Clan Sweeney supporters of the powerful MacDougall Lords of Lorne who supported John Balliol as patriots, as long as John was king of Scotland. After the murder of John Comyn, the nephew of Balliol, by Bruce in 1306, the First War of Scottish Independence became at one and the same time a civil war. The Balliol and Comyn parties taking the side of the English in opposition to Bruce, crowned Robert I of Scotland on 25 March 1306. This was an era of constantly shifting alliances, and in 1301 John MacSween was in alliance with Aonghus Óg Mac Domhnaill, Lord of Islay
Battle on the Marchfeld to the throne. On the same occasion he reconciled with the Brandenburg margraves, ceding them the guardianship over the minor heir apparent. King Ladislaus IV exerted himself in the christianization of the Cuman warriors, before he was assassinated in 1290. Ottokar's son, the young king Wenceslaus II of Bohemia, turned out to be a capable ruler. In 1291 he acquired the Polish Seniorate Province at Kraków and was crowned King of Poland in 1300. He was even able to secure the Hungarian crown for his son Wenceslaus III, still a minor, who nevertheless was murdered in 1306, one year after