[20]
The consequence of King Hakon's failure was the immediate conquest of
the Isle of Man and of the Hebrides by Alexander III.
Sutherland and Caithness were saved for Scotland, it would seem, only
by the vote of King Hakon's freemen before sailing for Largs, while
the defeat of his fleet there led directly to the cession by King
Magnus, his successor, under the treaty of Perth in 1266, of all the
Western Highlands and Islands, for a payment of 4000 marks down and
of 100 marks a year, and the treaty also secured their permanent
political union with Scotland.
Orkney and Shetland, however, remained part of Norway for two hundred
years more, and have since 1468 been held by Scotland and afterwards
by the United Kingdom only under a wadset or mortgage securing 58,000
crowns, the unpaid balance of the dower of Margaret, wife of James
III of Scotland and daughter of King Christian of Norway. The right
to redeem them was frequently though fruitlessly claimed by Norway and
Denmark in succession until the reign of Charles II and even later;
and possibly this right remains, to the legal mind, open until the
present day.
On the 20th February 1471 the Earldom of Orkney and Lordship of
Shetland were, by an Act of the Scottish Parliament, finally annexed
to the Scottish Crown.
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