Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

HISTORY OF THE WESTERN ISLANDS. 55
ant than a neglected point of Scottish history, and as it
is an essential part of the Insular history, I trust I shall
be pardoned my own prolixity.
Even could the information be procured, it would be
here unnecessary to continue the history of the Western
Islands in as detailed a manner as I have done the Nor-
wegian period. That portion of their history will answer
the chief purposes which I had in view: and I must now
content myself with such slender notices as may serve
to convey a general notion of their progress to a recent
date. Scottish history must furnish, as well as it can,
what properly belongs to History ; and it will be sufficient
if there are found here such few facts as may further ex-
plain those circumstances in Highland antiquities or manners
which, without them, might appear obscure. With
the exception of the affairs of Bruce, it is impossible to
trace the progress of the Islands, from the cession of
Magnus down to the defection of John Lord of the Isles,
in, or about, 1335. That defection is sufficient to prove a
previous allegiance ; and if the western coast and the
Western Isles were governed, as is understood, princi-
pally by the two great chiefs of the race of Somerlid and
Olave, forming the dynasties, if they may so be called, of
Macdonald and Macdougal, these princes were tributary
or feudal Chiefs, unless it is possible that they had com-
manded as Viceroys. The difficulty that relates to the
subject of these families has already appeared.
As to what relates to Bruce, it is almost too well known
to need repetition, that, after his escape from the field of
Methven, he was defeated in Strathfillan by Alexander
Lord of Argyll or Lorn, a Macdougal ; that he was
kindly received by Angus the Lord of Cantyre, who was
a Mac Donald, and abode a Avinter at Rachlin, then also
in the possession of that family, whence he returned to