* 1650 – The Battle of Carbisdale: A Royalist army from Orkney invades mainland Scotland but is defeated by a Covenanter army.

It is still not clear how far Orkney ’ s advance was planned only as a feint ; according to historian David Chandler it is probably more accurate to surmise that Marlborough launched Orkney in a serious probe with a view to sounding out the possibilities of the sector.

The Maeshowe group, named after the famous Orkney monument, is among the most elaborate.

They appear relatively late and only in Orkney and it is not clear why the use of cairns continued in the north when their construction had largely ceased elsewhere in Scotland.

Examples from elsewhere in Orkney are the Vinquoy cairn, found at an elevated location on the north end of the island of Eday and Quoyness on Sanday constructed about 2900 BC and which is surrounded by an arc of Bronze Age mounds.

The Bookan type is named after a cairn found to the north-west of the Ring of Brodgar in Orkney, which is now a dilapidated oval mound, about 16 metres in diameter.

Fair Isle ( from Old Norse Frjóey ; Scottish Gaelic Fara ) is an island in northern Scotland, lying around halfway between mainland Shetland and the Orkney islands.

The island is administratively part of Shetland and lies south-west of Sumburgh Head on the Mainland of Shetland and north-east of North Ronaldsay, Orkney.

However, by then the Vikings were almost certainly well established in Orkney and Shetland, and it is probable that many other non-recorded raids occurred before this.

The Kalmar Union ( Danish, Norwegian and ; ) is a historiographical term describing a series of personal unions ( 1397 – 1523 ) that intermittently joined under a single monarch the three kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden ( then including Finland ), and Norway ( then including Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and, prior to their transfer to Scotland in 1471, Shetland and Orkney ).

Maeshowe ( or Maes Howe ; Norse: Orkhaugr ) is a Neolithic chambered cairn and passage grave situated on Mainland, Orkney, Scotland.

It gives its name to the Maeshowe type of chambered cairn, which is limited to Orkney.

Maeshowe is one of the largest tombs in Orkney ; the mound encasing the tomb is in diameter and rises to a height of.

The tomb gives its name to the Maeshowe type of chambered cairn, which is limited to Orkney.

In modern times, Dorothy Dunnett's novel King Hereafter aims to portray a historical Macbeth, but proposes that Macbeth and his rival and sometime ally Thorfinn of Orkney are one and the same ( Thorfinn is his birth name and Macbeth his baptismal name ).

Norn is an extinct North Germanic language that was spoken in the Northern Isles ( Orkney and Shetland ) off the north coast of mainland Scotland and in Caithness in the far north of the Scottish mainland.

Orkney and Shetland were pledged to James III in 1468 and 1469 respectively, and it is with these pledges that the replacement of Norn with Scots is most associated.

Even less is known about " Caithness Norn " than about Orkney and Shetland Norn.

Hoy ( from Norse Háey meaning high island ) is an island in Orkney, Scotland.

After Orkney and Shetland were pledged to Scotland by Norway in 1468 / 69 it was gradually replaced by Scots.

Orkney and Shetland continued to be ruled as autonomous Jarldoms under Norway until 1468, when King Christian I pledged them as security on the dowry of his daughter, who was betrothed to James III of Scotland.

He was in need of cash, however, so the islands of Orkney and Shetland, possessions of the Norwegian crown, were pledged as security until the dowry was to be paid.

In return, Sinclair pledged to pay a sum of 1000 nobles before 11 November, and when called upon, was to serve the Norwegian king on Orkney or elsewhere with 100 equipped and armed men for up to three months.

In return Henry pledged to pay a fee of 1000 nobles before St. Martin's Day ( 11 November ), and, when called upon, serve the king on Orkney or elsewhere with 100 fully armed men for 3 months.

However, Orkney and Shetland were pledged to James III in place of a dowry for his bride Margaret of Denmark by Christian I. James took the Earldom of Orkney for the Crown in 1470, and William was thereafter Earl of Caithness alone until he resigned the Earldom in favour of his son William in 1476, dying in 1484.

In 1468 Orkney and Shetland were pledged by Christian I, in his capacity as king of Norway, for the payment of the dowry of his daughter Margaret, betrothed to James III of Scotland, and as the money was never paid, their connection with the crown of Scotland has been perpetual.

In 1469, the Norwegian King pledged Orkney and Shetland to the crown of Scotland as mortgage for a dowry debt.

By now Blenheim was under assault from every side by three English generals: Cutts, Churchill, and Orkney.

Field Marshal George Hamilton 1666-1737 Earl of Orkney, by Martin Maingaud.

On the Danish flag, the cross design, which represents Christianity, was subsequently adopted by the other Nordic countries ; Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Åland Islands and the Faroe Islands, as well as the Scottish archipelagos of Shetland and Orkney.

* 1904 – The United Kingdom sells a meteorological station on the South Orkney Islands to Argentina, the islands are subsequently claimed by the United Kingdom in 1908.

* 1472 – Orkney and Shetland are pawned by Norway to Scotland in lieu of a dowry for Margaret of Denmark.

Neolithic farming brought permanent settlements, and the wonderfully well-preserved stone house at Knap of Howar on Papa Westray dating from 3500 BC predates by about 500 years the village of similar houses at Skara Brae on West Mainland, Orkney.

George Mackay Brown from Orkney, and Iain Crichton Smith from Lewis, wrote both poetry and prose fiction shaped by their distinctive island backgrounds.

Haakon retreated to Orkney, where he died in December 1263, entertained on his death bed by recitations of the sagas.

According to an alternative version, Malcolm's mother took both sons into exile at the court of Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Earl of Orkney, an enemy of Macbeth's family, and perhaps Duncan's kinsman by marriage.

Malcolm enjoyed a peaceful relationship with the Earldom of Orkney, ruled jointly by his stepsons, Paul and Erlend Thorfinnsson.

However, the decline of Norse speech in Orkney probably began in 1379 when the earldom passed into the hands of the Sinclairs, and Scots had superseded Norse as the language of prestige on the island by the early 15th century.

Despite this, the process by which Scots overtook Norn as the primary spoken language on the islands was not a swift one, and most natives of Orkney and Shetland likely spoke Norn as a first language until the late 16th and early-to-mid 17th centuries respectively.

The dramatic coastline of Hoy greets visitors travelling to Orkney by ferry from the Scottish mainland.

Anastrepta orcadensis, a liverwort also known as Orkney Notchwort, was first discovered on Ward Hill by William Jackson Hooker in 1808.

It is separated from mainland Orkney by the Eynhallow Sound, and, like its neighbours Egilsay and Wyre, can be reached by a ro-ro ferry ( MV Eynhallow ) from Tingwall, on the mainland of Orkney, which takes 20 – 25 minutes.

This service is operated by Orkney Ferries, and can take up to 95 passengers ( reduced to 50 in winter ), and 10 cars.

Beyond by four days ' sail is another promontory, Belerion, which can only be Cornwall, as Diodorus is describing the triangular perimeter and the third point is Orkas, presumably the main island of the Orkney Islands.