The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. Ill] OF SCOTLAND 225
by the other barons who belonged to their party ; but a
circumstance soon after occurred, which, together with the
murder of Douglas, and defeat of Crawford, by Huntly, not
only reduced John, after having for several years maintained
a species of independence, to submit to the king, and resign
his lands into his hands, but moreover proved the cause of
the subsequent ruin of the kingdom of the Isles, which had
so long existed in a condition of partial independence. This
circumstance was a rebellion in the Isles, against John, by
his son Angus Og, and John was thus doomed to experience,
in his own territories, the same opposition which he had so
long offered to the king.
With regard to the actual circumstances which gave rise
to this extraordinary contest, there is considerable obscurity,
but the
the clan
causes are thus stated by an ancient
Donald :—
Sennachie of
" John succeeded his father, a meek, modest
man, brought up at court in his younger years, and a scholar
more fit to be a churchman, than to command so many
irregular tribes of people. He endeavoured, however, still to
keep them in their allegiance, by bestowing gifts on some,
and promoting others with lands and possessions ; by this
he became prodigal, and very expensive. He had a natural
son, begotten of Macdufifie of Colonsay's daughter, and Angus
Og, his legitimate son, by the earl of Angus's daughter. He
gave the lands of Morvairn to Maclean, and many of his
lands in the north to others, judging, by these means, to
make them more faithful to him than they were to his father.
His son, Angus Og, being a bold, forward man, and high
minded, observing that his father very much diminished his
rents by his prodigality, thought to deprive him of all management
and authority." But, whatever was the cause of this
dissension, it appears that Angus Og, who had been appointed
by his father lieutenant general in all his possessions, and who
had been the actual mover in all these insurrections, took
advantage of his station to deprive his father of all authority
whatever, and to become lord of the Isles, and Angus Og was
no sooner in a situation of power than he determined to be
revenged upon the earl of Atholl, for the hostility which he had
invariably manifested against the lord of the Isles, and at the