The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. VIII] OF SCOTLAND 321
Scotland, whose power was too great for the earls of Ross
to overcome, and who consequently divided with them the
consideration which the latter had alone previously held in
the Highlands. It would lead to too great length to enter
in this place into a detailed account of the history of these
earls, particularly as their great power involved them so much
with the general public events of Scottish history, that such
a detail becomes the less necessary ; suffice it therefore to
say, that notwithstanding the powerful
clan of the Macdonalds
having by the cession of the Isles been brought into the field,
they continued to maintain the high station they had reached
in point of influence ; and their policy leading them to a
constant adherence to the established government of the time,
they were ready to take advantage of the numerous rebellions
of their rival chiefs to increase their own influence, although
the actual strength of the Macdonalds, and the advantage
they derived from the distant and inaccessible nature of their
extensive possessions,
manent advantage to
was too great to allow
be obtained over them.
any very per-
Such was the
reciprocal position of these two great families in respect to
each other ; and each of them would perhaps in the end have
proved too much for the strength of the government, had
they not at all times had to apprehend the enmity of the
other ; so that they remained in an attitude of mutual defiance
and respect until the extinction of the direct male line of the
earls of Ross, when the introduction, through the operation of
the feudal principles of succession, of a Norman baron into
their territories and dignities, not only deprived the lords of
the Isles of a dreaded rival, but eventually even threw the
whole power and resources of the earldom of Ross into the
hands of these Island lords ; and thus, no Highland chief
remaining powerful enough to offer any opposition to the
Macdonalds, gave birth to that brief but eventful struggle
between the lords of the Isles and the crown, which could
only
terminate with the ruin or extinction of one of the
contending parties.
This termination of the male line of the earls of Ross, and
introduction in their place of a Norman baron, although it
was but for a short period that the Lowland family remained,
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