marauder was overtaken by a violent tempest, in which the greater
part of his galleys foundered. Heaven seemed to declare against
the spoiler, who had added sacrilege to rapine by plundering and
attempting to burn the chapel of St Bridget in Athole. Stricken with
remorse for the crime he had committed, he released the earl and
countess, and then sought to expiate his guilt by doing penance on
the spot where it had been incurred.
As a proof of the sincerity of his repentance, this Angus Og next
engaged in treason upon a larger scale. At the instigation of
this hopeful son, his father, whom he had already deprived of all
authority, now entered into a compact with the king of England and
the Earl of Douglas, the object of which was nothing less than
the entire subjugation of Scotland, and its partition amongst the
contracting parties. By this treaty, which is dated the 18th of
February 1462, the Lord of the Isles agreed, on the payment of a
stipulated sum, to become the sworn ally of the king of England,
and to assist that monarch, with the whole body of his retainers,
in the wars in Ireland and elsewhere; and it was further provided,
that in the event of the entire subjugation of Scotland, the whole of
that kingdom, to the north of the Firth of Forth, should be equally
divided between Douglas, the Lord of the Isles, and Donald Balloch
of Islay; whilst, on the other hand, Douglas was to be reinstated
in possession of those lands between the Forth and the English
borders, from which he had, at this time, been excluded. Conquest,
partition, and spoliation, were thus the objects contemplated in
this extraordinary compact. Yet no proceeding appears to have been
taken, in consequence of the treaty, until the year 1473, when we
find the Lord of the Isles again in arms against the government. He
continued several years in open rebellion; but having received little
or no support from the other parties to the league, he was declared
a traitor in a parliament held at Edinburgh in 1475, his estates
were also confiscated, and the Earls of Crawford and Athole were
directed to march against him at the head of a considerable force.
The meditated blow was, however, averted by the timely interposition
of his father, the Earl of Ross. By a seasonable grant of the lands
of Knapdale, he secured the influence of the Earl of Argyll, and
through the mediation of that nobleman, received a remission of his
past offences, was reinstated in his hereditary possessions, which
he had resigned into the hands of the crown, and created a peer of
parliament, by the title of the Lord of the Isles. The earldom of
Ross, the lands of Knapdale, and the sheriffships of Inverness and
Nairn were, however, retained by the crown, apparently as the price
of the remission granted to this doubly unfortunate man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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