, and which played so vital a role in Scotland’s story.
History is silent, as so often in the affairs of women, as to what happened to Ragnhilde thereafter. Probably she passed her widowhood at Finlaggan on Islay.
Her brother Godfrey the Black in due course won back Man, as Henry of England’s vassal, and reigned for many years, oppressive and unpopular to the end. Malcolm, Earl of Ross, died four years after his brother-in-law, ineffective as always; and his son Donald is heard of no more, so presumably died in captivity. Other MacEths, however, although they never achieved the Scots crown, did found the Clan Mackay.
King Malcolm the Fourth did not die at Doncaster but survived till the following year, dying at the age of twenty-four, one of Scotland’s most ineffective monarchs. He was succeeded by his brother William, who despite his accepted style of William the Lion, was not much more lionlike than Malcolm the Maiden, getting that by-name because he it was who adopted the Lion Rampant as the Scottish royal heraldic emblem, instead of the boar. Fortunately his grandson, Alexander the Third, was a great improvement and put Scotland back on its feet.
It is perhaps odd that their descendant today, via the Stewarts of course, should bear as subsidiary titles to Prince of Wales, that of Lord of the Isles, High Steward of Scotland and Baron Renfrew.
Lord of the Isles (Coronet Books) Page 41