The Scottish Highlands, Highland Clans and Highland Regiments, Volume 2 (of 2)

by Unknown

The opposition of Crawford, Douglas, and their associates had hitherto been chronic; but, on the death of Alexander, it broke out into active insurrection; and the new Lord of the Isles, as determined an opponent of the royal party as his father had been, seized the royal castles of Inverness, Urquhart, and Ruthven in Badenoch, at the same time declaring himself independent. In thus raising the standard of rebellion, John of the Isles was secretly supported by the Earl of Douglas, and openly by the barons, who were attached to his party. But a series of fatalities soon extinguished this insurrection. Douglas was murdered in Edinburgh Castle; Crawford was entirely defeated by Huntly; and John, by the rebellion of his son Angus, was doomed to experience, in his own territories, the same opposition which he had himself offered to the general government. Submission was, therefore, inevitable. Having for several years maintained a species of independence, he was compelled to resign his lands into the hands of the king, and to consent to hold them as a vassal of the crown. This, however, was but a trifling matter compared with the rebellion of his son, which, fomented probably by the court, proved eventually the ruin of the principality of the Isles, after it had existed so long in a state of partial independence. Various circumstances are stated as having given rise to this extraordinary contest, although in none of these, probably, is the true cause to be found. It appears, however, that Angus Og,[145] having been appointed his father’s lieutenant and representative in all his possessions, took advantage of the station or office which was thus conferred on him, deprived his father of all authority, and got himself declared Lord of the Isles. How this was effected we know not; but scarcely had he attained the object of his ambition, when he resolved to take signal vengeance upon the Earl of Athole, an inveterate enemy of his house, and, at the same time, to declare himself altogether independent of the crown. With this view, having collected a numerous army, he suddenly appeared before the castle of Inverness, and having been admitted by the governor, who had no suspicion whatever of his design, immediately proclaimed himself king of the Isles. He then invaded the district of Athole; stormed and took Blair Castle; and having seized the earl and countess, carried them prisoners to Islay. The reason given by Mr Gregory for Angus’s enmity against the Earl and Countess of Athole is, that the former having crossed over privately to Islay, carried off the infant son of Angus, called Donald Dubh, or the Black, and committed him to the care of Argyle, his maternal grandfather, who placed him in the Castle of Inchconnely, where he was detained for many years. Mr Gregory places this event after the Battle of Bloody Bay. On his return to the Isles with the booty he had obtained, the marauder was overtaken by a violent tempest, in which the greater part of his galleys foundered. Heaven seemed to declare against the spoiler, who had added sacrilege to rapine by plundering and attempting to burn the chapel of St Bridget in Athole. Stricken with remorse for the crime he had committed, he released the earl and countess, and then sought to expiate his guilt by doing penance on the spot where it had been incurred.

As a proof of the sincerity of his repentance, this Angus Og next engaged in treason upon a larger scale. At the instigation of this hopeful son, his father, whom he had already deprived of all authority, now entered into a compact with the king of England and the Earl of Douglas, the object of which was nothing less than the entire subjugation of Scotland, and its partition amongst the contracting parties. By this treaty, which is dated the 18th of February 1462, the Lord of the Isles agreed, on the payment of a stipulated sum, to become the sworn ally of the king of England, and to assist that monarch, with the whole body of his retainers, in the wars in Ireland and elsewhere; and it was further provided, that in the event of the entire subjugation of Scotland, the whole of that kingdom, to the north of the Firth of Forth, should be equally divided between Douglas, the Lord of the Isles, and Donald Balloch of Islay; whilst, on the other hand, Douglas was to be reinstated in possession of those lands between the Forth and the English borders, from which he had, at this time, been excluded. Conquest, partition, and spoliation, were thus the objects contemplated in this extraordinary compact. Yet no proceeding appears to have been taken, in consequence of the treaty, until the year 1473, when we find the Lord of the Isles again in arms against the government. He continued several years in open rebellion; but having received little or no support from the other parties to the league, he was declared a traitor in a parliament held at Edinburgh in 1475, his estates were also confiscated, and the Earls of Crawford and Athole were directed to march against him at the head of a considerable force. The meditated blow was, however, averted by the timely interposition of his father, the Earl of Ross. By a seasonable grant of the lands of Knapdale, he secured the influence of the Earl of Argyll, and through the mediation of that nobleman, received a remission of his past offences, was reinstated in his hereditary possessions, which he had resigned into the hands of the crown, and created a peer of parliament, by the title of the Lord of the Isles. The earldom of Ross, the lands of Knapdale, and the sheriffships of Inverness and Nairn were, however, retained by the crown, apparently as the price of the remission granted to this doubly unfortunate man.

But Angus Og was no party to this arrangement. He continued to defy the power of the government; and when the Earl of Athole was sent to the north to reinstate the Earl of Ross in his remaining possessions, he placed himself at the head of the clan, and prepared to give him battle. Athole was joined by the Mackenzies, Mackays, Frasers, and others; but being met by Angus at a place called Lagebread, he was defeated with great slaughter, and escaped with great difficulty from the field. The Earls of Crawford and Huntly were then sent against this desperate rebel, the one by sea and the other by land; but neither of them prevailed against the victorious insurgent. A third expedition, under the Earls of Argyll and Athole, accompanied by the father of the rebel and several families of the Isles, produced no result; and the two earls, who seem to have had little taste for an encounter with Angus, returned without effecting anything. John the father, however, proceeded onwards through the Sound of Mull, accompanied by the Macleans, Macleods, Macneills, and others, and having encountered Angus in a bay on the south side of the promontory of Ardnamurchan,[146] a desperate combat ensued, in which Angus was again victorious, and his unfortunate parent overthrown. By the battle of the Bloody Bay, as it is called in the traditions of the country, Angus obtained possession of the extensive territories of his clan, and, as “when treason prospers ’tis no longer treason,” was recognised as its head. Angus, some time before 1490, when marching to attack Mackenzie of Kintail, was assassinated by an Irish harper.[147]

The rank of heir to the lordship of the Isles devolved on the nephew of John, Alexander of Lochalsh, son of his brother, Celestine. Placing himself at the head of the vassals of the Isles, he endeavoured, it is said, with John’s consent, to recover possession of the earldom of Ross, and in 1491, at the head of a large body of western Highlanders, he advanced from Lochaber into Badenoch, where he was joined by the clan Chattan. They then marched to Inverness, where, after taking the royal castle, and placing a garrison in it, they proceeded to the north-east, and plundered the lands of Sir Alexander Urquhart, sheriff of Cromarty. They next hastened to Strathconnan, for the purpose of ravaging the lands of the Mackenzies. The latter, however, surprised and routed the invaders, and expelled them from Ross, their leader, Alexander of Lochalsh, being wounded, and as some say, taken prisoner. In consequence of this insurrection, at a meeting of the Estates in Edinburgh in May 1493, the title and possessions of the lord of the Isles were declared to be forfeited to the crown. In January following the aged John appeared in the presence of the king, and made a voluntary surrender of his lordship, after which he appears to have remained for some time in the king’s household, in the receipt of a pension. He finally retired to the monastery of Paisley, where he died about 1498; and was interred, at his own request, in the tomb of his royal ancestor, Robert II.[148]

With the view of reducing the insular chiefs to subjection, and establishing the royal authority in the Islands, James IV., soon after the forfeiture in 1493, proceeded in person to the West Highlands, when Alexander of Lochalsh, the principal cause of the insurrection which had led to it, and John of Isla, grandson and representative of Donald Balloch, were among the first to make their submission. On this occasion they appear to have obtained royal charters of the lands they had previously held under the Lord of the Isles, and were both knighted. In the following year the king visited the Isles twice, and having seized and garrisoned the castle of Dunaverty in South Kintyre, Sir John of Isla, deeply resenting this proceeding, collected his followers, stormed the castle, and hung the governor from the wall, in the sight of the king and his fleet. With four of his sons, he was soon after apprehended at Isla, by MacIan of Ardnamurchan, and being conveyed to Edinburgh, they were there executed for high treason.

In 1495 King James assembled an army at Glasgow, and on the 18th May, he was at the castle of Mingarry in Ardnamurchan, when several of the Highland chiefs made their submission to him. In 1497 Sir Alexander of Lochalsh again rebelled, and invading the more fertile districts of Ross, was by the Mackenzies and Munroes, at a place called Drumchatt, again defeated and driven out of Ross. Proceeding southward among the Isles, he endeavoured to rouse the Islanders to arms in his behalf, but without success. He was surprised in the island of Oransay, by MacIan of Ardnamurchan, and put to death.

In 1501, Donald Dubh, whom the islanders regarded as their rightful lord, and who, from his infancy, had been detained in confinement in the castle of Inchconnell, escaped from prison, and appeared among his clansmen. They had always maintained that he was the lawful son of Angus of the Isles, by his wife the Lady Margaret Campbell, daughter of the first Earl of Argyll, but his legitimacy was denied by the government when the islanders combined to assert by arms his claims as their hereditary chief. His liberation he owed to the gallantry and fidelity of the men of Glencoe. Repairing to the isles of Lewis, he put himself under the protection of its lord, Torquil Macleod, who had married Katherine, another daughter of Argyll, and therefore sister of the lady whom the islanders believed to be his mother. A strong confederacy was formed in his favour, and about Christmas 1503 an irruption of the islanders and western clans, under Donald Dubh, was made into Badenoch, which was plundered and wasted with fire and sword. To put down this formidable rebellion, the array of the whole kingdom north of Forth and Clyde was called out; and the Earls of Argyll, Huntly, Crawford, and Marischal, and Lord Lovat, with other powerful barons, were charged to lead this force against the islanders. But two years elapsed before the insurrection was finally quelled. In 1505 the Isles were again invaded from the south by the king in person, and from the north by Huntly, who took several prisoners, but none of them of any rank. In these various expeditions the fleet under the celebrated Sir Andrew Wood and Robert Barton was employed against the islanders, and at length the insurgents were dispersed. Carniburg, a strong fort on a small isolated rock, near the west coast of Mull, in which they had taken refuge, was reduced; the Macleans and the Macleods submitted to the king, and Donald Dubh, again made a prisoner, was committed to the castle of Edinburgh, where he remained for nearly forty years. After this the great power formerly enjoyed by the Lords of the Isles was transferred to the Earls of Argyll and Huntly, the former having the chief rule in the south isles and adjacent coasts, while the influence of the latter prevailed in the north isles and Highlands.

The children of Sir Alexander of Lochalsh, the nephew of John the fourth and last Lord of the Isles, had fallen into the hands of the king, and as they were all young, they appear to have been brought up in the royal household. Donald, the eldest son, called by the Highlanders, Donald Galda, or the foreigner, from his early residence in the Lowlands, was allowed to inherit his father’s estates, and was frequently permitted to visit the Isles. He was with James IV. at the battle of Flodden, and appears to have been knighted under the royal banner on that disastrous field. Two months after, in November 1513, he raised another insurrection in the Isles, and being joined by the Macleods and Macleans, was proclaimed Lord of the Isles. The numbers of his adherents daily increased. But in the course of 1515, the Earl of Argyll prevailed upon the insurgents to submit to the regent. At this time Sir Donald appeared frequently before the council, relying on a safe-conduct, and his reconciliation to the regent (John, Duke of Albany) was apparently so cordial that on 24th September 1516, a summons was despatched to ‘Monsieur de Ylis,’ to join the royal army, then about to proceed to the borders. Ere long, however, he was again in open rebellion. Early in 1517 he razed the castle of Mingarry to the ground, and ravaged the whole district of Ardnamurchan with fire and sword. His chief leaders now deserted him, and some of them determined on delivering him up to the regent. He, however, effected his escape, but his two brothers were made prisoners by Maclean of Dowart and Macleod of Dunvegan, who hastened to make their submission to the government. In the following year, Sir Donald was enabled to revenge the murder of his father on the MacIans of Ardnamurchan, having defeated and put to death their chief and two of his sons, with a great number of his men. He was about to be forfeited for high treason, when his death, which took place a few weeks after his success against the MacIans, brought the rebellion, which had lasted for upwards of five years, to a sudden close. He was the last male of his family, and died without issue.

In 1539, Donald Gorme of Sleat claimed the lordship of the Isles, as lawful heir male of John, Earl of Ross. With a considerable force he passed over into Ross-shire, where, after ravaging the district of Kinlochewe, he proceeded to Kintail, with the intention of surprising the castle Eilandonan, at that time almost without a garrison. Exposing himself rashly under the wall, he received a wound in the foot from an arrow, which proved fatal.