needed watching. His arbitrary conduct
in Ireland in 1627 was suggested as a fit subject for examination by the
Star Chamber, but his fidelity to the government was strictly maintained
to the last. In 1631 he was busy repairing Protestant churches, and in
1634 he attended the Irish parliament. He made an important agreement in
1635 for the purchase from James Campbell, Lord Cantire, of the lordship
of Cantire, or Kintyre, of which the MacDonnells had been dispossessed
in 1600 by Argyll; but his possession was successfully opposed by Lord
Lorne. He died on the 10th of December 1636. Antrim married Alice,
daughter of Hugh O'Neill, earl of Tyrone, by whom, besides six
daughters, he had Randal, 2nd earl and 1st marquess of Antrim (q.v.),
and Alexander, 3rd earl. Three other sons, Maurice, Francis and James,
were probably illegitimate. The earldom has continued in the family down
to the present day, the 11th earl (b. 1851) succeeding in 1869.

See also _An Historical Account of the MacDonnells of Antrim_, by G.
Hill (1873).

ANTRIM, RANDAL MACDONNELL, 1ST MARQUESS of (1609-1683), son of the 1st
earl of Antrim, was born in 1609 and educated as a Roman Catholic. He
travelled abroad, and on his return in 1634 went to court, next year
marrying Katherine Manners, widow of the 1st duke of Buckingham, and
living on her fortune for some years in great splendour. In 1639, on the
outbreak of the Scottish war, he initiated a scheme of raising a force
in Ireland to attack Argyll in Scotland and recover Kintyre (or
Cantire), a district formerly possessed by his family; but the plan,
discouraged and ridiculed by Strafford, miscarried.[1] Soon afterwards
he returned to Ireland, and sought in 1641 to create a diversion,
together with Ormonde, for Charles I. against the parliament. He joined
in his schemes Lord Slane and Sir Phelim O'Neill, later leaders of the
rebellion, but on the outbreak of the rebellion in the autumn he
dissociated himself from his allies and retired to his castle at
Dunluce. His suspicious conduct, however, and his Roman Catholicism,
caused him to be regarded as an enemy by the English party. In May 1642
he was captured at Dunluce Castle by the parliamentary general Robert
Munro, and imprisoned at Carrickfergus. Escaping thence he joined the
queen at York; and subsequently, having proceeded to Ireland to
negotiate a cessation of hostilities, he was again captured with his
papers in May 1643 and confined at