History of Clan Campbell

Volume 2 of A History of Clan Campbell continues the story, from the Campbells’ recovery after Flodden to cracks in Clan unity in the seventeenth century. It charts the Clan’s return to power and influence in the decades after Flodden and describes the background of devastating religious conflict in Scotland during the period. Within five years of Flodden, Colin, 3rd Earl, was Vice-Regent and Lieutenant of the Kingdom. Within five decades the Clan had extended their possessions to the Western Isles, reinforced their Highland dominance, and become the most powerful family in the nation and stayed that way for a century and a half, despite everything history could throw at them. Religious conflict in Scotland during almost the whole of the period was devastating. The Crown vacillated between Reformed, Episcopal, and Catholic doctrine whether it was based in Edinburgh or, after 1603, in London. The Campbell chiefs largely held firm to the Protestant Reformation, with one exception. Late in the sixteenth century, however, a crack appeared in the remarkable unity of the Clan: a nationwide conspiracy involving the Campbells of Glenorchy, Lochnell, and Ardkinglas, led to the death of the Bonnie Earl of Moray, the murder of Campbell of Cawdor, and two attempts on the life of 'Grim-faced Archie' the 7th Earl who subsequently turned Roman Catholic and in 1617 left to serve the King of Spain. Again, however, the Clan recovered. Alastair Campbell describes the onset of the religious and civil wars in the seventeenth century. The greatest figure in Scotland then was the first Marquess of Argyll, an ardent Protestant, who was pitted against the charismatic cavalier, the Marquess of Montrose. On behalf of church and crown in Scotland each led governments and armies against one another. Montrose was executed in 1650. Argyll was similarly rewarded in 1661, and here the story ends (until volume 3) with the Clan once more imperilled by the crown.

Alastair Campbell of Airds was, until 2001, Council Member of the National Trust for Scotland, and between 1996 and 2001 held an honorary Research Fellowship at the University of Aberdeen. He is Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Tartan to the Lord Lyon.