the Huntly Gordons, as custodians of the peace, the fighting clans were
expected to be more orderly. On the other hand, a son of Angus Og,
himself usually reckoned a bastard of the Lord of the Isles, gave much
trouble. Angus had married a daughter of the Argyll of his day; their
son, Donald Dubh, was kidnapped (or, rather, his mother was kidnapped
before his birth) for Argyll; he now escaped, and in 1503, found allies
among the chiefs, did much scathe, was taken in 1506, but was as active
as ever forty years later.

The central source of these endless Highland feuds was the family of the
Macdonalds, Lords of the Isles, claiming the earldom of Ross, resisting
the Lowland influences and those of the Gordons and Campbells (Huntly and
Argyll), and seeking aid from England. With the capture of Donald Dubh
(1506) the Highlanders became for the while comparatively quiescent;
under Lennox and Argyll they suffered in the defeat of Flodden.

From 1497 to 1503 Henry VII. was negotiating for the marriage of James to
his daughter Margaret Tudor; the marriage was celebrated on August 8,
1503, and a century later the great grandson of Margaret, James VI. came
to the English throne. But marriage does not make friendship. There had
existed since 1491 a secret alliance by which Scotland was bound to
defend France if attacked by England. Henry's negotiations for the
kidnapping of James were of April of the same year. Margaret, the young
queen, after her marriage, was soon involved in bitter quarrels over her
dowry with her own family; the slaying of a Sir Robert Ker, Warden of the
Marches, by a Heron in a Border fray (1508), left an unhealed sore, as
England would not give up Heron and his accomplice. Henry VII. had been
pacific, but his death, in 1509, left James to face his hostile brother-
in-law, the fiery young Henry VIII.