Sverre was too shrewd to break entirely or too suddenly with the old influences, and where they had been loyal, he selected men from the high old families for his officers. This was especially the case in the Throndhjem country, where his party was strongest. But he found positions enough with which to reward the faithful men who had followed him through his struggles. Some were made chiefs in the army, and some were appointed prefects; some were given landed estates, and others were helped to rich marriages. Baard Guthormson of Rein was married to the king's own sister, Cecilia, after her marriage with Folkvid Lawman had been declared void. King Sverre himself married Margreta, a sister of the Swedish king, Knut Erikson. Before this marriage King Sverre had four children, namely, two sons, Sigurd (called Lavard) and Haakon, and two daughters, Cecilia and Ingeborg. With Queen Margreta he had only a daughter, Kristina.
The peace was not of long duration. The remnants of the Heklung party, which had been broken up by the battle in Norefjord, with several leading men, only waited for a favorable opportunity to start a revolt, and the opportunity soon offered itself. A monk, who called himself Jon and claimed to be a son of King Inge the Hunchback, left the cloister on the island near Oslo, and soon gathered about him a numerous band. He first went to Tunsberg, where, in September, 1185, he attacked and killed one of Sverre's prefects together with thirty men, and then summoned a Thing and was proclaimed king. The Birchlegs called this new party the Kuvlungs or Cowlmen, because their leader had worn a monk's hood or cowl. The Kuvlungs continued the rebellion for three years with varying success. They made several attacks on Bergen and Nidaros, and at times their strength was quite formidable. Finally their band was destroyed in Bergen, in December, 1188, and their leader was killed. After his death it appears to have been satisfactorily proven that Jon Kuvlung was not the son of King Inge the Hunchback, as he had claimed.
The rebellious spirit had become quite general, and King Sverre had many of these revolts to suppress. After the Kuvlung party had been broken up, a new band, called the Varbelgs (Wolf Skins), was organized by the chief, Simon Kaareson, who had brought from Denmark, as a pretender to the throne, a boy named Vikar, said to be a son of King Magnus Erlingson. This party was badly defeated in a battle near Tunsberg, where Simon Kaareson and the little Vikar were both killed. Another band, under the leadership of Thorleif Breidskegg, who claimed to be a son of King Eystein Haraldson, was next destroyed in Viken (1191). The next party that made war on King Sverre were the Oyskeggs (the Islanders), so called because they received considerable aid from the Orkney Islands, where Earl Harald favored them. Their leaders were Hallkel Jonson, who was married to King Magnus Erlingson's sister Ragnhild, and Olaf, a brother-in-law of Earl Harald of the Orkneys. They chose Sigurd, a son of King Magnus, as their king. The Oyskeggs developed a considerable strength in Viken, and from there made piratical expeditions to the Danish waters and the Baltic, and therefore boastingly called themselves the Goldlegs (_Gullbeiner_). One of the men, whom King Sverre sent against them, Sigurd Jarlson (earl's son), an illegitimate son of Erling Skakke, turned traitor, and became one of the leaders of Sverre's enemies. In the fall of 1193 the Oyskeggs captured Bergen without much resistance, King Sverre being then in Throndhjem. In the spring King Sverre came south with a fleet, and a bloody battle was fought at Florevaag, near Bergen (April 3, 1194). The Oyskeggs were finally defeated, a great number of them, including Hallkel Jonson, Olaf (Earl Harald's brother-in-law), and Sigurd Magnusson, the pretender, being slain. King Sverre had thus gained a victory, but at great cost, for many of his best men had fallen, or died from the wounds they had received in the battle. Among the latter was Baard Guthormson of Rein.