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
Scots language language of the original Parliament of Scotland. Because Scotland retained distinct political, legal, and religious systems after the Union, many Scots terms passed into Scottish English. From the mid-sixteenth century, written Scots was increasingly influenced by the developing Standard English of Southern England due to developments in royal and political interactions with England. When an English herald spoke to Mary of Guise and her councillors in 1560, at first they spoke in the "Scottyshe toung", but then he "not well understanding", they continued in her native French. King James VI, who in 1603 became James I of England, observed in