THE EXPEDITION OF JAMES V. 131 



advantage of the absence of John Mackenzie of Kintail to 

 desolate Kenlochewe ; and they then attempted to capture 

 Mackenzie's Castle of Eilean Donain, which was defended 

 by only a small garrison.* But the campaign and Donald 

 Gorm's life were together ended by a barbed arrow, sped 

 by the hand of an intrepid archer, Duncan Macrae, one of 

 the defenders of the castle. Donald was wounded in the 

 foot, and the wound, owing to his own impatience and the 

 lack of an elementary knowledge of surgery on the part of 

 his followers, proved fatal. According to the account given 

 in the History of the Mackenzies (pp. 135-7), the attack on 

 Eilean Donain Castle was the last of a series of raids made 

 by Macdonald of Sleat on Mackenzie's country ; Kintail 

 in retaliation sending his son, Kenneth, to Skye on two 

 separate occasions, to ravage Donald Gorm's lands of 

 Sleat. After the death of Donald, his allies burnt the 

 Mackenzies' boats and returned home a sorry ending to 

 a fruitless campaign. 



That the King was aware of these disturbances, and 

 alive to the danger of further trouble in the Hebrides, may 

 be inferred from the fact that in 1 540, summonses of treason 

 were issued against Ruari Macleod of Lewis, Alexander 

 Macleod of Dunvegan, John of Moidart, Cameron of 

 Lochiel, and Macneill of Barra ; and in the year 1540^ 

 James led in person an expedition to the Isles. Buchanan 

 tells us that " the King resolved to circumnavigate Scot- 

 land and reduce the fierce spirit of the islanders to the 

 obedience of the laws " ; and this statement is borne out by 

 Bishop Lesley, and by Lindsay of Pitscottie, as well as by 

 the actual proceedings which took place. On the other 

 hand, we are informed in a history of Scotland published 

 in 1749 by " An Impartial Hand," that the object of the 

 voyage was to enable the King to make himself acquainted 



* According to Mackenzie's History of the Macktnzics, the castle was de- 

 fended by three men only, of whom one the Governor was killed. 



t Scottish historians appear to be in error in the different dates which 

 they give to the voyage of James V. to the Western Isles. Extracts from the 

 Treasurer's Accounts which appear in Pitcairn's Criminal Trials prove that 

 it took place in 1540. 



