More Manx Trivia [ 2 ]

When the Vikings invaded the Island circa 1000 BC, they kinda liked the place and decided to stay. They integrated with the local populace, who were a pretty miserable lot in those days, scratching a living from the land and sea, and the Vikings set about organizing the place on Scandinavian lines and creating a Parliament , that still exists today....the longest , continuous parliament in the world. The Celtic/Scandinavian mix produced a race that I am very proud to belong to ....the Manx.

Well, the Vikings faded into history and the next few hundred years saw the Scottish and English kings squabbling over ownership of the Island ....the successful claimants at any one time calling themselves the Kings of Mann. Around about 1400, English rule ceased on Mann when, the then King of England, Henry IV, gave the Island to one Sir John Stanley, the Duke of Derby, for the rental of two falcons to be given to any future monarch on their Coronation Day. I reckon Sir John got a bargain. The Stanleys ' owned ' the Island for the next 300 years but rarely visited the place, preferring their big estates in England to our soggy , little Island. The Dukes of Atholl took over about 1700 , again absentee landlords , and the Island slumbered on, albeit, with quite a lot of smuggling on the side, doing the pesky English out of a lot of their Custom duty, until it became a Crown dependency in early Victorian times. A Governor was appointed as the monarch's representative ....but the Island retained it's right to govern and raise it's own revenue. Incidentally, the rental of two falcons remained up to the Queen Victoria's coronation....more of an old custom than actual rent , by then . The names, Stanley, Derby and Atholl are quite common place names on the Island today.

By the way, , the word Viking comes from the old Norse word ' vikigj ' meaning pirate, which is exactly what they were , pirates, who loved raiding and looting.

This is a very, very potted version of how the Manx evolved, pretty boring , on the whole , but there again , someone may read this and find it of interest .