Flodden by Reese Peter

Author:Reese, Peter [Reese, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857905826
Publisher: Birlinn

Archibald Campbell, 2nd earl of Argyll

Argyll came from a family that originated as lairds of Loch Awe about whom Taylor wrote, ‘by dint of remarkable ability, shrewdness, energy and good fortune [they] not only absorbed . . . the smaller clans of Lorne . . . but have also ousted the once powerful clan Donald from the supremacy which they long held in the Western Islands.’12 A Colin Campbell was chief of Loch Awe at the time of William the Lyon, but up to the end of the thirteenth century the family’s most distinguished representative was the unrelentingly ambitious Colin Campbell, seventh clan chief, who was knighted by Alexander III and who not only succeeded in making large acquisitions to his estate (as would later Campbells) but by his warlike actions acquired the surname of More or Great.13 Henceforth, Campbell chieftains were given the Gaelic title of MacCalan More.

In 1291, Colin Campbell joined the Bruce cause by supporting the candidature of Robert Bruce (the Competitor) for the Scottish throne. His successor, Sir Niel Campbell, was said to have fought by Robert Bruces’s (Robert I’s) side in almost all his encounters from the battle of Methven to Bannockburn, and was one of the barons who participated in Bruce’s great parliament at Ayr on 26 April 1315 when the future succession of the crown was settled. In 1316 his son, Sir Colin Campbell of Loch Awe, accompanied Robert Bruce to Ireland to assist his brother Edward to gain the Irish throne, and it was there an incident occurred that became the subject of a well-known story. In 1317 the king had given unequivocal orders that no one was to leave the ranks, but as the Scottish forces were passing through a wood two English archers discharged their arrows at Sir Colin and he could not resist giving chase. The king pursued him and struck him so violently with his truncheon that he was almost unhorsed, before commanding him to return to the ranks, shouting, ‘Your disobedience might have brought us all into jeopardy.’14 Sir Colin’s hot blood, so typical of other Scottish nobles at the time, appeared to do the family no lasting harm, for they steadily extended their possessions until his great-grandson, Sir Duncan, was given the title Argyll, in recognition of the family’s prominence there.

In 1424, when Sir Duncan featured on the list of eminent hostages offered for the release of King James I from the English, his family’s prosperity was illustrated by his annual income of 1500 marks, larger than that of any other hostage except William, heir of Lord Dalkeith, which was set at the same level. Subsequently Sir Duncan was made justiciary and lieutenant within the shire of Argyll. His successor Colin, second Lord Campbell, whom James II created Earl of Argyll in 1457, acquired much additional land for the family by his marriage to Isabel Stewart, one of three daughters of John Lorn of Lorn. Argyll acted as a royal commissioner for James III, negotiating a

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