therland, were, in the person of Berowald the Fleming,
given their lands in Moray,[27] William MacFrisgyn, Freskyn's eldest
son, and father of Hugo Freskyn of Sutherland, witnessing the charter,
a neighbourly turn which has ever since caused some to believe wrongly
that the Freskyns were Flemings.

Malcolm next defeated another rising by Somarled, who was killed in
1164, by treachery or surprise, in a skirmish at Renfrew,[28] and was
not Somarled the freeman, who is said in the _Orkneyinga Saga_ to have
been slain by Sweyn in the Isles, in his pursuit and defeat of Gilli
Odran in the Myrkfjord about seven years earlier.[29]

Then King Malcolm, after a short but brilliant reign, died in his
24th year. He was succeeded by his brother William the Lion, who was
forthwith crowned at Scone on Christmas Eve 1165 in his twenty-second
year.

We may now try to state how things stood in the north at the date
of his accession. Soon after this time his grandfather's friend, the
first Freskyn, died between 1166 and 1171, and was succeeded by his
son William MacFrisgyn, whose son Hugo would then be quite young.
Harold Maddadson had in 1165 been for twenty-six years Earl of
Caithness, and Jarl of Orkney and Shetland for nineteen years jointly
with Ragnvald, and for seven years sole jarl of those islands.[30] He
had probably put away his first wife Afreka of Fife about 1165, but he
afterwards lived with Gormflaith, the daughter of Malcolm MacHeth from
a date which cannot be fixed with certainty. Led by her, it is said,
Harold was openly hostile to the Scottish king, of whom, however, he
held the earldom of Caithness, which at that time included not only
the parishes of Creich, Dornoch, Rogart, Kilmalie or Golspie, Clyne,
Loth, and most of Kildonan and of Lairg, then called by the Norse
Sudrland, but also the districts of Strathnavern, Eddrachilles, and
Durness (where Mackay refugees had not yet permanently settled) as
well as Ness, which is now known as the County of Caithness.

The diocese of Caithness, which then was co-terminous with the earldom
and comprised all the above districts which now form the modern
counties of Caithness and Sutherland, had in 1165 been in existence
for about thirty-five years; its chief church being at first at
Halkirk in Caithness and thereafter being the old Church of St. Bar
at Dornoch, but it was scantily endowed, and therefore its clergy were
but few.[31] Its Bishop was Andrew, a Culdean monk of Du