=18. State of the Highlands.=--James paid frequent visits to _Kintyre_, the _Isles_, and _Inverness_, and took measures for the building of more castles and the maintenance of garrisons in those already built. This plan might have been successful in keeping the country quiet, if the Crown had been strong enough to carry it out. As it was not, James was forced to fall back on the old policy of turning the feuds of the chiefs to their own destruction, by empowering one to act against another. Again the _Gordons_ got a great increase of power, for their head, the _Earl of Huntly_, was appointed sheriff of _Inverness_, _Ross_, and _Caithness_, with the condition that he should finish and maintain a fortress at _Inverness_. In the west the charge of keeping order was put into the hands of the Earl of Argyle, the chief of the Campbells. An attempt was also made to break up the Isles into sheriffdoms, and to impose upon the Highlanders the laws of the Lowlands. A commission was issued for the banishment of broken men, as those clansmen were called who had no representative chiefs, and an Act was passed which made the chiefs responsible for the execution of legal writs upon their clansmen. But the disaffected chiefs rallied round _Donald Dhu_, an illegitimate descendant of the last _Lord of the Isles_, and it took three years' fighting on the part of the King and of Huntly to reduce them. _Donald_ was at last brought captive to _Edinburgh_, and the lordship of the Isles was finally broken up in 1504. =19. Differences with England.=--In this reign Scotland first appears as a naval power, and this proved a new source of strife with England. One of the King of Scots' captains, _Andrew Barton_, bore letters of marque against the _Portuguese_, but the English accused him of taking _English_ vessels also. He was attacked in time of truce by the _Howards_. He himself was killed in the action, and his ship, the _Lion_, was taken, and became the second ship in the English navy. James had also another cause of complaint against _Henry the Eighth_, for Henry refused to give up to his sister _Margaret_ a legacy of jewels left to her by her father. When therefore _England_ and _France_ declared war, _Scotland_ stood by her old ally, the bond between them was drawn closer, the right of citizenship in France was extended to the Scots, and _Queen Anne of France_ made an appeal to the chivalrous feeling of James by choosing him as her knight, and calling on him for assistance. James therefore fitted out a fleet of twenty-three vessels. Among them was a very large ship called the _Great Michael_, which was looked on as a masterpiece of shipbuilding. This fleet was put under the command of _James Hamilton, Earl of Arran_, with orders to sail for France. Instead of doing this, he stormed _Carrickfergus_, and what became of the ships was never clearly made out.