Blair Collection > Celtic magazine > Volume 5

HISTOEY OF THE MACDONALDS. 211
sure to arise out of the rival claims of two such powerful families, closely
connected with the Lord of the Isles, there were other circumstances, in
addition to these, which tended to involve his Lordship in feuds which
his natural disposition inclined him to settle more with the sword than
hv an appeal to the laws. There was a certain John MacArthur, of the
family of Campbell, and a leader of some note in the Highlands, who
appears to have revived about this period a claim which one of his
ancestors had acquired over a portion of Garmoran and the Iforth Isles,
and it can easily be conjectured what reception the assertions of such pre-
tensions would receive from Alexander of the Isles and his warlike rela-
tives. There is a charter of the lands of Moydert, &c., by Christina,
daughter of Allan MacEuari, in favour of Arthur, son of Sir Arthur
Campbell, knight, early in the fourteenth century, which is found, quoted
for the names of the witnesses, in a M8. history of the Macnaughtans, in
the Advocates' Library. The event, however, which appears to have had
most efiect in throwing the Highlands and Islands into confusion at this
time was the murder of John, Lord of Isla and Kintyre, uncle to the
Lord of the Isles, by a man, James Campbell, who is said to have received
a commission from the King to apprehend John of Isla, but who ex-
ceeded his instructions by putting him to death, "When it is considered
in what lawless state even the more accessible portions of the kingdom
were found on his accession by James I., owing to the incapacity and the
weakness of the regent, Murdoch, Duke of Albany, it can easily be con-
ceived how the murder of the uncle of Alexander of the Isles, and the
leader of a powerful branch of the Macdonalds, shoidd have raised dis-
turbances in the Western Highlands and Isles which required all the
energy and personal bravery of the King to suppress.* Among the most
prominent of those executed at Inverness in 1427 was the above-named
John MacArthur, and James Campbell, hanged for the murder of Jolm
of Isla, as if to show the supposed impartiality of the treacherous proceed-
ings of the King and his parliament on that occasion. Hugh jNIacdonald
informs us that while the Lord of the Isles was confined in TantaUon
Castle, the King sent this Jolm Campbell to know " if John More of
Kintyre, Macdonald's uncle, would take aU his nephew's land ; but it was
a trap laid to weaken them that they might be the more easily conquered.
James Campbell sent a man with a message to John of Kintyre, desiring
him to meet him at a point called Ard-Du, with some prudent gentlemen,
and that he had matters of consequence from the King to be imparted to
him. John came to the place appointed with a small retinue, but James
Campbell with a very great train, and told (him) of the King's intention
of granting him all the lands possessed by Macdouald, conditionally he
would hold of him and serve him. Jolm said he did not know wherein
his nephew wronged the King, and that his nephew was as deserving of
his rights as he could be, and that he would not accept of those lands,
nor serve for them, tiU his nephew would be set at liberty ; and that his
nephew himself was as nearly related to the King as he could be. James
Campbell, hearing the answer, said that he (John of Isla) was the King's
prisoner. John made all the resistance he could, till, overpowered by
numbers, he was kided. His death made a great noise through the king-
* Gregory's Western Highlands and Isles, pp. 34-35.