Further deprivations of lands, it is conjectured, must have attended Harold Maddadson's later rebellions, and the events which must have led to those deprivations may now be recounted, though it is very difficult to reconcile Scottish and Norse records during the period.
In 1179 King William the Lion had marched an army into Ross, and subdued it to his sway; and, ere he left it, caused two castles of Eddirdovir on the site of Redcastle in the Black Isle on the Beauly Firth, and of Dunskaith[35] on the northern Suter of Cromarty, which is full of Norse remains, to be built, to enable him to hold his conquests.
Two years later he made war on Donald Ban MacWilliam, who claimed the Scottish Crown itself, as the third son of William FitzDuncan only son of Duncan II, who was himself the eldest son of Malcolm Canmore by Malcolm's first marriage, so productive of civil war in Scotland, with Ingibjorg, widow of Earl Thorfinn. Civil war ensued, and lasted for six or seven years, when, by good luck, Roland of Galloway fell in with a force of the rebels at an unknown spot called Mamgarvie near Inverness, and routed them, killing Donald Ban MacWilliam there on the 31st July 1187.[36]
In 1196, Harold Maddadson, who through the ambition of Gormflaith had, as we have seen, designs on Ross and Moray, sent an expedition southwards to occupy those districts, of which probably Gormflaith's father, Malcolm MacHeth, had been Earl at his death after 1160. But William collected an army,[37] and, after defeating Harold's son Thorfinn near Inverness, crossed the Oykel, entered Sutherland, subdued it and Caithness, and pursued Harold up to his castle at Thurso, and destroyed it in his sight. Harold then submitted, and promised to surrender his son and heir, Thorfinn, as a hostage, with others of his friends to be delivered to the king at Nairn. Harold left all his hostages close by at Lochloy, and went alone to the king at Nairn, and endeavoured to excuse himself by offering two grandsons to the king and stating that Thorfinn was his heir[38] and could not therefore be given up; but was taken prisoner himself and lodged in Edinburgh Castle, till his son Thorfinn came to take his place. On this occasion Harold Maddadson was deprived of Sudrland or Sutherland, which had been given to Hugo Freskyn; and in the next year, or soon after, half of the earldom of Caithness, which the _Flatey Book_ states Jarl Ragnvald had held,[39] was conferred by King William the Lion on Harald Ungi or The Young, as grandson of Jarl Ragnvald, and son of Eric, who, however, had to make good the grant by conquest. Harald Ungi had, as stated above, already obtained a grant from King Sverri of half Orkney by a visit to the Norwegian Court.