Clan Campbell

In 1296 the Campbells were under the jurisdiction of the MacDougal Lords of Lorne. The MacDougals killed the Campbell chief and founder of the Argyll family, Sir Cailean Mor of Loch Awe. Since then, all Campbell chiefs have taken the patronymic of ‘MacCailean Mór’.

When his son Sir Neil so greatly supported Robert the Bruce, a marriage with Bruce’s sister was allowed. Sir Neil had his revenge for his father’s murder when he was given, for his patriotism, extensive lands taken from the Lords of Lorne and others in Argyll who had been Bruce’s enemies, and the increases in Campbell power and supremacy accelerated from here.

The family home had been the strong castle covering an entire, small, Loch Awe island called Innis Chonaill. Behind it climbs the peaks of Cruachan Beann, the hills from which the Campbells took their war cry. The 1st Earl of Argyll, however, moved in 1474 to Inveraray on Loch Fyne. He was instrumental in destroying the power of his long-time rivals the MacDonalds, Lords of the Isles.

By the time of the 8th Earl the Campbells were aiding the Calvinists in their persecution of Highland Catholics. Then in 1644 Montrose arrived, and with the Catholics, MacLeans, MacDonalds and other victims of the Campbells behind him, turned the tables for a time. At Inverlochy the following year, the clan suffered its greatest single defeat in history. William of Orange, brought in by 1688, restored the family estates and raised the 10th Earl to dukedom.

Clan History

Traditional genealogies place the origin of this clan among the ancient Britons of Strathclyde, but the first Campbell in written records is Gillespie, in 1263. Early grants of land to him and his relations were almost all in east-central Scotland, although the family’s first connection with Argyll appears to have come about some generations before, with the marriage of a Campbell to the dynastic heiress of the O’Duines, who brought with her the Lordship of Loch Awe. Through this connection the clan took its early name of Clan O’Duine, a name which was later supplanted by the style Clan Diarmid, from a fancied connection with a great hero from early Celtic mythology, Diarmid the Boar. The original seat of the clan was either Innischonnel Castle on Loch Awe, which was in Campbell hands by the early fourteenth century, or Caisteal na Nigheann Ruaidhe on Loch Avich. The Campbell landholdings spread, with Craignich, Avaslotnisk, Melfort and Strachur, together with other lands of Cowal, being early additions, and the family’s power soon spread throughout Argyll.

At first the Campbells were under the domination of the Macdougal Lords of Lorne who killed the Campbell chief, Sir Cailen Mor Campbell, in 1296. (All subsequent Campbell chiefs have taken as their Gaelic patronymic, ‘MacCailein Mor’). However, this situation was reversed in the time of his son, Sir Neil, a staunch ally and companion of Robert the Bruce, by whom he was rewarded with extensive grants of land forfeited by the Lords of Lorne and other enemies in Argyll. It was this that gave initial impetus to the rise to power of the Campbells in the west Highlands. The king also gave his sister in marriage to Sir Neil, who appears to have disposed of his existing wife for this better offer, a common practice at a time when noble marriages were primarily a means of forging alliances. This royal marriage resulted in a son, John, who was created Earl of Atholl. John was killed at the Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333, and with no heir to succeed, the title and lands passed out of Campbell hands. However, this close royal connection may have helped to ensure the emergence of the Loch Awe branch as the chiefly line of the Campbells. The Macarthur Campbells of Strachur may well have been senior by primo geniture, but their chance of pre-eminence failed when a projected marriage with the MacRuari heiress to Garmoran was prevented by her family. The lands later fell into the hands of the expanding Clan Donald, but not before a charter had been made out to her intended husband, Arthur Campbell, a younger son of Strachur. This gave rise to the celebrated incident in 1427 when James I executed both John Macarthur, a descendant of the disappointed bridegroom, and the then MacRuari chief in order to settle the quarrel over the right to Garmoran.

Throughout the fifteenth century the Campbells gave steady support to the Crown in an area where royal influence was under severe pressure, first from the rival Crown of Norway and then from the descendants of Somerled, former Lord of the Isles, with the eventual emergence of the Crown’s most powerful rival in the Macdonald Lordship of the Isles. The Lordship of the Isles was broken by the Crown by the end of the fifteenth century, leaving the Campbells the main power in the area. Thereafter they continued to act as the chief instrument of central authority in the region. This long struggle for supremacy, and with it, the headship of the Gael, may be said to be the real cause for the ancient enmity between the Campbells and the Macdonalds.

In 1445, Sir Duncan Campbell of Loch Awe became Lord Campbell. In 1457 his grandson and heir, Colin, was created Earl of Argyll. He married one of the three daughters of the Stewart Lord of Lorne, and through a financial deal with his wife’s uncle, he brought the Lordship of Lorne to the Campbells, with not only much land and the stronghold of Dunstaffnage, but the important dynastic significance of a title which represented the senior line of the descendants of Somerled; from then on the Campbell chiefs quartered the galley of the Isles in their Arms. His uncle, another Colin, also married another of the Stewart daughters and founded a line which was to rival that of Loch Awe in terms of power and importance – the Campbells of Glenorchy, later Earls of Breadalbane. The Earls of Breadalbane were to build themselves the palatial Taymouth Castle, at the east end of Loch Tay, which still stands to this day. It was said at one time that Breadalbane could ride for a hundred miles across his family’s possessions which stretched from Perthshire to the Atlantic.

Campbell Castle

The date of the erection of the Castle is now undiscoverable, nor has the most elaborate investigation thrown much light upon its origin. There is a tradition still current which declares that it was a portion of the dowry which King Robert the Bruce bestowed upon his sister, Lady Mary Bruce, on the occasion of her marriage with Sir Neil Campbell of Lochow. But if this was the case it must have gone out of the possession of the family afterwards, for it was certainly held by Archbishop Schevet, of St Andrews, and was gifted by him to the head of the Campbells in his tithe as a bribe to secure his support on a special occasion. The Archbishop died in 1498 at an advanced age. In 1493 an Act of Parliament was passed to enable the proprietor (apparently the second Earl of Argyll) to change its name from "Castle of Gleume" to "Castle Campbell," by which designation it is still known. And though it must have been peculiarly convenient for a powerful western clan to have a stronghold of such security in the eastern district, whereby disaffection might be overawed, the isolation of the Castle from the main body of the Clan Campbell frequently exposed it to danger, and finally brought about its destruction.