[MR] Wikipedia: Orkney and Shetland Pawned
Garth Groff via Atlantia
atlantia at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org
Sat Feb 20 01:43:17 PST 2016
Noble Friends, Especially Vikings and Fellow Scots,
On this date in 1472 the Orkney and Shetland island groups passed to
King James III of Scotland by King Christian I of Norway and Denmark.
The islands were pawned in 1469 by Christian as security for the dowry
of his daughter Margaret of Denmark who married James:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_of_Denmark,_Queen_of_Scotland .
Christian was short of cash, and never coughed up the money he promised,
so the islands passed to Scotland by default of the debt. In a further
twist, Sir William Sinclair, the Scottish Earl of Caithness, held the
Orkneys and Shetland as a vassal of Christian. James took the islands as
a crown property, and Sinclair was given other lands in Scotland in
compensation.
Today Orkney and Shetland remain part Scotland within Great Britain (for
the time being, heh, heh, heh!). Shetland, in particular, retain many
vestiges of their residents Norse/Viking past in the language and culture.
Care to read about the Orkneys? Try this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkney .
Information about Shetland is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shetland .
And here is a page on William Sinclair:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sinclair,_1st_Earl_of_Caithness .
Switching to persona mode here, Lady Sarah Sinclair of Isenfir is
related to Sir William, though we've never established the exact
connection. Her guardian, and Lord Mungo Napier's first employer, was
Sir Oliver Sinclair (son of Sir William and his second wife, Marjory
Sunderland, though they weren't yet married when Oliver was born-tsk,
tsk). Here is how our SCA personas were force fitted into real Scottish
history: http://people.virginia.edu/~ggg9y/napier1.html .
Yours Aye,
Lord Mungo Napier,
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