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00:00Late summer, and under cover of darkness, a powerful armada is bearing down on the British mainland.
00:24It's one of the largest invasion forces to ever threaten our shores.
00:30But these aren't Spanish men of war, they're Norse longships, and this isn't the English Channel, it's the west coast of Scotland.
00:45The Battle of Largs in 1263 was the last time Norse invaders fought on our soil, the final bloody twist in a relationship that was centuries old.
00:55This is the story of the Vikings in Scotland.
01:04It's a story of brutal violence and pitiless warfare.
01:07But it's also a story of new technology and exquisite art, of how the Scotland we know today was formed, and how the Vikings were right at the heart of that change.
01:22My name is John Henderson. I'm an underwater archaeologist, and my work has taken me across the globe, exploring sunken cities and lost civilisations.
01:41So that's quite a nice fight, we've got a base of a bow!
01:47I'm fascinated by how ancient peoples exploited the power of the sea.
01:51But there's one group that's always had a real personal draw for me.
01:58I grew up near the seaside town of Largs.
02:03It's a place that isn't exactly shy about its Viking past.
02:08But the truth behind the battle that was fought here has largely been forgotten.
02:12The Norse connection in Scotland lasted longer than anywhere else in the British Isles.
02:18Whole swathes of the country were effectively part of Scandinavia.
02:21But why did the Vikings come to Scotland in the first place?
02:24What lay behind their astonishing success?
02:27And how did their grip on their Scottish territories come to an end in such a dramatic way?
02:31To help answer these questions, I'm going to travel to the Vikings' fjord homeland.
02:39And learn some of the secrets of their boatbuilding technology.
02:45Can you see the other end yet?
02:47I'm going to explore mysterious Viking ruins.
02:50It's a massive engineering operation.
02:57And trace the route of the final invasion fleet.
03:01Because the Vikings never really went away.
03:03They didn't just disappear over the horizon.
03:06The Battle of Largs, 750 years ago, might have marked the beginning of the end for Norse power in Scotland.
03:13But the Viking influence remained.
03:15Part of a new nation.
03:17Part of us.
03:31I'm beginning my journey into Scotland's Viking past on the Isle of Skye.
03:43A team of archaeologists and divers are on their way to one of the most extraordinary Viking sites in the whole of Britain.
03:50And I've been invited to join them.
03:52I've spent a lot of my working life on boats.
03:57It's often the only practical way to get to some pretty remote spots.
04:01To begin to understand Viking Scotland, you really have to change the way you think about geography.
04:08It's only recently we've thought of the sea as a barrier.
04:10But for generations, going back to the Vikings and beyond, it was the sea that connected communities and people.
04:18For the Vikings, the sea was a super highway.
04:21I've come here to Rowan Doonan to find out just how the Vikings came to rule Scotland's sea routes.
04:37Archaeologists have been visiting this secluded site for several years.
04:41But on this trip, they brought a new box of technological tricks to help them explore it.
04:45This is a remote-controlled aerial drone. It's equipped with a digital camera and can manoeuvre high above the ground, taking highly detailed images.
05:00That's absolutely fantastic, what you've done there. I mean, the resolution you've managed to achieve.
05:04And just to get an aerial view of the whole site, you can really see the connection between the sea and the loch. It's brilliant.
05:10Yes, and this is a true artificial canal with built sides and cut rock. It's quite remarkable.
05:17It's a serious bit of engineering, isn't it? These people were doing something important.
05:21Yes, absolutely. It's certainly the oldest canal in Scotland, if not in Britain.
05:28But what was the purpose of this complex site?
05:32What exactly was going on here?
05:34Could the answers lie below the water?
05:48Originally developed for the offshore oil industry, this is an advanced sonar rig.
05:52OK, good position. Just drop it in.
06:03It's a system I've used before in the Mediterranean, but this will be the first time it's been deployed on an archaeological site in Britain.
06:09Almost straight away, it's identifying some intriguing targets where the canal enters the loch.
06:21So the sonar is picking out these linear features of stones either side of the canal.
06:26Nature doesn't make right angles. See, that's very elbow-shaped. So I see this as a possible man-made structure.
06:34My most recent research project has been in a sunken city in Greece.
06:55The conditions in this cold Scottish loch couldn't be more different.
06:59The visibility is very bad.
07:04Salt water coming in the canal. Mixing with the fresh water would create a strange optical effect.
07:13A bit like adding water to whiskey.
07:17This murky environment might be challenging, but it's ideal for preserving finds.
07:22Boat fragments recovered from the loch have been dated to over 1,000 years ago.
07:29And it's not just Viking-era timber that survived.
07:33Just here, you can see the front of a constructed wall.
07:37This is where the Vikings would have lost stone constructed key for loading and unloading ships.
07:45It's a massive engineering operation.
07:53Rowan Dunan was clearly a site that was regularly used by ships.
07:58Enormous efforts went into constructing and maintaining it.
08:02But just what were the Vikings doing here?
08:05What purpose did this place serve?
08:06Well, I think it's been, at one stage in its career, a Viking raiding base, where the ships have been able to come right in through the canal here, up into the loch, where they would have been safe and secure over the winter for maintenance, for repair, and possibly they were building ships there as well.
08:25You get a sense standing here of a lost world.
08:28Yes.
08:29The nearest road is six kilometres away.
08:31Yes.
08:32We had to get here by boat.
08:33Yes.
08:34Now, it's a lovely deserted place, but to the people who lived and worked here, it was the centre of their universe, a place from which they could sally forth, free as birds, to raid wherever they wanted, coming back here to live in safety with their ships over the winter.
08:55Coming to this remote place has really brought home to me just how formidable the Vikings were.
09:02They were adaptable, they were tenacious, and they had the engineering skills to match their aggressive ambitions.
09:11Because outposts like Rowan Doonan were just the beginning.
09:16From these scattered beachheads, the rest of Scotland lay within the Vikings' grasp.
09:25The monastery island of Iona.
09:32This is where the Vikings burst into Scottish history with sudden, shocking, apocalyptic violence.
09:42In the early morning of the 24th of July, 825, the unmistakable shapes of Viking longships were spotted approaching the island.
09:57The few monks that remained here knew exactly what would happen next.
10:09The community dedicated to the cult of St Columba was in ruins.
10:17For the past 30 years, Viking warbands had raided the island time and time again, stealing, burning and killing.
10:24So much so, that it was virtually suicide to stay here.
10:30But suicide was something the remaining monks embraced.
10:33As the longships drew nearer, the leader of the surviving group, a man named Blomack, prepared his followers for martyrdom.
10:40The violent, cursed host came rushing through the open buildings, threatening cruel perils to the blessed men.
10:52And after slaying with mad savagery the rest of the brethren, they approached the Holy Father.
10:59But he stood firm and spoke to the barbarians in words such as these.
11:04I know nothing at all of the treasure you seek, where it is placed in the ground or in what hiding place it has concealed.
11:11But if, by Christ's permission, it were granted to me to know it, never would my lips relate it to thy ears.
11:21Hereupon the pious victim was torn from limb to limb.
11:29The account of Blomack's torture and death has been dismissed by some as Christian propaganda.
11:42But I think it's got the brutal ring of truth about it.
11:45Iona had been bled dry by previous raids.
11:48And you can almost sense the frustrated fury of Blomack's killers as they search for elusive treasure.
11:54For the chroniclers, the Vikings were the ultimate other.
12:00Their identity was unclear.
12:02Their motives inexplicable.
12:07All along the coastline of the British Isles, the Vikings descended like harbingers of doomsday.
12:13Just who were they?
12:17Where have they come from?
12:18And what did they want?
12:20Fjord country, western Norway.
12:33It's a breathtaking landscape of high mountains, plunging waterfalls and deep seaways.
12:45Travelling in the fjords, you can't help but be blown away by the sheer scale and raw beauty of the Viking homeland.
12:58There are many theories about what exactly the word Viking means.
13:05One of the most likely is that it comes from the word vik, meaning sea inlet.
13:09But this labyrinth of winding channels and hidden bays didn't just give these Viking sea radars a name.
13:15It gave them a launch pad.
13:17At the end of the 8th century, the Vikings exploded onto the world map.
13:22Swedish Vikings travelled deep into Russia, establishing trade routes that extended to the Black Sea and beyond.
13:30From Denmark, Vikings raided eastern England, eventually carving out their own kingdom.
13:37But the Vikings who first descended in Scotland came from western Norway.
13:51Bergen, Norway's second city and centre of fjord country.
13:58From here, the sea journey to Scotland is shorter than it is to the Norwegian capital, Oslo.
14:04It was from these western fjords that Vikings not only raided the Scottish and Irish coasts,
14:10but went on to eventually colonise the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland.
14:15They even gained a temporary foothold in North America.
14:19But geography doesn't explain everything.
14:22It doesn't explain why the Vikings decided to begin raiding in the first place.
14:32Until recently, the most widely held theory on why the Vikings set out was land hunger.
14:43The steep-sided fjords contained very little farmland.
14:48As the population grew, it simply had nowhere to go.
14:57The only problem with that theory is that the Vikings who raided places like Iona weren't after land.
15:03The men who murdered Blomack weren't farmers who wanted to settle down and till the soil.
15:08So what was their motive?
15:10Like any good detective story, you just have to follow the money.
15:13Over the last century, the western fjords of Norway have given up some rare archaeological treasures.
15:23That give a clue to why the people here first went raiding to Scotland.
15:28These are old silver coins. Very old silver coins. In fact, this one dates from 763 AD.
15:37But they're not from Norway. They're not even from Europe.
15:40These coins come from Baghdad, which from the middle of the 8th century was the epicentre of a powerful and rich Islamic world.
15:47Baghdad merchants would pay hard cash for amber, furs and walrus ivory from Scandinavia.
15:56But the only problem was that the main trade routes for these goods bypassed the western fjords of Norway.
16:02And wanting to keep up with the Joneses, or rather the Johanssons, the chieftains of western Norway looked for their own source of silver.
16:10And they soon found it, not in the bazaars of Baghdad, but in the monasteries of the British Isles.
16:17The monastery St Columba founded on Iona might have been a deliberately simple and ascetic place.
16:35But like all monasteries, it accumulated wealth from its important patrons.
16:42Rich and undefended, these religious communities must have been irresistible targets for Viking raiders.
16:52The ultimate opportunity to get rich quick.
17:01These were brutal times in Scotland.
17:04Raiding and warfare between different groups was common.
17:08Violent death, a fact of life.
17:12Perhaps in some ways, the Vikings were no worse than anybody else.
17:17But what made them unusual was they had no qualms about attacking holy sites.
17:22Christian chroniclers called the Vikings heathens and Gentiles.
17:30Instead of the cross, these pagan warriors were pendants shaped as Thor's hammer around their necks.
17:37Only people who worshipped the god of storms and thunder would dare desecrate Christ's church.
17:51And it wasn't just silver that brought the Vikings to Scotland's monasteries.
17:55There was another valuable commodity to be found in these scattered centres of worship and learning.
18:00Human beings.
18:02Human beings.
18:03Human beings.
18:04Human beings.
18:05Human beings.
18:12The island of Inchmarnock.
18:14Just off Bute in the Firth of Clyde.
18:16applied.
18:22Today it's uninhabited, but at the time of the first Viking raids, this place was home
18:27to a small monastic community.
18:41Including remains of the original buildings. But recently, evocative traces of everyday
18:46monastic life in Inchmarnock have come to light.
18:55Like all monasteries, Inchmarnock wasn't just about prayer, it was about education. Young
19:00novices aged anywhere between 7 and 16 would have studied on this island, laboriously learning
19:06how to write Latin and Gaelic. But instead of paper or parchment, they would have used
19:11this stuff. Slate. And there's a lot of slate in Inchmarnock. The whole island is made of
19:16this stuff. I'm improvising with an old nail, but the students would have used a metal stylus
19:22to scratch the slate pieces. Actually, not that easy.
19:28But it was more than their ABCs that these young boys carved. A couple of years ago, archaeologists
19:37working on Inchmarnock uncovered two pieces of old slate. When they were joined together,
19:41they revealed an astonishing scene. And one that must have been part of the everyday world
19:46of the boy who carved it. The centuries haven't been kind to this picture, so we've had it
19:52blown up and enhanced digitally, so we can see better what's going on. A man has been roped
19:58by the neck, and he's been dragged by an armed warrior towards a longship. In front of them
20:03are the partial outlines of two other warriors wearing chain mail and carrying spears. What
20:09this childish doodle reveals is key to understanding why the Vikings came to Scotland. Slavery.
20:16The Vikings didn't invent slavery in Scotland, but they did turn it into a professional industry.
20:30Before the arrival of the Vikings, slavery was common amongst the different people who lived
20:35in Scotland. But slaves tended to be the byproduct of war, not its object. The Vikings changed
20:46all that. For them, capturing slaves and selling them on was part of a lucrative trade, and
20:51one which they developed on a mass scale. Slavery, not silver or land, was the real engine of
20:57early Viking Scotland.
21:01And Scotland's monasteries were the only targets for Viking slavers.
21:15Guarding the entrance to the River Clyde is the vast and imposing shape of Dumbarton rock.
21:30In the 9th century, this was the centre of the kingdom of Strathclyde.
21:40You can see why the Strathclyders chose Dumbarton rock as their capital. Its steep sides rise
21:44more than 70 metres from sea level. It must have seemed impregnable, except that it wasn't.
21:51In 870, Vikings arrived here and surrounded the fortress. The siege lasted for four months.
22:05Eventually, the water supply ran out, and the stronghold was forced to surrender.
22:10The Vikings had hit the jackpot. So many captives had been taken here on Dumbarton rock and the
22:21surrounding countryside that the Vikings needed 200 ships just to transport them all. Most
22:27ended up at the great slave market in Dublin. Others were sold onto merchants around the
22:32Irish Sea. Some may even have ended up as far afield as Spain or North Africa. And what made all of
22:38this possible was the Viking's secret weapon. A new and terrifying invention, the longship.
22:44Nothing says Viking as much as the longship. It's become a potent image of myth and legend.
23:06But here, at a yard in southwest Norway, a group of experimental archaeologists are investigating the
23:12reality behind the longship. And they're doing it the hard way, building a boat from scratch,
23:18using only Viking-era tools and methods. What they're discovering is just how devastatingly effective
23:25the vessel was. The Viking longship of Scandinavia was a stealth weapon of its day. It was low,
23:32it was fast, it was maneuverable. You can roll the ship more or less silently. It shows a very low profile,
23:39a very low silhouette on the water. So these were the nuclear submarines, if you like, of the
23:44Yeah, the connection is not too far-fetched. It was a major step forward, weapon-wise, military-wise,
23:49tactic-wise. What have you learned in this project? Well, firstly, enormous respect for the craftsmanship
23:57that the Vikings put down. What we're doing here is copying bit by bit a 1200-year construction,
24:05down to the last details. And to see the quality of the hull and the quality of the construction,
24:12how the hull planks sort of fit like a symphony that turns into the trademark high crowd. It's beyond
24:18magical, actually.
24:24The secret of the longship's success lies in its refined hull construction. It's clinker-built,
24:30using overlapping planks to create the form, rather than relying on a heavy internal frame.
24:37This makes the boat light and flexible, able to survive the steep waves of the North Sea and Atlantic.
24:43Can you see the other end yet? I can see the end, yes.
24:49Though, maybe not my hammering technique.
24:53Yes. And now, it will be much harder.
24:59Dear God! Don't laugh quite slowly.
25:06Today is a big day at the yard. They're fitting the elaborately carved figurehead.
25:11Instead of the more familiar dragon's head, this is a coil-and-snake design.
25:19The researchers have discovered that the high-carved prow was often stowed on deck during sea voyages,
25:26and was only hoisted immediately before a raid to intimidate the enemy.
25:30I love ships and boats, and as an underwater archaeologist, I'm used to finding pieces of
25:38wreckage and the odd bit of timber underwater. But to see an entire ancient ship like this take
25:43shape before my eyes is quite a privilege. You get a real sense of not only the workmanship that's
25:49gone into this, but also what the ship means as a symbol, what it would have said. If you saw one of
25:54these coming towards you and they'd raised their dragon prow, you knew you were in trouble.
26:05The all-conquering technology of the dragon ship brought new territories with an easy reach of
26:10the Vikings. Amongst their first targets, the northern isles of Scotland.
26:21By longship, Shetland was just two days sail away from the western fjords of Norway, Orkney only a little further.
26:28By the 850s, the islands had been completely overrun by Viking raiders. But Orkney was much more than an armed camp.
26:46Geographically, politically and culturally, it was right at the centre of the Norse world,
26:51and it gave rise to a new breed of Viking. Part raider, part farmer.
27:11In the famous Orkney Inga saga, there's a fantastic description of one of these Vikings,
27:16a larger-than-life character called Svein Astleyfarson.
27:22This is how Svein used to live. Winter he would spend at home, where he entertained more than 80
27:27men at his own expense. In the spring, he had more than enough to occupy him, with a great deal of seed
27:33to sow, which he saw to carefully himself. Then, when that job was done, he would go off plundering in
27:39the Hebrides and in Ireland on what he called his spring trip. Then, back home just after midsummer,
27:46where he stayed till the cornfields had been reaped and the grain was safely in.
27:51After that, he would go off raiding again and never come back until the first month of winter
27:56was ended. This he called his autumn trip.
28:06Viking colonisation changed every aspect of life in the Northern Isles. Some of those changes were enduring.
28:12This is the Orkney Yole. The workhorse of the Islanders, this clinker-built,
28:19double-ended vessel has the Viking longboat in its design DNA.
28:24You'd be amazed at how much the Norse influenced the Yole. The obvious thing is the shape of the boat,
28:36but also the names have kept on. The bit of wood on the bottom of the keel is the keeldrite.
28:43The bits of wood for rubbing up and down on the beaches when they were hauled ashore. The dill squads,
28:51the parts of the joints of the boat, so the honey spot and the heliwell. All Norwegian words that are
28:58still in use. It's something that survived for over a thousand years from the Norse traditions.
29:04It shows you how successful Norse boat building was.
29:06Yeah, they're obviously fit for purpose. And you'll find that out if you're in a
29:12course sea. The boat will look after you. You don't have to look after it.
29:21There are few places in Scotland where you can feel the Norse influence as strongly as here in Orkney.
29:26The names of these scattered islands, Papa Westray, Chapinsey, A.D., Egilsey,
29:36reads like a verse from an ancient saga. Sometimes it seems as if there isn't a square
29:43centimetre of this beautiful place that the Vikings didn't carve their names onto.
29:56Even Neolithic tombs like Maze Howe bear the marks of the Norsemen.
30:08In my day job as an underwater archaeologist, I'm used to scrabbling about in the silt and sand
30:14to find buried fragments. But here the archaeology is literally spelt out in front of your eyes.
30:20These markings are Norse graffiti. They might be hundreds of years old, but really,
30:29it's not much different from something you would read sprayed on your local bus shelter.
30:33This one reads, Hermond Hardax carved these runes. While this one boasts,
30:39these runes were carved by the man most skilled in runes in the western oceans.
30:44And there's more raunchy stuff as well. This chamber would have originally been used by the
30:51Neolithic people to store the bones of their ancestors. But the Vikings appear to have found
30:56another use. This reads, Thorny, well Thorny bedded while Helge carved.
31:14The Norse graffiti at Maze Howe is great fun.
31:18But I think these scratches spell out more than just smutty messages or outlandish nicknames.
31:23I think they spell out an attitude.
31:35These people had swagger. They had self-belief.
31:38They had the kind of confidence that only generations of success can bring.
31:47The sporadic Viking raids at the end of the 8th century had developed into an unstoppable onslaught.
31:54No one seemed capable of turning back the Norse tide.
32:02In 839 AD, the Vikings crushed the Picts on the east coast.
32:08Less than 10 years later, they conquered the Gales on the west coast.
32:11All across Scotland, old kingdoms were crumbling. Populations were on the move.
32:21But out of the ashes of the Viking conquest, new alliances were being formed.
32:31Gallic refugees, flooding eastward, found sanctuary in the remnants of the Pictish Kingdom.
32:36On mainland Scotland, a new culture emerged. A new nation was born.
32:44It was called Alba. And if you can trace the origins of modern Scotland anywhere,
32:49it's to this fugitive kingdom. A kingdom united in opposition to and in fear of the Vikings.
32:57But Alba wasn't the only kingdom being born. Across the mountains, the Norse were carving out
33:02a new and powerful land.
33:09To the Gaelic speakers of Alba, it was Inish Gaul, the land of the foreigners.
33:15This sprawling territory stretched from the northern tip of the Hebrides, through Argyll,
33:22the Clyde Islands, Kintyre, to the Isle of Man beyond.
33:31It sat right on the middle of the crucial sea routes, at a time when to rule the water was to rule the world.
33:38The future of these islands and these people, which way they faced, would determine the fate of Scotland.
33:54The Vikings and their descendants had put down roots.
34:01By 1000 AD, the Hebrides were as Norse-speaking as Orkney.
34:05But at the same time, a sea change was underway that would fundamentally affect Viking identity.
34:18The island of Iona is dotted with ancient grave slabs and stone crosses.
34:23Amongst them is a fragment of an inscription that speaks volumes.
34:30It's written in ruins, and it's been carved on the edge of a stone
34:34with a Celtic cross on it.
34:37And it looks like it's been smashed.
34:39You might think that a marauding Viking has come in and vandalised this symbol of Christianity,
34:44and then to add insult to injury, he's carved his name on it.
34:48But nothing could be further from the truth.
34:50This isn't casual graffiti like we've seen at Maze Howe.
34:54This is something quite different.
34:56The runes are incomplete, but we can read,
34:58So it was a Norseman that had commissioned this stone.
35:09He'd seen the Celtic cross design, and he wanted it for his brother.
35:13He'd then arranged for his brother to be buried on the island of Iona,
35:17the very island that had been ravaged by his ancestors.
35:21The Vikings had become Christians, and now Iona was their sacred ground.
35:25It was an astonishing transformation.
35:38Before the arrival of the Vikings, Iona had been at the epicentre of Christianity in Northern Britain.
35:43The Vikings had destroyed all that.
35:54But now, under the protection of its Norse rulers, Iona had risen again.
36:00A place of pilgrimage and sanctuary.
36:04The spiritual heart of Inish Gaul.
36:09The Vikings had stopped being Vikings.
36:11They were Christians now, not pagans.
36:14They were settlers now, not just hit-and-run raiders.
36:18And although the Norse-speaking peoples of Inish Gaul had deep roots in the Scandinavian world,
36:23they were very much their own people, with their own identity.
36:29This was a wealthy, sophisticated, connected culture.
36:34And from it came one of the most famous treasures of medieval Europe.
36:39The Lewis Chess Men.
36:41So these amazing pieces were actually found on a beach in Lewis.
36:47And the argument was that it was a merchant just passing through from somewhere else.
36:51That is what a lot of people have believed ever since the discovery.
36:56That these are such wonderful pieces.
36:58Lewis is such a remote part of the world that clearly they don't belong.
37:03But that begs the question, where is Lewis remote from?
37:08Because Lewis was actually fairly central in the extended Scandinavian world.
37:13It was on the main trade routes that would take you from Greenland, where a lot of the
37:17the walrus ivory to make these was coming from back through Iceland, over to the west coast of Norway,
37:23which is a fairly likely place for these to be manufactured, and then down to Dublin and further afield.
37:31Lewis was fairly centrally positioned.
37:34And on top of that, we do have evidence for important people, people of high status, living in Lewis.
37:43So it's not too difficult to imagine that there was somebody with money, resources and status to have splendid gaming pieces like the ones in front of us.
37:54Well, I think probably like many people, one of my favourites is this little guy here biting his shield.
38:00I agree with you on that, you know. It really is fantastic, isn't it?
38:04It's a reference to a cult in the Scandinavian world, the cult of the berserkers.
38:09Guys who were so psyched up before they were into battle, that they had to bite the shields in order to hold themselves back.
38:17So what kind of force do you think the islands could have mustered at this period?
38:20If we're talking about all the islands, all the way from Lewis, right down to and including the Isle of Man, 10,000 plus.
38:30And the ships to put them in. And as you can imagine, 10,000 guys like this, that was a very considerable power.
38:38For centuries, the military and naval might of Inish Gaul had given its inhabitants a kind of independence.
38:52Neither Norwegian nor Scottish, the Hebrideans straddled identities and allegiances, maintaining a foot in both camps while belonging to none.
39:01But as the 13th century dawned, that was no longer possible.
39:07Now it was time to choose sides.
39:16When the Vikings first began raiding across the North Sea, there was no King of Norway and no King of Scotland.
39:22Four hundred years later, both countries had been united under powerful and ambitious kings.
39:33Hawken IV of Norway and Alexander II of Scotland were born within a few years of each other.
39:40They came to the throne around the same time.
39:42And they were both absolutely determined to expand their authority.
39:51The problem was that both men regarded Inish Gaul as lying within their sphere of influence.
39:58And nowhere did the political fault line run deeper than amongst the islands of the Firth of Clyde.
40:07At the beginning of the 13th century, this was frontier territory.
40:11The mainland was Scottish, but the islands of Bute and Cumbry just over there were Norse.
40:17It was a war just waiting to happen.
40:24The struggle to control the Clyde Islands spiralled into battle over the whole of Inish Gaul.
40:31Over the next decades, forces loyal to Alexander and Hawken fought a vicious running battle in the islands.
40:37But Alexander's obsession with winning the Hebrides was to prove fatal.
40:46In 1249, Alexander sailed up the west coast with a powerful fleet.
40:51It was the last journey he would ever make.
40:57King Alexander dreamed a dream and thought that three men came to him and inquired whether he
41:04meant to invade the Hebrides. Alexander answered that he certainly proposed to subject the islands.
41:11The spirits bade him go back and told him that no other measure would turn out to his advantage.
41:18The king related his dream and many advised him to return.
41:22But the king would not, and a little after, was seized with a disorder and died.
41:29In Norway, King Hawken could now turn his attention to some of the other Norse colonies.
41:44In 1261, the Norse community in Greenland acknowledged him as king.
41:50The following year, the independent-minded colony of Iceland also submitted.
41:55The Norwegian kingdom was now at the height of its power.
42:14This is Hawken's Hall in Bergen.
42:17When it was completed in 1261, it was one of the largest and most imposing buildings in the whole of Norway.
42:25For Hawken, the completion of this architectural wonder must have felt like the crown and glory
42:32in a career which had seen the Norwegian kingdom grow larger and more powerful than ever before.
42:37He must have felt supremely confident.
42:40But this was also the exact moment that a new king of Scotland
42:44made his move in the Norse territories in the Hebrides.
42:46Like father, like son, Alexander III wasn't content with diplomacy.
42:59The 21-year-old king backed up his claim on Inishgal with a brutal show of force.
43:09Ordering armed raids deep into Norse-speaking areas.
43:12They burned villages and churches and they killed great numbers both of men and women.
43:32The Scots had even taken the small children and raising them up on the points of their spears.
43:38Shook them till they fell down to their hands when they threw them away lifeless on the ground.
43:45This was an outrage which Hawken couldn't ignore.
44:03In the spring of 1263, a large fleet left the Norwegian coast.
44:08At its head was the flagship of King Hawken himself.
44:17Hawken was a battle-hardened veteran.
44:19But at the age of 59, he was already an old man by the standards of his day.
44:24His son Magnus had voiced concerns about him taking personal command of the fleet.
44:28But for Hawken, this was unfinished business.
44:31The chance to crush Scottish ambitions in the Hebrides once and for all.
44:37Hawken had enormous military resources he could call on.
44:46He didn't hesitate to send out the order.
44:52In Orkney, his already powerful fleet was joined by local forces.
44:57It must have seemed an invincible armada.
45:02But already, there were ominous signs.
45:04In the Middle Ages, everybody knew that solar eclipses were powerful omens.
45:26But did this particular sign in the sky spell disaster for the Scots?
45:31Or was it Hawken's expedition that was doomed to failure?
45:34Hawken led his fleet down through the Hebrides.
45:48Island by island, territory by territory, he demanded and received the allegiance of the lords of Inishgal.
45:56By the time he reached the disputed territories of the 1st of Clyde, he had 120 ships and up to 20,000 men under his command.
46:14It was a force that rivaled the Spanish armada over 300 years later.
46:22But if Alexander, King of the Scots, was daunted by Hawken's show of force, he showed no sign.
46:28It was a reversal of the usual stereotypes.
46:32The young man, patient and wily.
46:36The old man, hot-headed and given to impulse.
46:44Alexander, based just down the coast in air, settled in for a waiting game.
46:48He knew he stood no chance of defeating Hawken at sea.
46:50But if he could just stall long enough, then the autumn weather might do what his own naval forces couldn't.
47:01Hawken sent envoys to demand that Alexander withdraw his claim.
47:07Alexander spun out the negotiations.
47:13Furious, Hawken decided to ratchet up the pressure and sent part of his fleet to attack along Loch Long and Loch Lomond.
47:21Meanwhile, he moved his main force inshore, near Largs.
47:28He was now just a stone's throw away from the mainland itself.
47:32Still, Alexander held his nerve.
47:37Then, on the 1st of October, the weather broke.
47:41The storm was so sudden and so powerful that survivors could only imagine that it had been conjured up by sorcery.
48:03Hawken's fleet was scattered with several ships driven ashore right under the noses of the local militia.
48:09The next morning, Hawken managed to get ashore with a thousand men to salvage the ships and their cargo.
48:21That was when the Scots pounced.
48:23Hawken's bodyguard got the king back to the safety of the fleet.
48:35But on the shore, the Norsemen were collapsing in disarray.
48:43Those on the beach imagined they were routed.
48:46Some, therefore, leaped into their boats and pushed off from the land.
48:50Others jumped into the transport.
48:54Their companions called upon them to return, and some returned.
48:58Though few, many boats went down.
49:02Finally, a long ship managed to get ashore to reinforce the beleaguered rearguard.
49:19The Norsemen made a stand.
49:21The Scots retreated.
49:23The Battle of Largs petered out into a long-distance and sporadic shooting match.
49:38Neither side had won.
49:40There was no decisive victory.
49:42Just the usual grim reckoning of warfare.
49:58But if the skirmish fought on the Clyde coast didn't decide anything,
50:02then the aftermath would.
50:15Over the following days, there was a window in the weather.
50:18Hawken's men returned to the shore to retrieve the dead and burn the stranded boats.
50:24But what would the king's next move be?
50:32Hawken's options were actually very limited.
50:39Winter was approaching.
50:41Supplies were running low.
50:43His men were getting restless.
50:49At a council of war, Hawken agreed that the fleet should disperse,
50:53and the troops returned to their scattered homes.
50:55He himself would overwinter in the Norse stronghold of Orkney.
51:05In the spring, he would reassemble his forces and wreak bloody revenge on Alexander.
51:12Publicly, Hawken was impatient for a rematch.
51:19But privately, he was perhaps relieved to reach the safe haven of Orkney.
51:25The king of war, Hawken was nearly 60 years old.
51:36He'd been king for 46 years.
51:39Quite simply, he was exhausted.
51:47The king was tired.
51:51He was sick.
51:51He probably knew he was dying.
52:03Here, at the cathedral in Kirkwall, Hawken visited the shrine of Saint Magnus.
52:11It was the pious action of a man who knew the end was near.
52:15An obsession with the Hebrides had already destroyed a Scottish king, Alexander II.
52:31Now it claimed the life of a Norwegian one.
52:34On the 16th of December, 1263, Hawken IV died.
52:39Hawken was buried here in Saint Magnus Cathedral.
52:47Then, in the early spring, his body was disinterred and taken back to Norway.
52:54Hawken was the last Norwegian king to mount a military assault in Scotland.
53:06His son, Magnus Lawmender, wasn't interested in continuing the fight.
53:21Magnus had his own problems at home to deal with.
53:23Better peace with honour than a draining foreign war.
53:26Better cash on the table than blood on the ground.
53:34For nearly five centuries, longships had set sail from the western coast of Norway
53:39to raid, trade and colonise in Scotland.
53:44Kingdom had been pitted against kingdom.
53:47Kingdom, people against people.
53:54It was a history of slaughter and slavery.
53:58But also of rich cultural exchange and artistic marvels.
54:04In the end though, all that was nothing compared to cold, hard cash.
54:11Inish Gaul was up for sale.
54:17In 1266, Magnus accepted an offer of 4,000 marks from Alexander
54:29and renounced Norway's claim on the islands forever.
54:41The Norse Age was coming to an end.
54:43And for the descendants of the Vikings and the Hebrides, things were beginning to change too.
54:48Although the Battle of Largs had not affected their culture or their identity,
54:52it was to Scotland, not to Norway, that they now looked for royal protection.
54:58The long, slow process of becoming Scots had begun.
55:13Over the next few centuries, Inish Gaul, the land of the foreigners,
55:19would become the heartland of a new Gallic power.
55:26But it was a power that owed everything to its Norse ancestors.
55:30An archipelago bound together by the sea and the ships that sailed on it.
55:34The Viking crews that once launched hit-and-run raids from bases like Ruandunan and Skye,
55:46were part of a long and epic history.
55:48Of course, there was enormous brutality and destruction. You can't just wish it away.
56:01But in places like these, you get a glimpse of something else.
56:04Today, Scottish islands like Skye might sit on the outer rim of Europe.
56:15But in the age of the Norsemen, they were right at the centre of things.
56:20They were at the centre of a network of contacts that were beginning to crisscross the globe.
56:26The Vikings were pushing the boundaries of the known world.
56:29And I like to think that that questing, inquisitive spirit is part of what makes us,
56:35as an island people, who we are today.
56:59For more.
57:06The Vikings
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