The title of Lord of the Isles was annexed to the Crown as had been the Earldom of Ross in 1475, due to John, the last Lord's intrigues with England, and bestowed on the Dukes of Rothesay, heirs to the Kings of Scots and has ever since been retained among their principal titles by the British Crown Princes.
With the fall of the MacDonald dynasty in the Western Highlands and Isles, Gaelic culture fell into rapid decline. The Scottish monarchs and their Lowland dominated Governments had no sympathy for what they regarded as an alien and barbaric way of life. A political vacuum was created which the Government agents, the Campbell Earls of Argyll, largely due to their policy of self-aggrandisement and intrigue, were unable to fill.
Several vigorous attempts were made by various Clan Donald leaders to re-establish the old order and were supported by most of the old vassals of the Isles e.g. the MacLeans, MacLeods and MacPhees, who all despised the Campbells but they were eventually forced to yiels to the stronger forces sent against them and when the 17th century dawned, the various branches of Clan Donald, e.g. Sleat, Clanranald, Glengarry, Keppoch and Glencoe, had become independent clans, each with its own Chief, none of whom could claim to be MAC DHOMHNAILL. This situation pertained through the troublesome times of the 17th century and the Jacobite risings of the 18th century till after the Battle of Culloden in 1746 and the end of the Clan System.
Not until 1947, was Clan Donald again to have a High Chief, when the Rt. Hon. Alexander Godfrey Macdonald, 7th Lord Macdonald, was granted by the Lord Lyon, King of Arms, the undifferenced ARMS of MACDONALD of MACDONALD. His elder son, the Rt. Hon. Godfrey James Macdonald of Macdonald, 8th Lord MacDonald, who resides at Kinloch Lodge, Sleat, Isle of Skye, is the present High Chief of the Clan.
The principal branches of the Clan are represented at the present time by Sir Ian Godfrey Macdonald, 17th Baronet and 24th Chief of Sleat; Ranald Alexander Macdonald, Captain and 24th Chief of Clanranald; Aeneas Ranald Euan MacDonell, 23rd Chief of Glengarry; The Rt. Hon. Alexander Randal Mark McDonnell, 14th Earl of Antrim, and William St. John Somerville McAlester, 25th Chief of Loup.
