[46]
To punish Earl Harold, King William at once had Harold's son Thorfinn
blinded and so mutilated in Roxburgh Castle that he died there.
William also collected a large army and marched in person to
Eysteinsdal or Ousedale near the Ord of Caithness, and Harold, though
he is said to have brought together seven thousand two hundred men,
avoided battle and evaded the king's pursuit.[47] Harold also began
negotiations with King John of England and received a safe conduct for
a journey to England to see him.[48]
Later in the year Harold is said to have recovered his earldom through
the intercession of Bishop Roger of St. Andrews, for a payment of
two thousand pounds of silver, which Munch conjectures may have been
handed over to Ragnvald Gudrodson to replace the sum which he had paid
to the king for the earldom; and it is true that we hear no more of
Ragnvald in connection with Caithness, though he lived until 1229. At
the same time, we can hardly believe that Harold, as the _Flatey
Book_ says, received back "all Caithness as he had it before that
Earl Harald the Young took it from the Skot-king."[49] What happened
probably was, that Harold Maddadson, who had been stripped by King
Sverri of Shetland in 1195,[60] was allowed by King William in 1202 to
keep part of his Caithness earldom upon payment by its inhabitants of
a fine of every fourth penny they possessed.
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