dons, Murrays, and other favourers of the Bruce interest, to whom were granted their forfeited domains. It was said of the English who settled in Ireland, that they became ipsis Hibernis Hiberniores; and therefore we cannot be surprised that the new Highland lords conformed themselves to the fashion of their new subjects, and assumed the part and character of chiefs, which had so much to flatter ambition and the love of power. But though these changes of possession contributed greatly to limit the power of the Lords of the Isles, it remained sufficiently exorbitant to alarm and disturb the rest of Scotland; and it was not until the battle of the Harlaw, fought in 1410, in which the power of that insular kingdom received a severe check, that it could be considered as an actual dependence of the Scottish crown.

Upon the accession of James I. the power of the northern chiefs was somewhat restricted, and many royal castles, particularly that of Inverness, were rebuilt and garrisoned. The King himself took a journey to the Highlands; and, having had his education in England, was not a little surprised at the state of anarchy which pervaded this part of his dominions. He learned that, within a few miles of his present residence, were heads of a banditti, who had each from one to two thousand men at their call; who lived entirely by plunder, and acknowledged no limit of their actions but their own will. James I. was an active and intelligent monarch, and so far exerted himself as to compel the Lord of the Isles to submission, and utterly to

destroy a large force of Highlanders and Islesmen who rose in his favour, under the leading of his cousin, Donald Balloch. Balloch himself was put to death by an Irish chief, to whom he had fled for protection, and three hundred of his followers were condemned to the gibbet. During the troubles occasioned by the rebellion of the Douglasses, the Lords of the Isles once more gained ground. But about the year 1476, the King was able to reduce them again to nominal subjection, and what was more material, to diminish their actual power, by the resumption of the earldom of Ross, with the large districts of Knapdale and Kintyre, which, in a great measure, excluded the Lords of the Isles from interference with the continent. The uncertainty of Highland succession had already raised up rivals to the Lords of the Isles, in the pretensions of their kinsmen; and about the reign of James V., the last MacDonald who assumed that title died without male heirs; and a family whose power had so long rivalled and excelled that of the Kings of Scotland, in the northern part of their dominions, became extinct as a dynasty.

The main stock of the Lords of the Isles being thus decayed, there arose many shoots from the trunk. But these branches of Clan Colla, for such is the general name of that powerful sept, prevented each other's growth by mutual rivalry; and though strong and powerful, neither approached in consequence nor strength, to the parent tree. These were the families of Slate, Clanronald, Glengarry, Keppoch, Ardnamurchan, Glencoe, and

Largo, all, especially those first named, independent tribes of great importance and consequence. But debates amongst themselves prevented the name of MacDonald from ever attaining its original pitch of power. Their feuds were rendered more bitter by their propinquity, and, even in the last days of chieftainship, tended to weaken the cause which most of them had espoused. After the battle of Falkirk, in 1746, the musket of a MacDonald, of the tribe of Clanronald, chanced unhappily to go off while he was cleaning it, and killed a hopeful young gentleman, a son of Glengarry, who commanded the men of his father's clan. So sacred was the claim of blood for blood, that the execution of the poor fellow through whose negligence this mischance had happened was judged indispensable by the council of chiefs. The accident was of the worst consequence to the Chevalier's cause both ways; for most of the Glengarry men went home, disheartened by the fate of their leader, and released from the restraint of his authority and many of Clanronald's people did the same, from a natural disgust at the severity exercised on their clansman for an involuntary fault.

Besides these leading branches, there were many tribes distinguished by other patronymics, who claimed their descent from the same stock; but who remained separate and independent. Among these, if we mistake not (for heaven forbid we should speak with unbecoming confidence!) are the

MacAlisters, MacKeans, MacNabs,' MacIntyres, MacKeachans, MacKechnies, and MacAphies-a list which involuntarily reminds us of the sonorous names of the Brazilian tribes, Tupinikins, Tupigais, Tupinayes, and Tupinambas. But exclusive of these descendants of MacDonald, and, indeed, in a degree of public importance far superior to many of them, were the clans whose chiefs had held offices of trust under the Lords of the Isles, and who now attained a formidable independence, augmented by the shares which they had been able to secure in the wreck of the principal family. Such were the MacLeans, long lieutenants of the Lords of the Isles; the MacKenzies, who had already obtained many grants from regal favour; the Camerons, the MacNeils, the MacIntoshes, and many other clans which had hitherto been subjected to the regal tribe of Clan Colla. The Kings of Scotland favoured this division of power, upon the grand political maxim of dividing in order to command; but although the separation of the tribes was very complete, it by no means appears that the authority of the sovereign was increased in proportion. It was true, indeed, that, being no longer under one common head, the Highland clans were not so capable of disturbing the general peace of the kingdom but when political circumstances concurred to unite any number of chiefs in a common cause,

In some genealogies the MacNabs are claimed by the MacAlpines and MacGregors as descended from the same root with them.

the mountain eruption broke out with as much violence as under the Lords of the Isles. Mean while the internal feuds of the tribes became, if possible, more deadly than before; and though those who were of Lowland origin, and connected with the crown, gradually gained ground upon the others, it was not without the most desperate struggles. In the preamble of an act of James IV. it is declared that for want of justice-airs, justices and sheriffs, the Islesmen and the Highlanders had almost become savage; and some steps are taken for establishing legal jurisdictions among them. But the evil was too powerful for the remedy. In the vigorous reign of James V. further measures were adopted the King in person undertook a voyage around the northern part of Britain, and impressed the inhabitants of these wild isles and mountains with some sense of the existence of a power paramount to that of their chiefs. But this also soon passed away, and the civil wars of Queen Mary's time set every independent chief at liberty to work his own pleasure, under pretext of espousing one or other of the contending factions.

A statute, in the year 1581, declares "that one great cause of the oppressions and cruelties daily practised in the realm is, that clans of thieves were associated together by a common surname, not subject to any landlord (that is, feudal superior), nor amenable to the common laws of justice; and holding inveterate and deadly feud against all true men who had been concerned in repressing, by violence, any of their enormities;" it therefore enacts, that