Cnut The Great - Influence in The Western Sea-ways

Influence in The Western Sea-ways

At the Battle of Clontarf on 23 April 1014—even as Cnut was preparing his re-invasion of England—there was an epic array of armies laid out on the fields before the walls of Dublin. Máel Mórda, king of Leinster, and Sigtrygg Silkbeard, ruler of the Norse-Gaelic kingdom of Dublin, had sent out emissaries to all the Viking kingdoms to request assistance in their rebellion against Brian Bóruma, the high king of Ireland. Sigurd the Stout, the Earl of Orkney, was offered command of all the Norse forces. Likewise, the High King had sought assistance from the Albannaich, who were led by Domhnall Mac Eiminn Mac Cainnich, Mormaer of Ce (Marr & Buchan).

The Leinster-Norse alliance was defeated, with both commanders, Sigurd and Máel Mórda, being killed. However, Brian, his son, his grandson, and the Mormaer Domhnall were slain too. Sigtrygg's alliance was broken, although he was left alive, and the high-kingship of Ireland went back to the Uí Néill, again under Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill.

There was a brief period of freedom in the Irish Sea zone for the Vikings of Dublin with a political vacuum felt throughout the entire Western Maritime Zone of the North Atlantic Archipelago, and prominent among those who stood to fill it was Cnut, "whose leadership of the Scandinavian world gave him a unique influence over the western colonies and whose control of their commercial arteries gave an economic edge to political domination". A strong piece of evidence for Dublin's involvement with Cnut is that its king, Sitric Silkbeard, struck coinage of Cnut's quatrefoil type—in issue c. 1017–25 – sporadically replacing the legend with one bearing his own name and styling him as ruler either 'of Dublin' or 'among the Irish'. Another is the entry of one Sihtric dux in three of Cnut's charters.

In one of his verses, Cnut's court poet Sigvatr Þórðarson recounts that famous princes brought their heads to Cnut and bought peace. This verse mentions Olaf Haraldsson in the past tense, with his death at the Battle of Stiklestad, in 1030. It was therefore at some point after this, and the consolidation of Norway, Cnut went to Scotland, with an army, and the navy in the Irish Sea, in 1031, to receive, without bloodshed, the submission of three Scottish kings: Maelcolm, Maelbeth, and Iehmarc. One of these kings, Iehmarc, may be one Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, an Uí Ímair chieftain, and the ruler of a sea-kingdom of the Irish Sea, with Galloway among his domains. Furtherly, a Lausavísa attributable to the skald Óttarr svarti greets the ruler of the Danes, Irish, English and Island-dwellers – use of Irish here being likely to mean the Gall Ghaedil kingdoms, rather than the Gaelic kingdoms too, while it "brings to mind Sweyn Forkbeard's putative activities in the Irish Sea and Adam of Bremen's story of his stay with a rex Scothorum (? king of the Irish) can also be linked to... Iehmarc, who submitted in 1031 could be relevant to Cnut's relations with the Irish".