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JOHN, LORD OF THE ISLES.

Thus was formed the modern Lordship of the Isles, comprehending the territories of the Macdonalds of Isla, and the Macruaries of the North Isles, and a great part of those of the Macdugalls of Lorn; and although the representative of the latter family was nominally restored to the estates of his ancestors on the occasion of his marriage with a niece of the King,1 yet he was obliged to leave the Lord of the Isles in possession of such portion of the Lorn estates as had been granted to the latter by David in 1344. The daughter and heiress of John de Ergadia, or Macdugall, the restored Lord of Lorn, carried Lorn Proper to her husband, Robert Stewart, founder of the Rosyth family, by whom the Lordship was sold to his brother, John Stewart of Innermeath, ancestor of the Stewarts, Lords of Lorn.2

After the reconciliation of David II. and John of Isla in 1334, we can trace various attempts, on the part of the English government, to withdraw the latter from his allegiance, all of which seem to have failed." In the later years of David's reign, the Lord of the Isles was again in rebellion; nor was he reduced to obedience without much difficulty. The records of the period, however, show that his turbulence at this time was not the result of English intrigue, but connected with a general resistance, on the part of the Highlanders, to some of the fiscal measures of the Scottish government.* The second reconciliation of the Lord of the Isles with David II. took place in 1369, a year before the death of that King; and, from this time till his death, in the reign of Robert II., he conducted himself as a loyal and obedient

1 Robertson's Index, p. 30.

2 Inventory of Argyle Writs, title Lorn.

3 Rymer's Fœdera, V., 530, 849. Rotuli Scotiæ, I., 677.

4

Ancient Book of Record, quoted by Mr. Tytler, Vol. II., p. 169.

subject. Having thus given a brief sketch of the public history of John, first Lord of the Isles, under the reigns of David II. and Robert II., it now becomes necessary to allude to his private history during the same period.

He married, as we have mentioned, Amie Macruari, heiress of that family; and his sons by this marriage were John, Godfrey, and Ranald. The eldest of these sons was dead before 1369, leaving issue, Angus, who did not long survive. Of the others we shall afterwards have occasion more particularly to speak. Notwithstanding that he had, in right of Amie his wife, succeeded to such extensive possessions, the Lord of the Isles divorced that lady, and married, secondly, the Lady Margaret, daughter to Robert, High Steward of Scotland. Of this marriage there were likewise three sons-viz., Donald, John, and Alexander. We cannot fix precisely the date of this second marriage; but it must have taken place in the reign of David II., as Donald, the eldest son, was named as a hostage by his father in 1369. It is probable that the Lord of the Isles, and his father-in-law, the Steward, had come to a secret understanding before the marriage, on which they afterwards acted, when, at the death of David, the Steward ascended the throne by the title of Robert II. Certain it is, that, after that event, the destination of the Lordship of the Isles was altered, so as to cause it to descend to the grandchildren of the

A. D. 1370.

1 The dispensation for this marriage was dated in 1337; Andrew Stewart's History of the Stewarts, p. 446.

2 It seems clear, from the unvarying tradition of the country, that the Lady Amie had given no grounds for this divorce. She dwelt on her own estates till her death; and is said to have built the Castles of Elanterim in Moydert, and Borve in Benbecula.

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DONALD, SECOND LORD OF THE ISLES,

King. Aware that his right to Garmoran and the North Isles was annulled by the divorce of his first wife, the Lord of the Isles, disregarding her claims, and trusting to his influence with the King, his father-in-law, procured a royal charter of the lands in question, in which her name was not even mentioned. Godfrey, the eldest son of the Lord of the Isles, by his first wife, resisted these unjust proceedings-maintaining his mother's prior claims, and his own as her heir; but Ranald, his younger brother, being more pliant, was rewarded by a grant of the North Isles, Garmoran, and many other lands, A. D. 1373. to hold of John, Lord of the Isles, and his heirs. Such was the state of affairs in the Lordship of

the Isles at the death of the first Lord. He

A. D. 1380. died at his own castle of Ardtornish, in Mor vern, and was buried in Iona, with great splendour, by the ecclesiastics of the Isles, whose attachment he had obtained by liberal grants to the Church, and who evinced their gratitude, by bestowing on him the appellation, which tradition has handed down to our days, of "the good John of Isla."4

Donald, the eldest son of the second marriage, became, on his father's death, second Lord of the Isles, and in that capacity was, most undoubtedly, feudal superior and actual chief of his brothers, whether of the full or of the half blood. He married Mary Leslie,

1 This appears from various charters in the public records, soon after the accession of Robert II.

2 Reg. of Great Seal, Rot. III., No. 18.

3 Macvurich's MS. in Gaelic, commonly, but erroneously, called the Red Book of Clanranald.

4 Sec Dean Monro's Genealogies, written in the sixteenth century.

CLAIMS THE EARLDOM OF ROSS.

31

who afterwards became Countess of Ross, and his contest with the Regent Duke of Albany, regarding that Earldom, in the course of which the battle A. D. 1411. of Harlaw was fought, is too well known to require repetition here. It is only necessary to remark, that the whole array of the Lordship of the Isles followed him on that occasion, and that he was not weakened by any opposition, on the part of his elder brothers or their descendants, which certainly might have been looked for. Ranald, the youngest, but most favoured son of the first marriage of the good John, was, as the scannachies tell us, "old in the government of the Isles at his father's death." After that event, he acted as tutor or guardian to his younger brother, Donald, Lord of the Isles, to whom, on his attaining majority, he delivered over the Lordship, in presence of the vassals, "contrary to the opinion of the men of the Isles," who, doubtless, considered Godfrey as their proper Lord. On the death of Ranald, who did not long survive his father, his children, then young, were dispossessed by their uncle Godfrey, who assumed the style of Lord of Uist (which, with Garmoran, he actually possessed), but never questioned the claims of Donald to the Lordship of the Isles.2 If the opinion of the Islanders was, at first, really in favour of Godfrey, the liberality of Donald seems soon to have reconciled them to the rule of the latter; at least, there is no trace, after this time, of any opposition among them to Donald, or his descendants. As

1 Macvurich's MS.

2 Charter by Godfridus de Insula, Dominus de Uist, to the monastery of Inchaffray, in 1388; dated, "apud castrum nostrum de Elantyrim: " Chartulary of Inchaffray.

the claim of "Donald of Harlaw," to the Earldom of Ross, in right of his wife, was, after his death, virtually admitted by King James I., and as Donald himself was actually in possession of that Earldom, and acknowledged by the vassals in 1411, he may, without impropriety, be called the first Earl of Ross of his family. To his brothers of the full blood, he gave ample territories, as his vassals; and each of them became the founder of a powerful family. The eldest, John Mor, or John the Tanister, as he was called, was the progenitor of a numerous tribe, called the Clandonald of the South, or the Clan Ian Mhor of Isla and Kintyre, where their hereditary possessions lay. Alexander, or Allaster Carrach, the youngest of the brothers, was styled Lord of Lochaber; and from him descended the Macdonalds of Keppoch, or, as they are sometimes styled, the Clanranald of Lochaber. After the death of John, Lord of the Isles, we discover various indications that the intrigues of the English court with the Scottish Islanders had been resumed; and it is not altogether improbable, that it was a suspicion of these treasonable practices which caused the Regent, Robert of Albany, to oppose the pretensions of Donald, Lord of the Isles, to the Earldom of Ross. But, although English emissaries were, on various occasions, despatched, not only to the Lord of the Isles himself, but to his brothers, Godfrey and John-and two of the brothers even appear to have visited the English court -we cannot, at this distance of time, ascertain how far these intrigues were carried. Donald, second Lord of

1 Rymer's Federa, VIII., 146, 418, 527. Rotuli Scotia, II., 94, 155.