Dunaverty Castle (12)
When one considers the excellent and mutually beneficial working relationship that formed between Angus Og MacDonald and King Robert Bruce (not to mention the romance of the Lordship of the Isles), I have always thought it a terrible shame that relations between the Scottish crown and the later Lords of the Isles deteriorated into warfare and the ultimate downfall of MacDonald power (and consequent rise of Campbell power).  I guess there could only be one king!  An example of that deterioration occurred here in 1494.

A little genealogy first because if I say 'John MacDonald' did such and such here, it doesn't mean much if you don't know who this particular John MacDonald was.  There were a lot of John MacDonalds - still are!

We will start from another John MacDonald, who was Lord of the Isles and died in 1387.  I have told the story before of how he married Amie MacRaurie of Garmorran (with whom Robert Bruce spent part of the winter of 1306/07 - see previous photo).  John of the Isles dumped Amie MacRaurie when a better offer came along in c.1350, and he married Margaret Stewart, daughter of Robert II, King of Scots.

We are interested here in two of the progeny from this 2nd marriage (1) Donald, who inherited the lordship of the Isles from his father, and (2) John Mhor, who inherited Duniveg (which is on Islay) and Glyns or Glens (which is in Antrim).  Big John Mhor's grandson was the John MacDonald we are interested in here, who, just to be confusing, was known as 'of the Isles'.  His 2nd cousin was John of Islay, the last MacDonald Lord of the Isles, which means that our John was a pretty big Kahuna in MacDonald circles, and appears to have had a generous helping of arrogance to go with it! 

John, Lord of the Isles, revolted against King James III, in the mistaken belief that he would be supported by King Edward IV of England, with whom he had a treaty, but treaties are seldom worth the paper they are written on - as this one proved to be, and John was eventually abandoned and then betrayed when it suited the English king to show James III the treaty his traitorous subject had signed.

In 1493, John, 4th and last (MacDonald) Lord of the Isles forfeited his title to King James IV.  By 1494 the king had garrisoned and provisioned both Tarbert Dunaverty Castles, but as James sailed away from Dunaverty, Sir John MacDonald (whom the king had recently knighted) and his men, retook the castle, killed the Governor that King James had left in charge, and hung his dead body over the castle walls in sight of the King and his departing entourage!  Bad move!

The King, infuriated by Sir John's actions, declared him traitor and summoned him to Edinburgh for treason.  Sir John, not surprisingly, ignored the summons and continued to reside at Islay, however he and his sons were captured through the treachery of his kinsman John MacIan of Ardnamurchan, following which, Sir John, his son John Cathanach and 3 of his grandsons, were tried, convicted of treason and hung on Edinburgh's Burgh Muir in 1499.
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