from Burkes Peerage and Baronetcy copyright 2002:
"Lineage (of SCARTH)-Alver Harraldson; b 1340; d 1412, was Sec of State
to
King Hakon of Norway. According to Prof Munch he was a grandson of
Alver of
Thronstad (b c 1270) and great-grandson of Guthorm (b c 1240), all
members of the
mighty Bolt family who were amongst the first in Norway to acquire a
family name
and who had great influence in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Alver Haraldson was a signatory on behalf of King Hakon when Earl Henry
Sinclair took his oath of allegiance at Maestrand, 2 Aug 1379. A close
kinsman of his, possibly his brother Jon, returned to Orkney with Earl
Henry and assumed, in accordance with the custom of the Sinclair court,
the patronymic of Harraldson.
He and his Bolt cousins acquired estates in Orkney and Zetland, and in
1434 his son John Harraldson accompanied Earl William (3rd Sinclair Earl
of Orkney) to Copenhagen as signatory on his behalf when he took his
oath of allegiance to King Erik of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. His
kinsman, Hakon Bolt, was a signatory on behalf of the King. "
[HENRY, Earl of Orkney, and Lord of Shetland, who on 2 August 1379, was
formally invested by Haakon, King of Norway, as Jarl of the Orkneys,
ranked next to the Royal House before all the Scandinavian nobility. As
Admiral he discovered
Greenland, lived in much state at Roslin, and was killed in battle in
Orkney 1404. He
m Jean, dau of Sir William Haliburton of Dirleton, and was succeeded by
his son,
Henry] why he was a "Prince"! (source - Burkes Caithness genealogy)
"John Harraldson m Effie Garriock, and in 1446 had a safe conduct from
King Henry
VI of England in "the good ship Magnus" and went "east" to
Copenhagen,severing
his personal connection with Orkney.
John's grandchildren, Sir Henry Harraldson, Thomas, and their sister
Janet Leask,
along with the Shetland Bolts, sold their Orkney and Shetland
properties, including their rights in the udal lands of Scarth, to the
Sinclair family shortly after the impignoration of Orkney and Shetland
to the Scottish Crown in 1468 (see Wemyss Charter Chest -inventory
of these purchases). Thereafter the Harraldsons are no longer mentioned
in Orkney records.
Another member of the family, John Harraldson, served with Gilbert Skart
in the
Muster Roll of the French Garde Eccosaise of 1469, and his kinsman Finne
of
Skart is recorded in 1482 as a witness and "Roithman" in possession of
the udal
land of Scarth, despite the fact that the Harraldsons had, as above,
sold their
"right and roith" therein. As the Scarths remained in de facto
possession of the
property (from which their name had derived) it is evident from udal
law and the
Wemyss Inventory that the Harraldsons, Bolts and Scarths were all of the
same
family, and this has been accepted by the Lyon Court in granting right
of matriculation to the present laird of the original Bolt arms,
suitably differenced for cadency. "
Needless to say there is much more in the Burkes pages. By searching on
St Clair or Sinclair - and Burkes makes the difference that one is a
title and the second "Sinclair" the family name; you find who various
Sinclairs/St. Clairs married over the centuries.
Also found the debt payment of Caithness lands to Campbell of Glenorchy
- then
became Campbell of Bredalbane. Read all of the Caithness genealogy and
history under Caithness' genealogy. Very interesting indeed.
On the subject of the Herdmanston Sinclairs, found that they have
retained their lands.
NOTE: impignoration = to pledge, pawn or mortgaage (Roman civil law)