The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. Ill] OF SCOTLAND 229
Mingarry, in Ardnamurchan, and reduced most of the Highland
chiefs to obedience.
The lord of the Isles, nevertheless, still refused to submit,
and defied the royal authority. James found himself unable
successfully to attack him in his strongholds, but on his return
to Edinburgh, he assembled a parliament, in which the title and
possessions of the lord of the Isles were declared forfeited to
the crown.
Not long after this, John of the Isles appears to have died ;
and as his grandscm, Donald Du, was still a minor, and the
other branches of the family were engaged in various dissensions
among each other, there was no one at once to resume the
government of the clan, and to offer effectual resistance to the
king. The forfeiture and death of John had the effect of completely
disorganizing the clan ; while all those clans which had
been dependent upon the lords of the Isles, although not
connected by descent, having attained to considerable power
under their protection, seized this opportunity, with one accord,
of declaring themselves independent of the Macdonalds, and set
about procuring from the king feudal titles to their respective
lands.
There was no longer, therefore, any prospect of the
Macdonalds again obtaining the almost royal state which they
had so long enjoyed, and from this period may accordingly be
dated the fall of that once powerful clan ; although, before the
Macdonalds finally resigned the contest, they appear to have
made three several attempts to place various of their branches at
the head of the whole tribe ; but these attempts proved equally
unsuccessful, partly from the prompt measures adopted by
government, but principally from the effects of their own
internal dissensions, as well as from the great opposition they
received from those clans formerly dependent on the Mac-
donalds, but whose interest it had now become to prevent the
union of the tribe under one head as formerly. The first of
these attempts took place shortly after the death of John of the
Isles, and was made in favour of Donald Du, his grandson by
his son, Angus Og. The principal parties engaged in this
attempt were Alaster Macdonald, of Lochalsh, the son of
Celestin, who was a brother of John, lord of the Isles, Torquil