As things now went, this was in truth in the interest of the kings of
Scots themselves. To the north of the Grampians they exercised little
or no authority; and the people of that district were as often their
enemies as their friends. Through the action of the Orkney jarls,
therefore, the Scottish kings were at comparative liberty to extend
their territory towards the south; and the day came when they found
themselves able to crush every hostile element even in the north.[10]
It is this process of consolidation in the north which it is proposed
to describe so far as Sutherland and Caithness are concerned, using
both Norse and Scottish records, and piecing them together as best
we can, and, be it confessed, in many cases filling up great gaps by
necessary guess-work when records fail.
In the reign of the great king Constantine III, between the years 900
and 942, the Danes again gave trouble. In 903 the Irish Danes ravaged
Alban,[11] as Scotland north of the Forth was then called, for a
whole year; in 918 Constantine and his ally, Eldred of Lothian, were
defeated by another expedition of these invaders; and in 934 Athelstan
and his Saxons burst into Strathclyde and Forfar, the heart of
Constantine's kingdom, and the Saxon fleet was sent up even to the
shores of Caithness, as a naval demonstration intended to brave the
Norse, who had joined Constantine, on their own element.
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