Family records of the Bruces and the Cumyns

ALEXANDER II. 59
To extend his dominion towards the west had ever been Alexander's
favourite project, and now the time for accomplishing it appeared to be at
hand.
The mainland of Argyle already owned his sway, but the Hebrides, or
Western Isles, were held of Norway. Various embassies had been sent to
represent to the Norwegian court that these islands had been unjustly wrested
from his predecessors by Magnus Barfoot ; but this view of the case was not
accepted by Haco, who replied that the King of Scotland could have no right
to islands which were conquered from the King of Man, and which never had
been subject to Scotland. Alexander then proposed to purchase them ; to
which Haco replied, " a plusieurs reprises," — " that he was not in want of
money."
On the death of Duncan of Argyle, his son "Ewen" was much pressed by 1248.
Clement Bishop of Dunblane, and others, to hold "the Sudreys" as a fief from
the King of Scotland, and to give up his allegiance to Norway. But Ewen was
a man of honour, and a gallant and accomplished knight. He offered to resign
his fiefs to Norway, but not to break his oath of allegiance by holding them from
another over-lord. " No man can serve two masters" was the indignant reply of
the king, or more probably of the bishop. Ewen did homage for the Sudreys
to Haco, King of Norway, in 1248. — Matthew Paris, p. 516.
Alexander then determined to seize upon the islands by force, and Ewen,
unwilling to oppose his sovereign in arms, fled to Lewis. No resistance there-
fore was offered to the fleet as it sailed amongst the Western Isles, and arrived
off the coast of Lorn early in July ; and everything seemed to favour the king's
design, when illness obliged him to land on the little island of Berneraa, where
he died on or about the 8th of July, in his fifty-first year — the population of the 1249.
islands fully believing that his death was a judgment of Providence on the only
action of his life bordering upon injustice.
Alexander was buried in Melrose Abbey.
On the 8th day of July, aim. reg. '35, he gave a charter of the church of Kil-
bride, in Lorn, to the bishopric of Argyle, dated apud Berneraa.
This was confirmed by charter by King Robert Bruce, wherein it is said that
it was given by charter by Alexander II., King of Scots, " who died in the island
of Berneraa." — ' Haddington Collections,' p. 408.
Alexander II. founded Pluscardine Abbey.
He elevated Argyle into a separate bishopric, with the consent of the Earl
of Sjxathearn.
Dunblane, Dunkeld, Moray, Aberdeen, and Caithness, were also provided for.
Ross was not yet settled as a bishopric.