Читать книгу The Isle of Skye. Graded walks and scrambles throughout Skye, including the Cuillin онлайн

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The position of Lord of the Isles was finally abolished by James IV in 1493, although this had little restraining impact on the clan chiefs in spite of a show of muscle by James V in 1540. In that year, he brought a large fleet to Skye, visiting the MacLeod and MacDonald strongholds at Dunvegan and Duntulm respectively before anchoring in Portree Bay for the chiefs to come and pay their respects. Peace, of a sort, did then ensue, but only until the king died, and that only two years later. Clan battles continued to be waged throughout the 16th century, and just into the 17th, when the last battle, that in Coire na Creiche, was fought in 1601.

The Act of Union which followed the death of Elizabeth 1 in 1603, under which James VI of Scotland became James I of England, brought a new source of conflict. During the 17th and 18th centuries life among the islands was coloured by attempts to restore the Stuarts to the throne of England and Scotland which only came to a conclusion in the 1745 Rebellion led by Bonnie Prince Charlie (Prince Charles Edward Stuart). After his disastrous defeat at Culloden (1746), the Prince fled by a most roundabout route that took him to the Outer Isles and to Skye itself, before leaving for the Scottish mainland and France in July 1746.