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Updated: June 24, 2025
Another O'Lochlin, of the house of O'Neill, then appears prominently in the fray, and by 1156, seems to have succeeded in seizing the over-lordship of the island, and so the tale goes on a wearisome one, unrelieved by even a transitory gleam of order or prosperity.
In this fight Jarl Erlend, the last descendant in the male line of Thorfinn then alive, was slain, while drunk, his body being found next day transfixed by a spear, and he left no issue to inherit his title of earl or the other Moddan lands, left to him by Earl Ottar, which probably devolved on Eric Stagbrellir in 1156, as he could hold them against Thorbiorn Klerk.
His letter of resignation, in the form of a manifesto to the Daimios, runs thus: "A retrospect of the various changes through which the empire has passed shows us that after the decadence of the monarchical authority, power passed into the hands of the Minister of State; that by the wars of 1156 to 1159 the governmental power came into the hands of the military class.
In 1156 Ravello was honoured by a state visit from Pope Adrian IV.—the English monk, Nicholas Breakspear, the only Briton who ever succeeded in gaining the papal tiara and who gave the lordship of Ireland to Henry Plantagenet—and during his stay the Pontiff was entertained as the guest of the all-powerful Rufoli.
In 1156 there were rival claimants for the throne, one supported by each of these great families. The Taira party succeeded, got possession of the palace, and controlled the emperor whom they had raised to the throne. Kiyomori soon attained the highest power in the realm, and in him the military caste first rose to pre-eminence.
Ultimately, the earls were reconciled on the 25th of September 1154, and about 1156 joined forces and went to Orkney against Sweyn and Erlend, who pretended they were sailing for the Hebrides, but put their ships about at Store Point in Assynt, and after all but seizing Jarl Ragnvald at Orphir in Orkney, captured his ships, though he and Harold escaped, each in a small boat, across the Pentland Firth to Caithness.
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