Clan MacDonald
CLAN MACDONALD : SCOTTISH CLANS
– Rooms 103
MacDonald History:
Magnus Barefoot, the King of Norway, sailed across the North Sea in 1098 to re-establish his
country’s power in Celtic lands. He made an agreement with Edgar, King of Scots, that he
would settle for all the islands of the west coast he could reach whilst his boat’s rudder was
in a fixed position. He then proceeded to have his boat towed around by his men and claimed
not only the isles but the peninsula that is Kintyre.
Fifty years later King Somerled took Kintyre and the islands back. When King Somerled was
killed fighting Malcolm IV in 1164, he was succeeded by his son Dougall. From Dougall
would come the Clan MacDougall and from Dougall’s son Ranald came a grandson Donald,
progenitor of the mighty Clan MacDonald.
In 1424, James I returned from English imprisonment to begin his Scottish reign with a
sweep of executions, imprisonments and punishment for all who had not supported him. In
1427 he summoned the powerful of the Highlands to a parliament in Inverness.
In place of his father Donald, Alasdair MacDonald and his mother the Countess of Ross went
to Inverness and were immediately imprisoned. Others, their cousin Alasdair MacDonald
of Garmoran among them, were executed. When he was released, Alasdair of the Isles
immediately raised a rebellion in 1429 and burned Inverness.
James I jailed him again in Tantallon. After two years the men of the Isles rose again and
James I agreed to free Alasdair on his word of obedience. He became Earl of Ross in 1435
and his people had a prosperous era where literature, history, Greek and Arabic sciences
flourished.
When Alasdair died, however, his son John entered into the secret Treaty of Ardtornish with
England’s Henry VIII in 1462. The arrangement was that should England defeat the Stewarts,
then English-speaking lowland Scotland would be ruled by the Douglases. All the Gaelic-
speaking North would be ruled by himself, with the King of England as his sovereign. In
1476 the treaty was discovered and John of the Isles lost his mainland possessions.
By 1495 the Lordship was revoked and anarchy and violence swept into the Highlands as the
Campbells, Gordons and others tore off strips of MacDonald land for themselves.
A Gaelic poet sang:-
It is no joy without Clan Donald
It is no strength to be without them
For sorrow and sadness I have forsaken
wisdom and learning.
Categories: Clans
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