allodial property was gradually and craftily shuffled out of the hands of the unenlightened and unwary Shetland peasantry and into the hands of Scottish adventurers, many of whom thus rose to be large landed proprietors, while the Shetland peasants sank to a poor and oppressed class of small tenants, who, until the passing of the Crofters’ Commission Act in 1886, could only be regarded as the slaves of the lairds.
Under Patrick Stewart, the ancient law-book of Shetland disappeared. It is said that he destroyed it, in order to give himself a freer hand. When he could not succeed in getting the Law-Ting, the old legislative council of the Islands, with him, he pushed it aside; and tradition has it that he created a new Law-Ting composed of his own friends and favourites, who had no desire to put obstacles in his path. In this way his decrees obtained a certain semblance of legality. A more detailed account of Earl Patrick’s rule and of Shetland under him would simply be in the main a saga of oppression. The complaints of the Shetlanders against Patrick Stewart at last reached the ear of the Crown. They were found to be justified, and he was beheaded in 1615. But this led only to the annexation of the whole Shetland fief by the Crown. No restitution of what had been taken from them was made to the Shetland peasantry. After the lapse of some time the Islands were again given in fief, and were treated almost as before.
By the time of the Stewarts we no longer find any mention of the office of Law-man. On the other hand, we find mention of the office of Foude. Under the Stewart Earls all the ancient forms connected with the government of the Islands were by degrees abolished, and replaced by Scottish forms. Meetings of the Law-Ting, however, are mentioned, according to Hibbert, after the time of the Stewarts, and even as late as 1670.
The unscrupulous way in which the Islands were treated during the time that they belonged to Scotland (and after Scotland and England were united the connection of the Islands with that country was particularly close), has kept alive in the minds of the people an ill-will towards Scotsmen and everything Scottish, an ill-will which, however, during the last fifty years has steadily decreased, and which, as a result of the closer intercourse established in the 19th century, has now almost entirely disappeared. On account of the remote situation of the Islands, there was really no regular communication with Scotland before the 19th century. Before that time, the Shetland trade was with Bergen in Norway and with the Hanse towns Hamburg, Lubeck and Bremen. The name “Hjeltefjorden”, given to the northern entrance of the harbour of Bergen, is an evidence of the frequent visits of Shetlanders to that port. These relations certainly help to explain the partiality with which Shetlanders still regard the time when the Islands belonged to Norway and Denmark.
Although Shetland has been a province of Scotland for nearly four and a half centuries, Shetlanders still cherish the old feeling of kinship with the Scandinavian people, and have, to this day, strongly pronounced Scandinavian sympathies.
