[146] “So ended one of Scotland’s most memorable battles. The contest between the Lowlanders and Donald’s host was a contest between foes, of whom their contemporaries would have said that their ever being in harmony with each other, or having a feeling of common interests and common nationality, was not within the range of rational expectations.... It will be difficult to make those not familiar with the tone of feeling in Lowland Scotland at that time believe that the defeat of Donald of the Isles was felt as a more memorable deliverance even than that of Bannockburn.”--Burton, vol. iii. pp. 101, 102. CHAPTER VI. A.D. 1424-1512. KINGS OF SCOTLAND:-- James I., 1406-1436. James II., 1436-1460. James III., 1460-1488. James IV., 1488-1513. James I.--State of Country--Policy of the King to the Highland Chiefs--Lord of the Isles--Disturbances in Sutherland--Barbarity of a Robber--James’s Highland Expedition--Disturbances in Caithness--Insurrection in the West under Donald Balloch--Lord of the Isles invades Sutherland--Allan of Lorn--Machinations of Edward IV. with Island Chiefs--Rebellion of Earl of Ross --Lord of the Isles submits--Disturbances in Ross and Sutherland --Wise Policy of James IV.--Visits Highlands--Feuds in Sutherland--Highlanders at Flodden. On the return of James I., in 1424, from his captivity in England, he found Scotland, and particularly the Highlands, in a state of the most fearful insubordination. Rapine, robbery, and an utter contempt of the laws prevailed to an alarming extent, which required all the energy of a wise and prudent prince, like James, to repress. When these excesses were first reported to James, by one of his nobles, on entering the kingdom, he thus expressed himself:--“Let God but grant me life, and there shall not be a spot in my dominions where the key shall not keep the castle, and the furze-bush the cow, though I myself should lead the life of a dog to accomplish it.”[147] “At this period, the condition of the Highlands, so far as is discoverable from the few authentic documents which have reached our times, appears to have been in the highest degree rude and uncivilized. There existed a singular combination of Celtic and of feudal manners. Powerful chiefs, of Norman name and Norman blood, had penetrated into the remotest districts, and ruled over multitudes of vassals and serfs, whose strange and uncouth appellatives proclaim their difference of race in the most convincing manner.[148] The tenure of lands by charter and seisin, the feudal services due by the vassal to his lord, the bands of friendship or of manrent which indissolubly united certain chiefs and nobles to each other, the baronial courts, and the complicated official pomp of feudal life, were all to be found in full strength and operation in the northern counties; but the dependence of the barons, who had taken up their residence in these wild districts, upon the king, and their allegiance and