Kingdom of the Isles

The Kingdom of the Isles, the Sudreys, was the Norse-Gaelic sea kingdom of Man, Bute and Arran in the Clyde a hundred and forty kilometres north, Islay, Jura and Mull in the southern Hebrides off Kintyre, from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries. Born of Viking landings in the late eighth century, ruled early by the Uí Ímair kindred, it lived between worlds, independent at moments and Norwegian dependency for most, the Sudreys against Orkney-Shetland's Northern Isles, of incomplete record, discontinuous rule and competing claims, its kings answering to Norway, Orkney or Ireland by turns, with rivals contesting every shore. Magnus Barefoot seized it outright in the 1090s, Godred Crovan's line won it back, and Somerled's death in 1164 cut the realm in two. Five hundred kilometres of islands, eight thousand square kilometres of rock and machair, passed in 1266 by the Treaty of Perth to Scotland, living on as the Lordship of the Isles.