Its an interesting story... and another twist is added by wiki's entry on
Domhnall of Islay, Lord of the Isles...
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Domhnall spent some of his first years as Lord of the Isles suppressing a revolt by his brother John Mór. John was Domhnall's younger brother, and resented his meagre inheritance. Although he was recognized as heir-apparent (tà naiste), he only received patches of land in Kintyre and Islay. The rebellion started in 1387 and went on into the 1390s, and John obtained the support of the MacLean kindred. However, John and the MacLeans were eventually forced to submit to Domhnall, and by 1395 John Mór had been forced into Ireland. There he entered the service of King Richard II of England and later established a MacDonald lordship in Antrim.
This wasn't the last connection between the Lords of the Isles and the English... and I'm not just referring to Prince Charles currently holding the title! In 1462 John II, the fourth and last Lord of the Isles, entered into an agreement with Edward IV of England (known as the
Treaty of Westminster-Ardtornish) in an attempt to break completely free of the Scottish king. The following is again from wiki:
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John agreed to pay homage to Edward in return for his help in obtaining all of Scotland north of the Forth. The treaty is a remarkably vague document considering the risks John was prepared to take. It says absolutely nothing about the nature, scale and timing of English support. But for Edward it was a brilliant diplomatic coup. He achieved maximum results at minimum expense, laying out only as much bait as necessary to create a political disturbance in northern Scotland.
This was just one of the many acts that led to the downfall of the Lords of the Isles:
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In the mid 1470s Edward, preparing for a war with France, and anxious for good relations with Scotland, finally revealed the full terms of the Westminster treaty. John was summoned before parliament to answer for his treasons, and when he failed to appear was declared forfeit. With no allies, either at home or abroad, John had little choice but to make his peace with the king in the summer of 1476. Considering the full extent of his treason, far greater than that which had destroyed the Border Douglases, he was treated with comparative leniency. He lost the earldom of Ross-outwith the Isle of Skye-as well as Knapdale and Kintyre, but retained control of the Hebrides. The designation of Lord of the Isles, moreover, was from this point forward to be granted by the crown, rather than self-assumed.
But John had lost much more than land: he lost prestige and standing among his own kin. The Lordship had always depended on territorial expansion to give life to its warrior values; but now that it was contracting all of the latent tensions came forth, finding expression in the person of Angus Óg. Angus, according to Hugh Macdonald, ejected John both from the leadership of the clan and from his own home, forcing him to seek shelter under an old boat. Afterwards John managed to gain some support. His fleet of galleys met those of Angus sometime in the early 1480s-we cannot be more precise than that-off the coast of Mull to the north-west of the present town of Tobermory, an area ever afterwards to be known as Bloody Bay. The Battle of Bloody Bay was a complete victory for Angus, who continued to dominate the affairs of Clan Donald up to his murder in 1490.
Angus Óg was actually the illigitimate son of John and this fact provides another clue as to the downfall of the Lords of the Isles... the fact that their enemies didn't have to
divide and conquer as they were doing all the dividing themselves!
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