266 



CHAPTER X. 



WHILE the Clan Kenneth were engaged in the difficult 

 task of subjugating the malcontents in Lewis, trouble was 

 rife in the other sections of the Long Island. The inter- 

 minable disputes of the chiefs of Clan Donald and the 

 Siol Tormod over their various properties were again 

 raging. In former days, these quarrels would have been 

 decided by the sword, but under the new regime, more 

 peaceful, if less expeditious, methods of settlement had 

 to be adopted. First, there arose a question between 

 Donald Gorm and Donald MacAllan, Captain of Clan 

 Ranald, touching the thirty merklands of Skeirhow (How- 

 more) in South Uist, the twelve merklands of Benbecula, 

 and the pennylands of Gergrimenes, which Clanranald 

 held from Donald Gorm. These lands, with the twenty- 

 three merklands of Kandish and the six merklands of 

 Boisdale, both in South Uist, were, in July, 1610, granted 

 by Crown charter to Clanranald, with a provision stipu- 

 lating for the superiority of Donald Gorm over Skeirhow, 

 Benbecula, and Gergrimenes.* In July, 1614, the latter 

 received a Crown grant of Sleat, the forty pound lands 

 of North Uist, and the Clanranald properties of which he 

 held the superiority.! This charter roused Ruari Macleod 

 of Harris to take action, for less than a year previously, 

 he had been served heir to Sleat and North Uist ; and now 



* Peg. Mag. Sig. (1609-20), Nos. 342 and 344. 



f Reg. Mag. Sig. (1609-20), No. 1,087. 9 n 4^ March, 1566, Donald 

 Macdonald of Sleat entered into a contract with Archibald, Earl of Argyll, 

 by which the Earl bound himself to obtain an infeftment to him and his heirs 

 of Trotternish, Sleat and North Uist (of which lands Argyll was Bailie), to 

 be held of the Queen in feu farm ; and thereafter to infeft Macdonald therein, 

 to be held of the Earl in feu. The consideration was 1,000 merks Scots and 

 the vassalage of Macdonald (Appen. to 4th Report Hist. MSS. Coin., p. 482). 



