Scotland: The Story of a Nation. Magnus Magnusson
a retinue of priests and civil servants. According to the contemporary Icelandic Annals Håkon’s fleet contained ‘the largest army which had ever sailed from Norway’, and it is clear that Håkon was using his ships as transports laden to the gunwales with troops in case he decided to launch a full-scale invasion of the Scottish mainland and engage the Scottish army in pitched battle.
The fleet set sail from Bergen for Shetland early in July 1263, but things did not go smoothly in mustering more ships in the Northern Isles. Eventually, on 10 August, Håkon set sail westwards through the Pentland Firth and across the Minch to Lewis. He mustered again near South Rona, off Skye, where he was joined by reinforcements from the Isle of Man, and from there the great, glittering fleet passed through the narrow Kyle of Lochalsh at a point which was thereafter named after him: the Strait of Håkon, Kyle-Håkon – Kyleakin.
South they coasted, to Kerrera and Oban Bay, where they were joined by some loyal Islesmen. Here Håkon paused again, and sent off a squadron of fifty ships to plunder in Kintyre, while another fifteen rounded the Mull of Kintyre and attacked the Isle of Bute, where Rothesay Castle was taken again as it had been in 1230. Kintyre and Islay submitted at the first taste of pillage, and the plundering was called off in return for a tax of a thousand head of cattle. After that, with the islands to the west brought to heel, Håkon weighed anchor and sailed south down the coast of Kintyre and rounded the Mull into the Clyde estuary, where he anchored in Lamlash Bay, on Arran, in the lee of Holy Island. It was now September, and Håkon’s strategy was clear: the stronghold on the Isle of Bute had been reduced, and he lay poised with a huge army to strike at the mainland at will.
Alexander, meanwhile, had apparently been mustering the Scots army somewhere in Ayrshire. He now sent an embassy of Dominican friars to Arran to make overtures of peace. Håkon responded by sending over a delegation of two bishops ‘skilled in the Scots tongue’. When the talks began, Alexander seemed only too willing to come to terms. He said he would think things over and send his delegation back to renew the talks on Arran the next day. Håkon had made up a list of all the islands to the west which he claimed to own; Alexander jibbed over Arran, Bute and the Cumbraes – but that was merely a technicality, he implied. Agreement was just around the corner; a settlement was almost within their grasp – but somehow it remained just beyond their grasp. The saga suggests that the Scots were deliberately spinning things out: ‘The Scots had decided to prolong the negotiations, and make sure that a settlement was never quite achieved, as summer was passing and the weather would soon worsen.’
The drift of the Scottish tactics was not lost on King Håkon. In another threatening move he took his fleet much closer to the Scottish coast, to the lee of the Cumbraes just off Largs. More talks followed, but the outcome was always the same: there were still some minor differences to be settled, nothing serious – but meanwhile Alexander allowed the Norsemen a glimpse of his army assembling on the hills inland. Håkon was rapidly losing patience, and now he sent Alexander an ultimatum – that they should meet on land, each with his full army, and talk, and if the talks failed they would fight. Alexander responded that he was not averse to fighting, but gave no definite answer either way.
Håkon was now running out of time and provisions. Abruptly he called off the talks and sent a squadron of sixty ships up Loch Long to Arrochar, where they dragged their ships’ boats across a porterage to Tarbet and Loch Lomond and burned and terrorised the islands in the loch and the surrounding Lennox countryside. On their way back, however, the saga relates that ten of their ships were wrecked in Loch Long in a gale.
The same gale was to play havoc with Håkon’s main fleet sheltering under the Cumbraes. It struck on the night of Sunday, 30 September, howling in from the south-west. During the night a merchantman was blown against the king’s ship; its stays fouled the dragon-head, snapping off the nostrils. As the tempest blew harder, ship after ship dragged its anchors; it took no fewer than eight anchors to hold the king’s huge ship steady. By dawn the loose merchantman and three longships had been blown across the sound and lay stranded on the mainland shore below the steep slopes of the Cunninghame hills (hence the name ‘Largs’, meaning ‘slopes’). So ferocious was the storm that many were convinced it had been conjured up by sorcery.
The ‘Battle’ of Largs (2 October 1263)
Visitors to Largs arriving from the south are greeted by the sight of a tall cylindrical tower standing, like an unlit lighthouse, on a low outcrop of rocks on the foreshore at Bowen Craig, overlooking the modern marina there; constructed of rough whinstone with a sharply conical cap of red sandstone, it rears eighteen metres from the ground and is known, familiarly, as the Pencil. This prominent landmark was built by public subscription in 1912 on the traditional site of the so-called battle, and formally unveiled in appropriately foul weather on 12 July of that year.
The memorial, which cost £290 to build (plus £8 for the ornamental stonework of the doorway), was modelled on the eleventh-century ‘Round Towers’ of Brechin and Abernethy on the popular misconception that these had been erected for protection against viking raids. The only access is through a padlocked oaken door, two and a half metres off the ground. Inside, there is absolutely nothing, apart from a generous legacy of guano bequeathed by the local pigeons who use the memorial as a convenient dovecote. There were originally four wooden floors which allowed access by ladder to the ‘look-out’ floor at the level of the small window at the top, but the flooring has long since been removed for safety reasons. Soon after the tower was built, it was locally believed that the vikings themselves had stored their swords and shields in it! In our perceptions of Scotland’s history, the sharpened Pencil has often proved mightier than the Sword.
The ‘Battle’ of Largs which it commemorates was not a proper battle; it was more of a series of skirmishes on the beach. Nonetheless it is celebrated annually at an autumn Viking Festival in Largs which culminates with fireworks at the Pencil and (of course) the burning of a viking boat. For the people of Ayrshire, Largs has much of the significance of Bannockburn itself – a battle by which Scotland was saved from the hordes who threatened the nation’s freedom. It may have marked a significant turning-point in history, but it was never quite like that …
On the Monday morning after the great gale (1 October 1263) some of the local Scots militia came down to the shore and indulged in some long-range skirmishing with the Norsemen in the stranded longships, but pulled back out of range when Håkon sent some reinforcements ashore during a lull in the weather. Under cover of darkness that night the Scots managed to loot some of the cargo of the merchantman, but on the Tuesday morning Håkon himself landed with a task-force to rescue what was left of the cargo. The work was almost done when the Norwegians sighted Scottish troops approaching. It looked a very large force, and the Norsemen thought at first that it was commanded by Alexander in person. Håkon allowed himself to be rowed back to his fleet, albeit reluctantly; and now hostilities began.
According to Hákonar Saga there were an estimated eight or nine hundred Norwegians on land by then. The Scots had up to five hundred knights mounted on mail-clad horses, and a host of foot-soldiers armed with bows and axes. No estimate of their numbers is given. At one stage the saga says that the Norwegians were outnumbered by ten to one; but the context suggests that this refers only to a particular stand made by one group of Norsemen and should probably not be interpreted to mean that the Scottish army numbered eight or nine thousand men – which is hardly credible, particularly in the light of how things turned out.
The fighting was confused and inconclusive, and much of it consisted of desultory exchanges of arrows and stones. The wind now got up again, and Håkon had to sit helplessly on his ship and watch as his beleaguered men fought a grim rearguard action southward along the beach, withdrawing and counter-attacking in turn. As dusk fell the Norsemen mounted another fierce attack and drove the Scots from the beach; in the respite thus gained the Norsemen were able to embark and struggle back to the main fleet. A couple of days later Håkon sent another party ashore to burn the ships which lay wrecked there. There was no opposition: the Scottish army had obviously withdrawn inland and had no intention of engaging again. Nor had Håkon: on that same day his fleet upped anchor and sailed to Lamlash Bay on Arran. The ‘Battle’ of Largs was over.
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