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

Principality of the IJles. 23 1
Baftard conquered England ; and Godred, the Ton
of Syrric, dying, was fucceeded by his ton Fingal."
The King of England who died in the year
with which the Chronicle begins, was Edward the
Confejjor^ a prince highly extolled by monks, who
derived extraordinary advantages from his pious
liberality. It is well known that Edward allifted
Malcolm Canemore in recovering the throne of his
anceftors, which had been ufurped by Macbeth,
and that Malcolm, for years, carried on a war a-
gainfl the Norman conqueror and William Rufus^
his immediate fucceflbr. Malcolm died in the
year 1093, about thirty years before Godred, the
Ton of Syrric, left the kingdom of the ifles to
his fon Fingal, and confequently thirty years be-
fore Donald Bane made the pretended donation of
the Ebudes to Magnus of Norway. This dona-
tion never exifted ; for it manifeftly appears from
the Chronicle of Man *, and other concurring re-
cords, that the Norv/egians had occupied the Wellr
em ifles long before Donald Bane mounted the
throne of Scotland, and before Godred Chrovaft
took pofleflmn of the dynafty of the ifles.
GOD RED was a powerful prince. He fub-
dued a great part of Leinfter, annexed Dublin to
his empire, and reduced the Scots, according to
the Chronicle, to fuch a ftate ot dependency, that
* The authors of this chronicle, and after them other writers,
were miftaken in calling the Norwegian King fiain in the battle of
Stain ford -bridge, Harold Harfager. We learn from Torfasus
and others, that the true name of that prince was Harold the im-
perious. Harfager lived in a much earlier period. The fame
.Chronicle writers, or their copyifl:, muft have committed a blun-
der likewife in making the year 1066 the year of Godred Chro-
van's acceflion to the throne of Man.
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