IMAGINE a Scotland where Gaelic is the dominant language, in which the capital city is Glasgow, a Scottish kingdom where the Stewarts never ruled, and where William Wallace and Robert the Bruce would not have been necessary as the distinct identity of Gaelic Scotland and a massive Scottish navy would have ensured the nation’s independence for centuries – and where no Act of Union would even have been contemplated.

Fanciful, yes, but all of the above might well have transpired if a certain 12th-century battle had been won by the Norse-Gaelic force of Somerled, King of the Isles, rather than the Scoto-Norman knights of King Malcolm IV.

The Battle of Renfrew in 1164 is accorded nowhere near the significance it should have, for this bloody conflict stopped the advance of Somerled literally dead in its tracks – he was killed in the battle, as was his eldest son.

Always remembering that 12th-century Scotland is not well chronicled, and that history is written by the victors, there is no doubt that the Battle of Renfrew was a pivotal point in the development of Scotland as a nation.

For King Malcolm, known as the Maiden, was then a sickly youth who had gained the throne at the age of 12 when his grandfather, the saintly reorganiser of Scotland, David I, had died. Malcolm’s own father Henry had predeceased David, and thus the heir to the throne was a young boy who was taken into the care of regents, something that would recur again and again in Scottish history, and nearly always be a source of discord and even outright civil war.

Malcolm suffered a series of revolts against his rule throughout his teenage years, mostly by mormaers, the equivalent of earls, including some from his own family. Only Donnchad (Duncan) the Mormaer of Fife seems to have been a wholly loyal regent and he died in 1154, a year after young Malcolm was crowned at Scone.

The teenage king grew up fast, and he was clever enough to keep the rapacious Henry II of England at bay, earning his knighthood in service of Henry in France. By the age of 18, he had also dealt with the rebellious types at home, such as Fergus of Galloway. Then seen as a separate territory – Malcolm invaded Galloway and forced Fergus to become a monk at Holyrood Abbey.

With Moray also peaceful, that left only one domestic rival to Malcolm, the extraordinary Somerled, King of the Isles.

Somerled (Somairle, Somhairle, and Somhairlidh in Gaelic) was a warrior of considerable note. He was of Norse-Gaelic descent – such people were known as the Gall-Gaels – and was originally based in Argyll where his father GilleBride was the local Lord.

At that time the title of Lord of the Isles was not extant. Instead there was a recognised Kingdom of the Isles which stretched from the north of Lewis to the Isle of Man, taking in the islands in the inner Hebrides and the Firth of Clyde and parts of the mainland of Scotland such as Lorne and the Mull of Kintyre.

The Kingship had been in the hands of the Crovan dynasty for many decades, descended from Godred Crovan who had conquered Dublin and the Isle of Man to add to the Hebrides which had been his power base – he is believed to be buried on Iona, or possibly Islay where he died in 1095.

Olaf Godredsson had succeeded his father as King of the Isles and Somerled married one of his daughters, Ragnhild, by whom he had three sons – Dugald, Ranald and Angus – who are claimed as the progenitors of Clans MacDougall, MacDonald (the original Donald was Ranald’s son), the ancient Clan Ruadrhi and other clans. As a result of these descendants, it is sometimes claimed that Somerled’s DNA can be found in 500,000 people worldwide.

Somerled is first recorded in history in 1153 when he apparently helped one of his relatives, Malcolm son of King Alexander, in a bid to take the throne of young Malcolm the Maiden.

It was during this conflict that Somerled’s forces sacked Glasgow with great slaughter of the townspeople and razed its cathedral, dedicated to St Kentigern, to the ground.

That coup eventually failed, and Somerled then decided to seize the Scottish half of the kingdom of the Isles from his own brother-in-law, Godred Olafsson, who ruled from the Isle of Man. By 1158, Somerled had defeated Godred entirely and had assumed the Kingship of the Isles.

His power was based on a massive fleet of galley-like vessels known as birlinns which were the sea-going landing craft of their day. Such was the reputation of those who sailed in these birlinns that their approach by sea was enough to panic populations around the coast of western Britain, Ireland, and beyond.

Malcolm the Maiden’s successful pacification of Galloway and his making of other alliances in the north and west of Scotland meant that the Scottish king was now encroaching on Somerled’s territory. Nevertheless, a charter of the 1160s survives to show that Malcolm and Somerled were at peace and even dined together.

Thanks to such ancient sources as the Chronicles of Holyrood and Melrose and the famous Latin poem the Song of the Death of Somerled – apparently written by a monk who was there – we know the facts of what happened next, though not the politics behind the machinations.

It appears that Somerled spent the years 1160 to 1164 consolidating his rule and trying to preserve the Columban Christian tradition centred on Iona which was under threat from Vatican-centred monks and priests.

By 1164, however, Somerled was back on the warpath. The noble who most incurred his wrath was Walter FitzAlan, High Steward of Scotland, who had been given vast acres in Renfrewshire by David I. It is easy to imagine FitzAlan looking across to Arran, Bute and the other islands in the Firth of Clyde and wondering why he was not in charge of them, too.

Whatever happened, Somerled decided to march on Renfrew, no doubt to teach FitzAlan a lesson in his castle there. The High Steward summoned the assistance of Malcolm-loyalist knights and bishops and their armed retainers, and the stage was set for a classic battle.

Trouble is, we do not know precisely where the battle took place, or the numbers involved. One ancient sources says that Somerled arrived with his entire force of 160 birlinns and 15,000 men, but that is surely an exaggeration. For that sort of force was not in any way a small raiding party but a full invasion fleet and army.

So could it be that knowing that Malcolm the Maiden was already very ill and possibly dying, this could have been Somerled’s opportunistic bid for the throne itself?

Beat FitzAlan and the royal army and there was nothing between him and Edinburgh or Dunfermline where Malcolm spent his illness. The throne of the King of Scots would be his, and he could make his capital anywhere he wanted – even build a new Glasgow, perhaps.

The Gall-Gael fleet must have made a magnificent if horrific sight to the lowlanders watching it coming up the Clyde probably to land at Inchinnan. The battle took place somewhere between there and Renfrew, and it was horrendous in nature as were all such mediaeval conflicts.

Somerled’s invaders were Hebrideans and Irish and had swords, axes, shields and a terrifying reputation. FitzAlan’s army had Norman-style mounted knights such as Baldwin, the Sheriff of Lanark, and Bishop Herbert of Glasgow, reportedly the survivor of the Sack of Glasgow 11 years later. They also had trained infantry and archers, the former armed with long spears.

The Song of the Death of Somerled says in Latin that the King of the Isles “suddenly landed with an immense company of followers, and threatened to destroy the whole kingdom.”

It is at this point that myth and legend intervene, probably because the descendants of Somerled could not stomach the fact that their great warrior was killed in battle.

According to legend, Somerled was betrayed and assassinated on the eve of battle by a nephew in the service of Malcolm IV. Pointedly, the legend only appears centuries after the Battle of Renfrew.

The only contemporary account of the battle is by the monk Willelmus (William) in the Song of the Death of Somerled. As per usual with monks of that age, all praise is given to the bishop and the saint whose intercession brings about Somerlaed’s death.

“Telo laesus, ense caesus, Sumerledus obiit; Atque unda furibunda eius sorbet filium, Ac multorum fugatorum uulneratos millium.”

“Wounded by a spear, killed by a sword, Somerled died; His son was consumed by the raging sea, and with him many thousands of escaping wounded.”

The son who died was apparently his eldest, GilleCallum. Willelmus goes on to describe how another monk hacks off the head of Somerled and presents it to Bishop Herbert, but that is perhaps gilding the lily.

We do know that Somerled’s army retreated in their remaining boats to the islands, possibly burying their leader at Iona or Saddell Abbey in Argyll which was founded by Somerled’s son Ragnald. Never again did a Lord of the Isles, as Somerled’s descendants became, threaten to take over the whole kingdom of Scotland.

In December, 1165, a little more than year after the battle, Malcolm the Maiden died, never having married or sired an heir. The throne went to his brother William the Lion, who would rule over Scotland for nearly 50 years and despite being captured and humiliated by the English, did much good in firming up the governance of the Scottish nation.

Would Somerled have done any better? Would he have suppressed the Norman influence and built a Gael-controlled Scotland with a massive navy that needed no Wars of Independence to keep England at bay? What type of Scotland would the Lord of the Isles have left as a legacy? – one presumably where clan chiefs and not lowland nobles ruled the land, and also a Scotland that would not have needed an Act of Union.

Thanks to the Battle of Renfrew and Walter FitzAlan’s win, we will never know, but it is surely worth thinking about.