Blair Collection > Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of the antient Caledonians, their posterity the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots

Principality of the Ijles. 283
prince, Edward the Third of England. But re-
turning afterwards to his allegiance to his natural
Jovereign, Robert the Second of Scotland confirmed
all the rights of his family, wliether old or recent,
;ind gave him his daughter in marriage. — Donald
his 101 of that marriage was the famous Lord of
the Illcs, who added the earldom of Rofs to the
vatt poireilions left by his anceflors, fought the
batile of Harlaw, to defend that acquifition, againft
tile duke of Albany's army, and maintained his
titli;, in fpite of all the efforts made by thofe in
the adminiftration of that time.
The two immediate fucceflbrs qf Donald were
either too powerful to be loyal fubjefts, or too
much the objedls of public jealoufy and private
refentment to be left in the undifturbed poffeflion
of their overgrown eftates. John, the laft of thefe
great lords, prqvoked by injuries received from the
court of Scotland, either really or in imagination,
deluded at the fam.e time out of his duty by the
Douglafies, and bribed withal by Edward the
Fourth of England, who took care to feed his im-
moderate ambition with the amp'eft prom ifes, ex-
erted his whole ftrength in fubverting the efta-
blifhed government of his country, and in the end
proved the ruin of his own family's greatnefs.
He loft the earldom of Rofs, together with many
other confiderable trads of land which he had
pofTeiTed in different parts of the Continent, and
v;as of courfe reduced to a lyiediocrity of fortune,
which difabled him cffedually from being any
longer formidable. The other chieftains and great
men of the Ifles, who had been long the obfe-
quious vaflais, or at befl the impotent neighbours
of Sumerled's pofteriry, embraced fo favourable