Re: Sinclair Dates

[Niven Sinclair <niven@niven.co.uk>]

At 02:19 26/04/00 -0500, you wrote:

>    [1]Sinclair Dates:  April
> 28.
>    In 1286: Parliament at Scone, Election of Guardians .
>
> References


John Sinclair Quarterman in his steady catalogue of "Sinclair
Dates" reminds us
that the Scottish Parliament met at Scone on April 28th, 1286 to elect
'guardians'
but this Parliament was a Parliament of the Estates of Scotland
and  Norway
where it was decided that, in the event of Alexander III of Scotland
dying without
male issue, the throne of Scotland would go to the "Maid of
Norway".  During her
minority the country would be governed by a Regent.

Robert 'the Bruce' was the nearest male relative to Alexander III.

In 1290 Princess Margaret, the "Maid of Norway", (then only
seven years old) was
despatched to Scotland but died at sea off the Orkney Isles.  It is
said that he body 
was returned to NBorway but others maintain that she was buried at
Harold's Tower
in Caithness which you will eventually be able to see on one of the three
films which
we are making for the Sinclair Millennium Gathering.

There is a mournful couplet about the death of the "Maid of
Norway" whiich reads:

        

        

        

        

        

        

"The
north wind sobs where Margaret sleeps

        

        

        

And still in tears of blood her memory Scotland steeps"

In order to understand why the "Maid of Norway" should
have been considered as the
heir to the Scottish throne, she was the daughter of the daughter of
Alexander !!! 
(another Margaret) who had married King Eric of Norway.

With the "Maid of Norway" dead there was no heir so Robert 'the
Bruce' ,in order to
strengthen his position, married his sister, Isabella, to King Eric when
King Eric's 
first wife died in 1293 .

The purpose of the above information is to demonstrate how closely linked
the Scots
and the Norwegians were through their principal families and how the idea
of a Northern
Commonwealth as ultimately envisaged between Queen Margrette of Norway
(1380 -1412)
and her premier Earl, Prince Henry Sinclair, made sense - given the
political and economic
pressures at the time.

The Norse Northern Commonwealth would have included:

        

Norway,
Sweden and Denmark (which had been united by the Treaty of Kalmar
1397)

        

Scotland
plus Prince Henry Sinclair's 'jarldom' of Orkney, Shetland and the
Faeroes

        

Greenland
and Iceland - then part of the Norwegian realm.

        

Markland
(Newfoundland), Helluland (Labrador) and Vinland (New England) 

This was essentially a power bloc to combat the growing influence of the
Germanic
Hanseatic League which was stretching its tentacles out into the North
Atlantic which
was already being referred to as Oceanus Germanicus.

Henry Sinclair's voyage to the New World in 1398 was an attempt
to cement the concept
of a Northern Commonwealth which collapsed with his death and that of
Queen Margrette
because, her adopted nephew, King Eric, was unable to hold the
Scandinavian alliance together.  It was at this time that Earl
William Sinclair, the grandson of Prince Henry, was
being seriously considered as a contender for the throne of Norway
because the Sinclairs,
by belonging to the House of More, in Norway, wwere seen as the premier
'jarls' of that
country.

The reception given to the Earl of Caithness during his recent visit to
that country also
served to illustrate the abiding affection and affiliation which the
Norwegians feel for the
Sinclair family.

Niven Sinclair 

>    1.
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