Somerled (died 1164), known in Middle Irish as Somairle, Somhairle, and Somhairlidh, and in Old Norse as Sumarliði , was a mid-12th-century Norse-Gaelic lord who, through marital alliance and military conquest, rose in prominence to create the Kingdom of Argyll and the Isles.McPhee, Somerled, Hammer of the Norse, 2004 Little is certain of Somerled's origins, although he may have been born in the north of Ireland and appears to have belonged to a Norse–Gaelic family of some prominence. His father, GilleBride, of royal Irish ancestry, appears to have conducted a marriage alliance with Máel Coluim mac Alaxandair, son of Alexander I of Scotland, and claimant to the Scottish throne. During a period of alliance with David I of Scotland, Somerled married Ragnhild, daughter of Óláfr Guðrøðarson, King of Man and the Isles in 1140. In 1153, Olaf of Man died and was succeeded by his son, Godred. But Godred Olafsson was a very unpopular ruler. Somerled was asked by Thorfinn Ottarson, a Manx chief, to allow Somerled's son, Dugall, to be appointed king of Man and the Isles. Somerled agreed and with 80 ships confronted Godred off the coast of Islay on January 5–6, 1156.McPhee, Somerled, Hammer of the Norse, 2004, at p. 80, citing the Chronicle of Man After the sea battle, Somerled and Godred divided the Kingdom of Man and the Isles between them but Godred did not accept Dugall as King of Man. Accordingly, two years later, Somerled defeated and drove Godred from power. Dugall continued as King of Man and Somerled thus ruled the entire kingdom of Argyll, Man and the Isles until his death.
Somerled was slain in 1164 at the Battle of Renfrew, amidst an invasion of mainland Scotland, commanding forces drawn from all over his kingdom. The reasons for his attack are unknown. He may have wished to nullify Scottish encroachment, but the scale of his venture suggests that he nursed greater ambitions. On his death, Somerled's vast kingdom disintegrated, although his sons retained much of the southern Hebridean portion. Compared to his immediate descendants, who associated themselves with reformed religious orders, Somerled may have been something of a religious traditionalist. In the last year of his life, he attempted to persuade the head of the Columban monastic community, Flaithbertach Ua Brolcháin, Abbot of Derry, to relocate from Ireland to Iona, a sacred island within Somerled's sphere of influence. Unfortunately for Somerled, his demise denied him the ecclesiastical reunification he sought, and decades later his descendants oversaw the obliteration of the island's Columban monastery. Iona's oldest surviving building, St Oran's Chapel, dates to the mid-12th century, and may have been built by Somerled or his family.
Traditionally considered a Celtic hero, who vanquished Viking foes and fostered a Gaelic renaissance, contemporary sources reveal that while Somerled considered himself the leader of the Gaels of what was once old Dalriada, he operated in, and belonged to, the same Norse-Gaelic cultural environment as his maritime neighbours. By the time he took as his wife Ragnhild, daughter of Olafr Godredsson, King of the Isles, a member of the Crovan dynasty, Somerled was already Lord of Argyll, Kintyre and Lorne. Through Ragnhild and his descendants, he claimed the Kingdom of Man and the Isles. A later medieval successor to this kingdom, the Lordship of the Isles, was ruled by Somerled's descendants until the late 15th century.
Regarded as a significant figure in 12th-century Scottish, Gaelic and Manx history, Somerled is proudly proclaimed as a patrilineal ancestor by several Scottish clans. Recent genetic studies suggest that Somerled has hundreds of thousands of patrilineal descendants and that his patrilineal origins lie in Norway rather than Ireland.
Sources
Somerled's career is patchily documented in four main contemporary sources: the Chronicle of Holyrood, the Chronicle of Melrose, the Chronicles of Mann, and the Carmen de Morte Sumerledi.McDonald 1997, p. 40. The chronicles of Holyrood and Melrose were originally compiled in the late 12th century.Anderson, AO 1922a, pp. xli–xlii, xliii–xlv. As products of Scottish reformed monasteries, these sources tend to be sympathetic to the cause of the Scottish kings descended from Malcolm III of Scotland.McDonald 1997, pp. 40–41. The Chronicle of Mann was first compiled in the mid-13th century,Anderson, AO 1922a, p. xliii. and concerns itself with the history of the Crovan dynasty, a rival kindred of Somerled and his descendants.McDonald 1997, p. 41. For similar reasons, the aforementioned sources and the Carmen de Morte Sumerledi, a late 12th-century Latin poem by a Scottish cleric who witnessed Somerled's final invasion against the Scots, are partisan accounts slanted against Somerled. Various Irish annals are also useful sources of information, although they usually only corroborate what is documented in other sources. Later clan histories, such as the early modern History of the MacDonalds and the Books of Clanranald, although unreliable as historical narratives, contain a considerable amount of detailed information. The late provenance and partisan nature of these histories means that their uncorroborated claims, particularly those concerning early figures such as Somerled and his contemporaries, need to be treated with caution.Raven 2005, pp. 22–25; McDonald 1997, pp. 42–43, 47. Another relevant source is a particular charter, issued by Malcolm IV, King of Scotland (d. 1165) in 1160, that briefly notes Somerled in its dating clause.Woolf 2013, pp. 2, 4–5.
Origins Somerled's origins are masked in obscurity and myth. Although no contemporary pedigree exists that outlines his ancestry,Sellar 2004. there are over a dozen later medieval, early modern, and modern sources that purport to outline Somerled's patrilineal descent.Woolf 2005; McDonald 1997, p. 42; Sellar 1966: p. 124. The names that these sources give for his father (GilleBride) and paternal grandfather (GilleAdamnan) appear to be corroborated in patronymic forms recorded in the Annals of Tigernach and the Annals of Ulster.Woolf 2005; Sellar 1966: p. 129; Anderson, AO 1922b, p. 254; Mac Carthy 1898: pp. 144–147; Stokes 1897, p. 195. The names in preceding generations, however, become more unusual, and the more authoritative sources begin to contradict each other. In consequence, two or three generations may be the furthest that Somerled's patrilineal lineage can be traced with any degree of accuracy.Woolf 2005. Somerled was almost certainly of Norse–Gaelic ancestry,McDonald 1997, p. 44; McDonald 1995, pp. 239–240. and nothing is known of his early life.McDonald 1997, pp. 44–45. The History of the MacDonalds and the Book of Clanranald relate that his immediate ancestors were prominent in Argyll before being unjustly ejected by Scandinavians and Scots. Although these specific claims concerning his ancestors cannot be corroborated,Sellar 2004; McDonald 1997, p. 47, 47 n. 22. Somerled's eventual marriage to a daughter of a reigning King of the Isles, and the marriage of one of the former's immediate kinswomen to the son of a King of Scotland, suggests that Somerled belonged to a family of considerable status.Woolf 2013, p. 3, n. 9; Woolf 2004, pp. 102–103; McDonald 1997, pp. 44–45.
Kinship with the Scottish royal house The precise identity of Somerled's aforementioned kinswoman is uncertain. The following pedigrees illustrate three possible ways in which her marriage bound Somerled's family with a senior branch of the Scottish dynasty. According to the Chronicle of Holyrood, the sons of Máel Coluim mac Alaxandair (fl. 1134), son of Alexander I of Scotland (d. 1124), were Somerled's "nepotes".Woolf 2013, pp. 2–3; Ross 2003, p. 184; Bouterwek 1863, p. 36. This Latin term could be evidence that the mother of Malcolm's sons was either a sister, or a daughter of Somerled; or Somerled and Malcolm were maternal half-brothers.Woolf 2013, p. 3, 3 n. 9; Woolf 2004, p. 102.
Emergence
Somerled's first appearance in contemporary sources occurs in 1153.Woolf 2013, pp. 1–3; Sellar 2004. In May of that year, the reigning David I, King of Scotland died, and was succeeded by his twelve-year-old grandson, Malcolm IV, son of Henry, Earl of Northumberland (d. 1152).Oram 2011, pp. 108–110. Less than six months later Somerled emerges into recorded history: the Chronicle of Holyrood states that he rose in rebellion that November, allied with his aforementioned nepotes, against the recently inaugurated king.Woolf 2013, pp. 2–3; Oram 2011, p. 72; Sellar 2004; Ross 2003, p. 184; Anderson, AO 1922b, pp. 222–223; Bouterwek 1863, p. 36; Stevenson 1853, p. 73. A further account of this rising may also be preserved in the Carmen de Morte Sumerledi, which recounts Somerled's devastating sack of Glasgow, its cathedral, and surrounding countryside.Woolf 2013, pp. 6–7. As noted above, the father of Somerled's nepotes was Malcolm, illegitimate son of Alexander. As a son of David's elder brother and royal predecessor, this Malcolm represented a lineally senior branch of the Scottish royal house.Oram 2011, pp. 70–71. Succession by primogeniture was not an established custom in 12th-century Scotland, and surviving sources reveal that Alexander's heirs received substantial support for their claims to the throne.Oram 2011, pp. 111–112. The remarkable haste with which Malcolm IV succeeded his grandfather further exemplifies the perceived risk that David's line faced from rival royal claimants.Oram 2011, pp. 109–112. Kinship with the sons of Malcolm, members of the royal derbfine, gave Somerled a serious stake in the contested royal succession, and his participation in the insurrection of 1153 was likely undertaken in this context.Woolf 2013, p. 4; Oram 2011, pp. 111–112; Ross 2003, pp. 184–185; Oram 2001, pp. 929–930.
Contemporary sources reveal that, during the first third of the 12th century, Malcolm and David had bitterly struggled for control of the Scottish kingdom,Oram 2011, pp. 66, 70-73; Ross 2003, pp. 174–183. before Malcolm was finally captured and imprisoned in 1134.Oram 2011, p. 71; Ross 2003, p. 182; Anderson, AO 1922b, p. 183. The chronology of Malcolm's capture, and the rising of his sons in league with Somerled, suggests that an alliance between Malcolm and Somerled's family may date from prior to his capture, possibly in about the 1120s.Oram 2011, p. 86. Surviving charter evidence reveals that, on at least two occasions before about 1134, David temporarily based himself at Irvine in Cunningham,Oram 2011, p. 88; Barrow 1999, pp. 62 (§ 17), 72–73 (§ 37); Lawrie 1905, pp. 69–70 (§§ 84, 85), 333–334 (§§ 84, 85). a strategic coastal site from where Scottish forces may have conducted seaborne military operations against Malcolm's western allies.Oram 2011, p. 88. Aelred of Rievaulx's Relatio de Standardo reveals that David received English military assistance against Malcolm. This source specifies that a force against Malcolm was mustered at Carlisle, and notes successful naval campaigns conducted against David's enemies, which suggests that Malcolm's support was indeed centred in Scotland's western coastal periphery.Oram 2011, pp. 71–72; Ross 2003, pp. 182, 183; Anderson, AO 1908, pp. 193–194; Howlett 1886, p. 193. By the mid 1130s, David had not only succeeded in securing Malcolm, but also appears to have gained recognition of his overlordship of Argyll.Oram 2011, pp. 71–72, 87–88.