Note 479 — Chapter XIII · WILLIAM THE LION—1165–1214.

Hoveden 1196, p. 346. He calls the king of Man, Reginald, son of Somarled. Reginald, the son of Godfrey, was at that time king of Man; and the son of Somarled was hardly more than a subordinate king of the Sudreys, as he had been defeated in a contest for superiority by his brother Angus in 1192 (Chron. Man). An account of some of these transactions is also contained in the Flatey Book (Col. de Reb. Alb., p. 351–54), but it is confused. For instance, after beginning with the death of Harald the younger, the book makes the elder Harald yield Caithness to Harald the younger after the expedition of William to Eystein’s Dal. The account of this expedition must therefore have been misplaced; and it probably ought to be referred to the time of William’s first invasion of Caithness. Some idea may be formed of the formidable power of these northern magnates from the fact that Harald collected 6000 men to oppose William; whose army when he invaded England in 1174, only appears to have numbered 8000.