Patrick of Dunbar was more interested in encouraging the trade generated by the great wool production of his sheep-strewn Lammermuir Hills than in warfare and matters of state. But these were troubled times. The Scottish king, Alexander III, was but a child and the heir to the English throne, Edward Plantagenet, already proving aggressive. But it was the Norsemen and Vikings, with their domination of the Hebrides, as well as Orkney, Shetland and the Isle of Man, and the immediate threat they presented to his trading links with Norway and the Baltic States, who finally drove the Cospatrick to action.
