Every Day Is Special: February 20 - Norwegian Islands...Pawned???

February 20 - Norwegian Islands...Pawned???

Posted on February 20, 2022

This is an update of my post published on February 20, 2011:

Have you ever heard of a pawn shop? That's a place where a person can borrow money, leaving something valuable as collateral. When the person repays the loan, he or she gets that valuable item back--but, after an established period of time, if the person does not pay back the loan, the pawnbroker owns the item and can sell it for a profit.

A pawn shop local to me. The things for sale are items that
the owners couldn't buy back in time!

Now, how does someone drag something as large as an inhabited island into a pawn shop?

Of course, that's ridiculous! However, King Christian I of Denmark and Norway was a bit broke when his daughter married King James III of Scotland. The practice in those days was for parents of a bride to pay a dowry to the groom, and Margaret's dowry was set at 60,000 florins of the Rhine--which was a lot of money. Christian I didn't have that much cash laying about—so he paid 2,000 florins and then pledged ownership of Orkney and Shetland Islands to Scotland until he could pay off the remainder.

Christian I of Denmark and Norway, above

Above, you can see that the Orkney Islands are really close to Scotland
(which is the northern part of the main British Island, marked by the city
of Roxburgh). They are pretty far from Denmark (the unmarked peninsula
at the far right of the map) and Norway (the nation marked with the cities
Bergen and Oslo). The Shetland Islands are closer to the midpoint
between Britain and Norway.

Below, you can see the shape and number of the Orkney and
Shetland Islands. The gray part is Scotland alone, without
England and Wales.

It seems that the king didn't check with the inhabitants of the island; nor did he get the advice of the Council of the Realm—he just pawned the islands. He was smart enough to include a clause in the contract that he or future kings of Norway could redeem the islands for a fixed sum of 210 kg of gold or 2,310 kg of silver. (However, during the 1800s and 1900s, Norwegian leaders made several attempts to redeem the debt and reclaim the islands—and Scotland refused.)

And so it was that, in 1469, James III of Scotland married Margaret of Denmark.

And, on this date in 1472, Scotland peacefully annexed the Orkney and Shetland Islands. And they remain Scottish / British / part of the United Kingdom to this day!

Check out the Orkney Islands in this video.