Andrews, and disturbed by the Lollards, in the region which was later the
centre of the fiercest Covenanters,--Kyle in Ayrshire. But James laughed
away the charges against the heretics (1494), whose views were, on many
points, those of John Knox. In 1493-1495 James dealt in the usual way
with the Highlanders and "the wicked blood of the Isles": some were
hanged, some imprisoned, some became sureties for the peacefulness of
their clans. In 1495, by way of tit-for-tat against English schemes,
James began to back the claims of Perkin Warbeck, pretending to be
Richard, Duke of York, escaped from the assassins employed by Richard
III. Perkin, whoever he was, had probably been intriguing between
Ireland and Burgundy since 1488. He was welcomed by James at Stirling in
November 1495, and was wedded to the king's cousin, Catherine Gordon,
daughter of the Earl of Huntly, now supreme in the north. Rejecting a
daughter of England, and Spanish efforts at pacification, James prepared
to invade England in Perkin's cause; the scheme was sold by Ramsay, the
would-be kidnapper, and came to no more than a useless raid of September
1496, followed by a futile attempt and a retreat in July 1497. The
Spanish envoy, de Ayala, negotiated a seven-years' truce in September,
after Perkin had failed and been taken at Taunton.

The Celts had again risen while James was busy in the Border; he put them
down, and made Argyll Lieutenant of the Isles. Between the Campbells and
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 negot