Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Macdonald, John (d.1498?)
MACDONALD, JOHN, fourth and last Lord of the Isles, and eleventh Earl of Ross (d. 1498?), was the only legitimate son of Alexander, third lord of the Isles [q. v.], by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander Seton, lord of Gordon and Huntly. He was a minor as late as 1456 (Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, vi. 159). According to the sennachies he was a ‘meek, modest man brought up at court in his younger years, and a scholar more fit to be a churchman, than to command so many irregular tribes of people’ (MacKenzie, History of the Macdonalds, p. 97). The king selected as his wife Elizabeth, daughter of James Livingstone of Callendar, promising with her a grant of land, but on account probably of the subsequent disgrace of the Livingstones, the promise was not fulfilled. On this account the Macdonalds' followers in 1451 or 1452 seized the royal castles of Inverness and Urquhart, and razed the castle of Ruthven in Badenoch to the ground (Auchinleck Chronicle, p. 44). In 1451 the league of his father with Crawford and Douglas [see under Macdonald, Alexander, third Lord of the Isles] was discovered; and on 21 Feb. 1452 Douglas was stabbed to death by the king in the castle of Stirling. In revenge probably for the murder, as well as for his own private wrongs, the Lord of the Isles in 1453 collected a fleet of one hundred galleys with a force of five thousand men, and despatched them under Donald Balloch, lord of Isla, to the western coast of Scotland, where, after burning several mansions round Inverkip, they ravaged the isle of Arran, burned the castle of Brodick in Bute to the ground, and wasted the Cumbraes with fire and sword (ib. p. 56; Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, v. 578). Macdonald himself also invaded Sutherland at the head of five hundred men, but was defeated by the Earl of Sutherland at Strathfleet with great slaughter.
After the forfeiture of Douglas in 1454 and the submission of the Earl of Crawford, the Lord of the Isles came to terms with the king, and in 1457 was made one of the wardens of the marches (Rymer, Fœdera, xi. 347). The same year he was one of the guarantors of a peace with England. In 1460, previous to the siege of Roxburgh, he joined the royal army with a force of three thousand men; and after the death of James II at the siege, he attended a meeting of parliament held at Edinburgh, 25 Feb. 1460–1. Soon afterwards he, however, entered into communication with the banished Earl of Douglas; consequently on 22 July 1462, that earl and other banished lords were empowered by Edward IV to treat with him (Rot. Scot. ii. 402), and on the same date he, at a council held at Ardtornish, agreed to send ambassadors to treat with those that might be appointed by Edward (ib. p. 407). The result was the remarkable treaty signed at Westminster, 17 March 1462–3, by which he and his dependants agreed to become the king of England's sworn vassals, on condition that after the subjugation of Scotland all Scotland north of the Forth should be equally divided between the Earls of Ross and Douglas and Donald Balloch (ib.) Shortly afterwards John of the Isles assumed the title of King of the Hebrides and sent a large party, under his natural son Angus and Donald Balloch, which took possession of Inverness. Thence proclamations were issued in his name to the inhabitants of the burghs and sheriffdom of Inverness, including also Nairn, Ross, and Caithness, commanding all taxes to be paid to him and forbidding obedience to the officers of King James (Acta Parl. Scot. ii. 109). From Inverness they advanced south to Atholl, and after storming the castle of Blair dragged the Earl and Countess of Atholl from the chapel of St. Bridget and carried them away captive; but, according to Bishop Lesley, on their way home they were ‘suddenly stricken be the hand of God with frenzy and wodness’ and lost all their booty in the sea, whereupon they caused the Earl of Atholl and his lady to be again restored, and themselves revisited St. Bride's Chapel ‘for the recovery of their health’ (History of Scotland, Bannatyne Club edit., p. 34).
Although John of the Isles was summoned on pain of forfeiture to appear before parliament to answer for his conduct, no further proceedings were meanwhile taken against him. In 1467 he was allowed to retain the fermes of Inverness, of which he had illegally taken possession (Exchequer Rolls, vii. 513), and he was also permitted to act as keeper of the castle of Urquhart, and to appropriate as his fee the rents of Urquhart and Glenmoriston (ib. viii. 183, 415). Meanwhile he did not attend parliament, but he was accustomed to send a deputy to represent him. Subsequently he was engaged in a feud with the Earl of Huntly, and on 21 March 1473–4 letters were sent by the king for ‘staunching’ the slaughters between them, on which the Lord of the Isles appears to have given conciliatory assurances (Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer, i. 51, 52). Towards the close of the year, however, the secret treaty with England became known to the government, and he was in consequence cited to appear before a parliament to be held at Edinburgh in December 1475 to answer for his treasonable acts committed from 1452 down to 1463. On his non-appearance he was declared to have forfeited his life, and sentence of attainder was passed against him (Acta Parl. Scot. ii. 109, 111). On 4 Dec. 1475 a commission was given to Colin, earl of Argyll, to invade his territory with fire and sword and pursue him and his accomplices to the death (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 487). While Argyll proceeded to the Isles, an expedition was also fitted out against him under the Earls of Crawford and Atholl to invade his northern territories; but with characteristic pusillanimity John was persuaded by the representations of Huntly to submit himself to the mercy of the crown. On 15 July 1476 he appeared as a suppliant before the parliament at Edinburgh, and at the intercession of the queen his lands were restored to him, with the exception of Knapdale, Kintyre, the castles of Inverness and Nairn, and the earldom of Ross, which was vested in the crown (Acta Parl. Scot. ii. 111). He was also made a lord of parliament by the title of Lord of the Isles, the succession to the new title and estates being as a concession to Celtic usages secured in favour of his bastard sons, Angus and John, in the absence of lawful issue (Reg. Mag. Sig. i. 1246). John's surrender of the earldom of Ross caused a breach between him and his followers, a large number of whom assembled under his natural son Angus, who endeavoured to wrest the earldom of Ross from the government. Not only did Angus successfully resist various expeditions sent by the government against him, but, encountering the forces of his father in a bay in the island of Mull, completely defeated him in an engagement traditionally known as ‘the Battle of the Bloody Bay;’ and became the recognised head of the clan. After the assassination of Angus by an Irish harper about 1485, the headship of the clan devolved on Alexander, nephew of John and son of his illegitimate brother Celestine. In 1491 he led an expedition into the north of Scotland, captured the castle of Inverness, and advanced into Ross, but was defeated by the Mackenzies, and either wounded or taken prisoner. In consequence of the proceedings of Alexander, the parliament in May 1493 declared the title and possessions of the Lord of the Isles to be forfeited to the crown. In the following January John made humble submission in presence of the king, in consideration of which he was permitted to remain at court in receipt of a pension (Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer, vol. i. passim; Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, vol. i. passim). He finally retired to the monastery of Paisley, where he died about 1498, and at his own request was interred in the tomb of his royal ancestor Robert II.
John left no lawful issue, having at an early period been separated from his wife, who, in consideration of the fact that she had not assisted her husband in his rebellions, received on 4 Feb. 1475–6 certain lands in Ross from the king for her support (Reg. Mag. Sig. i. 1227). Of the two illegitimate sons, Angus and John, John died without issue some time before 16 Dec. 1478, and Angus (assassinated about 1485), who had married Lady Margaret Campbell, daughter of Colin, first earl of Argyll, left either by her or another a son, Donald Dubh. After the capture and death of Sir Alexander Macdonald of Lochalsh, in the island of Oransay, in 1497, Donald Dubh became the recognised head of the clan. In his infancy he had been carried off by the Earl of Atholl and confined in the castle of Inchconnell, on Loch Awe, but in 1501 he made his escape, and in 1503 headed an insurrection, which it required several expeditions to subdue. Finally, however, the islanders in 1505 were attacked by a fleet under Sir Andrew Wood and Robert Barton and completely defeated, and Donald Dubh being captured in the fortress of Carniburg, near Mull, was sent a prisoner to the castle of Edinburgh, his possessions being divided between the Earls of Argyll and Huntly. In 1543 he again made his escape, and assumed possession of the lordship without opposition. On 28 July 1545, through the mediation of Lennox, he entered into an obligation disavowing all allegiance to Scotland, and binding himself to agaist Lennox in the service of the kine of England with a force of eight thousand men (Cal. State Papers, Scott. Ser. i. 53, and more fully in Tytler, History of Scotland, ed. 1864, iii. 35). In accordance with this agreement he on 18 Aug. passed over to Knockfergus in Ireland, with a fleet of 180 galleys, carrying a force of four thousand men, other four thousand being left to guard the Isles. The intention was that they shonld be joined with an Irish force, under the command of Lennox, for an attack on the west of Scotland, but Lennox having been enjoined to place himself under the Earl of Hertford, who was about to invade Scotland from the south, the western expedition was meanwhile postponed. Donald Dubh died not long afterwards of fever at Drogheda, and with his death the direct line of the Lords of the Isles became extinct.
[Auchinleck Chronicle; Rymer's Fœdera; Rotuli Scotiæ; Acta Parl. Scot. vol. ii.; Exchequer Rolls of Scotland; Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot.; Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland; Gregory's History of the Western Highlands; Mackenzie's History of the Macdonalds.]