EARLS OF ROSS AND LORDS OF THE ISLES. 103 



that he suffered, if he did not instigate, the Crown to declare 

 his nephew illegitimate. Here there is surer ground for 

 the suggestion of sinister scheming, but when an analysis 

 of motives has to take the place of historical records, a 

 door is at once opened for inaccuracy of statement. All 

 we do know and can know is, that from first to last, Donald 

 Dubh was described in official documents as the bastard 

 son of Angus of the Isles. There is nothing to show that 

 the union of Angus with the daughter of Colin, Earl of 

 Argyll, was of an irregular nature; and it can only be 

 assumed that by means of some legal jugglery, and for 

 political reasons which are not obscure, the marriage was 

 declared invalid and its issue illegitimate. That the men 

 of the Hebrides acknowledged the legitimacy of Donald, 

 is clear from subsequent events which will presently be 

 related. 



With the death of the last Earl of Ross and Lord of the 

 Isles, the connexion between the Macdonalds as Superiors, 

 and the chiefs of the Macleods of Lewis as vassals, came 

 to an end. 



It may well be doubted whether even at this period, the 

 inhabitants of the Outer Hebrides were thoroughly Scottish 

 in feeling and sentiment. The influences of the Norse 

 occupation had not yet lost their force. The language of 

 the people was Celtic, but the blood of the Northmen flowed 

 through their veins. The descendants of those who, two 

 centuries previously, were forced to submit to Scottish 

 rule, must have bulked largely in the population of those 

 islands. Their distance from the central authority ; their 

 lack of touch with the machinery of government and with 

 the great political movements which agitated the mainland ; 

 their want of racial sympathy with the governing classes 

 of the kingdom ; all these and other causes which might 

 be named, accentuated the isolation of their geographical 

 situation, and militated against the development of a truly 

 national feeling. When to these considerations is added 

 the fact, that a state of uncompromising hostility existed 

 between the Gaelic-speaking Islander and the English- 



