Site of Medieval battle.


Magnus, the last Norse king of Man, submitted to the Scottish king in 1264, and received a charter by which he held the island from the crown of Scotland. Magnus died in 1265, at which point the island reverted to Scotland. The Manx were not reconciled to their new masters, and supported Godred, Magnus' illegitimate son, as king.


In 1275 Alexander III sent a powerful army by sea to enforce his sovereignty, which landed at Ronaldsway on 7th October and gathered on St Michael's Isle. The Scottish envoys failed to agree terms with Godred and his counsellors, and before dawn on the following morning the well-organised Scots routed the Manx, who were killed as they fled. Scottish rule was firmly established for a time until destabilised by the Anglo-Scottish wars at the end of the century.


The two sources for this historical narrative are the Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles, and the Lanercost Chronicle. The latter describes Godred and his advisors as 'perverse' in their refusal to accept the terms offered, and the subsequent battle as a terrible rout, whilst the former quotes from an unnamed source that 537 Manxmen fell.


The exact site of the battle is unknown. The Scottish army would have sailed into Derbyhaven, and may have camped anywhere on Langness, Ronaldsway or St Michael's Isle that provided the necessary security, although the Lanercost Chronicle specifically mentions the latter. The annotation on the Ordnance Survey 1:2500 First Edition mapping of 1868 (from which the grid reference is taken) arises from a confusion of this battle of Ronaldsway with the skirmish which took place on St Michael's Isle in 1250, reinforced by the tradition of graves being found in the area (also marked on the map a little to the south) which was later proved by excavation in the 1930s.