Ragnvald Godredsson - Enduring Links With England

Enduring Links With England

Numerous sources reveal that in the years following the ravaging of Mann and plundering of the Isles, Rögnvaldr bound himself closer to the English crown. These records reveal that not only was Rögnvaldr protected by John, but that he was also obligated to defend John's interests in the Irish Sea region. While at Lambeth on 16 May 1212, during what was likely his second visit to England in six years, Rögnvaldr declared by charter that he was John's liegeman. Rögnvaldr's visit to England is corroborated by the record of the payment of ten marks to a certain Stephen de Oxford on 20 May, for conducting Rögnvaldr home. Further evidence are John's orders of the release of several of Rögnvaldr's men who had been held in custody at Porchester and Dover. In another record, dated 16 May 1212, John ordered his seneschals, governors, and bailiffs in Ireland to come to Rögnvaldr's aid in the event that his territory was threatened by "Wikini or others", since Rögnvaldr had bound himself to do the same against John's own enemies. The reference to the Wikini or Vikings in this order is almost certainly a reference to the raiders who plundered the Isles in 1210. At the same time as this order, in return for the homage and service that he rendered to John, Rögnvaldr and his heirs received a grant from the English king consisting of one knight's fee of land at Carlingford, and one hundred measures of corn to be paid yearly at Drogheda for the service of one knight. Unfortunately for scholars, the precise location of Rögnvaldr's grant of land is unrecorded and unknown. At about the same time as this grant, several powerful south-western Scots magnates (such as the family of the Lords of Galloway) received (albeit much larger) grants in the north of Ireland. Such grants are interpreted to have been part of a coordinated campaign by the English and Scots monarchs to gain control over outlying territories where their control was limited. Yet another record, dated 3 January 1214, reveals that John prohibited the "mariners of Ireland" from entering Rögnvaldr's territories at his loss, since Rögnvaldr and his possessions were under English protection.

John died in October 1216, and was succeeded by his young son, Henry. On 16 January 1218, the King of the Isles was granted safe passage to England to render homage, and to "amend the excesses" committed upon Henry's men in Ireland and England. Although this record has been interpreted to reveal that Rögnvaldr took advantage of the somewhat fractured English kingdom during Henry's minority by plundering the coasts of England and Ireland, there is no further evidence of any such depredations. Whether Rögnvaldr actually travelled to England or not is unknown; however, on 24 September 1219, he was granted safe passage to and from that kingdom. Evidence of Rögnvaldr's activity in England survives in a further record of his homage to Henry, to which is amended the proviso: "But if our enemies, or his, shall rebel against us, and him, to the loss of our or his land, then you are to be earnest in your help, for the defence of our land and of his, to our safety and convenience, so long as he shall keep himself faithful towards us". Whatever the 'excesses' that Rögnvaldr's men committed against the English, the surviving evidence reveals that by 1219 he was again amicably allied to the English king.