his more peaceable successor ceded his nominal authority over Suðreyjar to the Scottish king (Alexander III) by the Treaty of Perth, in return for a very large sum of money. Alexander generally acknowledged the semi-independent authority of Somerled's heirs; the former Suðreyjar had become Scottish crown dependencies, rather than parts of Scotland. Early Scottish Lords of Lorne At the end of the century, a dispute arose over the Scottish kingship between King John Balliol and Robert the Bruce. By this point, Somerled's descendants had formed into three families - as well as Dougall's heirs (the MacDougalls), there were also the heirs of his nephew Donald (the MacDonalds), and those of Donald's brother (the MacRory); the MacDougalls backed Balliol, while the MacDonalds and MacRory backed the Bruce. When the Bruce defeated John, he declared the MacDougall lands forfeit, and gave them to the MacDonalds and MacRory, with the latter acquiring Lorn (and hence, Mull). Robert the Bruce had received support against the MacDougalls from the Campbells, based at Innis Chonnell Castle at Lorn's southern edge (and traditionally at the Castle of the Red Haired Maiden, in the south of Lorn). Neil Campbell, son of the baron of Innis Chonnel, was rewarded with marriage to Robert's sister, Mary. Initially, Robert expanded the shrieval authority of the sheriff of Perth to include Lorn, but in 1326, he separated it, giving shrieval authority over Lorn to Neil's son, Dougall Campbell; the Campbell lands were at the centre of the Argyll region, so the position became the sheriff of Argyll, despite only covering Lorn (shrieval authority for southern Argyll was at Tarbert). In 1346, John MacDonald, the head of the MacDonald family, married the heir of the MacRory family, thereby consolidating the remains of Somerled's realm, and transforming it into the Lordship of the Isles, though from Somerled on, it was the MacDonalds that bore the title, Lord of the Isles. In 1354, though in exile and without control of his ancestral lands, John, the MacDougall heir, quitclaimed any rights he had over Mull to the Lord of the Isles. When Robert's son, David II, King of Scotland, became king, he spent some time in English captivity; following his release, in 1357, he restored MacDougall authority over Lorn, effectively cancelling Robert's grant to the MacRory. The 1354 quitclaim, which seems to have been an attempt to ensure peace in just such an eventuality, took automatic