Blair Collection > Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of the antient Caledonians, their posterity the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots

276 Hifiory of the Norwegian
der the Thiidi and of the vigorous refiflance
made by Magnus, then King of Man and the Ifles,
in dc^feiice of his people and crown. But the au-
tiior of the Chronicle of Man, who lived in that
very period, makes no mention of ihefe things.
After relating that Magnus, tiie fon of Oiave,
King of Man and the Ifles, died at his caftle of
Ruiiin in the year 1265, he adds, in the very next
ientjnce, t'lat the kingdom of the Ifles was tran-
flated in the following y.ear to Alexander, King of
Scots. — Whence we may conclude, that the Scot-
tifli hiflorians mufl: have been m.ifled in their rela-
tion of theie matters, as well as in the "account
they give us at the fame time of the conquefl: of all
fhe WefLcrn Ifles by the lord higii fleward of Scot-
iar.d, the earls of Athol, March and Carnock,
together with the thanes of Argyle and Lennox.
If this conquell had been made before the treaty of
Perth, it is matter of no fmall wonder that the
King of Scots fliould have granted fuch extraordi-
nary condruoiiS on that occafion to his adverfary of
Norway, li after, it, one can hardly believe that
the petty Kings, lords and chieftains of the Ifles,
men v/hofe territories lay at confiderable diltances
from one another, men diflradted in their councils,
all too feeble to contend with a pov/erful Monarch
in their neighbourhood, if clofely united, and all
psifeClly fe!ifible that Magnus had abandoned
tliem (i>v ever, could have thought of making any
refiflance againfl: their n<t\v mafl:er, efpecially as
tijeir hue fovereign had fecured their eftates, privi-
leges and rights of every kind, in the ftrongefl:
m-inner. This and Buchanan's fllence confidered,
I am apt to fufpedf, that this conqueft received all
ilie exiflisnce it ever had from the invention of
Eoece,