Lord Ochiltree and Bishop Andrew Knox sailed west in 1608 with a government fleet to enforce crown authority in the Hebrides. At the church of Mull they invited the principal island chiefs to a service and then arrested them — a ruse that worked exactly as planned. Donald Gorm MacDonald of Sleat, Hector Mor MacLean, Ruari Mor MacLeod, and seven other chiefs were taken to Edinburgh and imprisoned. Their lands were threatened with forfeiture and they were compelled to accept conditions that became the basis of the Statutes of Iona the following year. The voyage was the single most effective act of government power in the western isles since the forfeiture of the Lordship in 1493.
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