Note 50 — INTRODUCTION.

Among the documents found in the King’s Treasury at Edinburgh in 1282, were the letters addressed by the King of Norway (presumably Hakon) to the inhabitants of Caithness. The inhabitants of Caithness seem to have been also obliged by the Scottish King to give hostages for their fealty to him. In the accounts of Laurence Grant, Sheriff of Inverness, for the year 1263, there is a charge of £15:6:3 for the expenses of twenty-one hostages from Caithness, at the rate of one denarius (penny) for each per day for twenty-five weeks, “and then they were set at liberty.” (Compota Camerarium Scotiæ, i. p. 31.)