Donald of Islay had spent some of…
1395 CE
Donald of Islay had spent some of his first years as Lord of the Isles suppressing a revolt by his younger brother John Mór, who resented his meagrer inheritance.
He had been recognized as heir-apparent (tànaiste) but had only received patches of land in Kintyre and Islay.
The rebellion had started in 1387 and will go on into the 1390s, and John will obtain the support of the MacLean kindred.
John and the MacLeans are eventually forced to submit to Donald, however, and by 1395 John Mór has been forced into Ireland, where he enters the service of King Richard II of England and will later establish a MacDonald lordship in Antrim.
Suppression of the revolt enables Donald to turn his attention northwards and eastwards.
Most of the area to the north and east of the Lordship, that is Skye, Ross, Badenoch and Urquhart, is under the control of Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan, famously known as the "Wolf of Badenoch".
The Stewarts had been building up their power in the central Highlands and north of Scotland since the death in 1346 of John Randolph, 3rd Earl of Moray.
Alexander had acquired control of the lordship of Badenoch, the earldom of Buchan and the Justiciarship of Scotia.
He had been appointed "Lieutenant of the North", giving him the flexibility to exercise total control over most of Scotland north of the Mounth, the range of hills on the southern edge of Strathdee in northeast Scotland.
Alexander is at once the de facto ruler of northern Scotland as well as the means by which the crown itself exercises control.
However, there had been complaints over the activities of his caterans (Highland war bands).
More importantly, Alexander's position has become threatening not only to the crown, but also to Euphemia I, Countess of Ross, her son Alexander and the titular Dunbar Earl of Moray.
Robert Stewart, Earl of Fife, had late in 1388, soon after becoming Guardian of the Kingdom, deprived Alexander of the Justiciarship.
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