Matheson Collection > Clan Donald > Volume 1

300 THE CLAN DONALD.
The Islanders were now compelled by the harsh
measures adopted against them to take steps to
defend their territories, and they naturally turned
to Donald Dubh as their legitimate leader. Means
were taken secretly to effect Donald's escape from
Inchconnel, where he was kept a close prisoner by
his maternal grandfather, the Earl of Argyle. This
was accomplished, evidently without much difficulty,
by the men of Glencoe, who, by what MacVuiricli
calls " a fenian exploit," broke into his dungeon and
released the heir of Innsegall.^ Donald had no
sooner been set free than he betook himself to the
Isles. He was loyally received by the vassals,
and was forthwith proclaimed Lord of the Isles.
Torquil Macleod of Lewis, who was one of
the most powerful of the vassals of the Isles,
was the first to join the standard of the
newly proclaimed Island Lord, and being closely
related to him by marriage, he took Donald
meanwhile under his protection in his Castle of
Stornoway. The Macdonald standard was now once
more set up in the Isles, and the old vassals, with
very few exceptions, made haste to join it. The
Macleans, the Camerons, the Mackinnons, the Mac-
leods, the Macneills, the Macquarries, and others,
were all ready to strike a 1)1 ow for the fatherland
and the heir of the House of Isla. The rebellion
very soon assumed a formidable appearance, and the
Islanders, being determined to restore the old Celtic
order of things, sought the assistance of both England
and Ireland. This we learn from the proceedings of
the Parliament which met in 1503, but there is no
evidence of the assistance sought having ever been
rendered, and it may have been, after all, nothing
more than mere suspicion on the part of the Scottish
' MacVuirich, in Keliq. Celt, p. ItiS.