After the defeat of James, Earl of Douglas, who had renounced his allegiance to James II., at Arkinholme, in 1454, he retired into Argyleshire, where he was received by the Earl of Ross, with whom, and the Lord of the Isles, he entered into an alliance. The ocean prince, having a powerful fleet of 500 galleys at his command, immediately assembled his vassals, to the amount of 5,000 fighting men, and, having embarked them in his navy, gave the command of the whole to Donald Balloch, Lord of Isla, his near kinsman, a chief who, besides his possessions in Scotland, had great power in the north of Ireland. This potent chief, whose hereditary antipathy to the Scottish throne was as keen as that of his relation, entered cheerfully into the views of Douglas. With the force under his command he desolated the western coast of Scotland from Innerkip to Bute, the Cumbrays and the Island of Arran; yet formidable as he was both in men and ships, the loss was not so considerable as might have been expected, from the prudent precautions taken by the king to repel the invaders. The summary of the damage sustained is thus related in a contemporary chronicle:--“There was slain of good men fifteen; of women, two or three; of children, three or four. The plunder included five or six hundred horse, ten thousand oxen and kine, and more than a thousand sheep and goats. At the same time, they burnt down several mansions in Innerkip around the church; harried all Arran; stormed and levelled with the ground the castle of Brodick; and wasted, with fire and sword, the islands of the Cumbrays. They also levied tribute upon Bute; carrying away a hundred bolls of malt, a hundred marts, and a hundred marks of silver.”[156]