Person:Harald I Olafsson (1)

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Haraldr Óláfsson (born 1223 or 1224; died 1248) was a thirteenth-century King of Mann and the Isles, and a member of the Crovan dynasty. He was one of several sons of Óláfr Guðrøðarson, King of the Isles, although the identity of his mother is uncertain. When his father died in 1237, Haraldr succeeded to the kingship as a fourteen-year-old, and held the kingship for about a decade afterwards.

Early in his reign, Haraldr was forced to contend with an apparent coup perpetrated by a kinsman and perhaps an otherwise unknown younger brother. Following this, Haraldr was then ejected from Mann by envoys of his father's overlord, Hákon Hákonarson, King of Norway, who probably took action against Haraldr because the former had refused to render him homage. Unable to overcome Hákon's supporters in the Isles, Haraldr eventually submitted to Hákon in Norway, and remained there for about two or three years before being restored in the Isles.

Unlike his immediate royal predecessors, who appear to have favoured the title rex insularum, Haraldr appears to have preferred rex mannie et insularum. Three charters from Haraldr's reign are known, two of which are recorded to have borne a waxen seal, depicting a galley on one side and a lion on the other. Haraldr reigned during a period of competing claims to overlordship of the Isles by the English, Norwegian, and Scottish Crowns. Like his father before him, and a younger brother after him, Haraldr was knighted by Henry III, King of England. The act itself brought Haraldr closer within the orbit of the English Crown. Late in 1247, however, Haraldr returned to Norway and married Hákon's daughter, Cecilía, and thereby bound himself closer to the Norwegian Crown. Whilst attempting to return to the Isles in the autumn of 1248, the newly-wed's ship was lost at sea south of Shetland in a tidal race known as Sumburgh Roost. News of Haraldr's demise appears to have reached Mann by the spring of 1249, whereupon his younger brother, Rǫgnvaldr, succeeded to the kingship.

Haraldr was evidently a popular and capable king who appears to have garnered much of his support from the Hebridean portion of his realm. His untimely death, however, led to the continuation of the vicious kin-strife which had wracked the Crovan dynasty during his father's floruit. The chaos brought about by Haraldr's demise appears to have contributed to the invasion of Argyll, and near conquest of the Hebrides, by Alexander II, King of Scotland.

1. ↑ Harald I Olafsson, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2} Baldwin, Stewart. The Kings of the Isle of Man. (GEN-MEDIEVAL/soc.genealogy.medieval)
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