Campbell
'Do not forget'
Jura House in Ardin
Forest, historic seat of power for the Campbells of Jura.
The traditional genealogies place
the origin of the Campbell 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 first connection with Argyll
appears to have come 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. Theough this connection the clan took
its early name of Clan O'Duine, a name which was replaced by the style
of 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, or Caisteal na Nigheann
Ruaidhe on Loch Avich. The Campbell land holdings soread, with
Craignich, Avalotnisk, Melfort and Strachur, together with other lands
of Cowal, 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 Calein Mor Campbell, in 1296. However, this
situation was soon reversed in the time of his son, Sir Neil, a staunch
ally 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 of
power of the Campbells in the west Highlands. The king also gave
his sister in marriage to Sir Neil. 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 Campbells. The MacArthur Campbulls
may well have been senior by primo geniture, but their chance at
pre-eminence failed when a project marriage with the MacRuari heiress
to Garmoran was prevented by her family. these lands later fell into
the expanding MacDonalds, or Lords of
the Isles, but not before a charter had been made out to her
intended husband, Arthur Strachur, a younger son of Strachur.
This gave rise to the incident in 1427 when James I executed both John
MacArthur, a descendant of the disappointed bridegroom and the then
MacRuari chief to settle the quarrel over the right ot Garmoran.
Throughout the 15th century the
Campbells gave steady support to the Crown in an area where royal
influence was under pressure, first from the rival Crown of Norway and
then from the descendants of Somerled, with the eventual rise of the
Scottish Crown's greatest rival, the Lords of the Isles. the long
struggle for supremacy, and with it the leadership of the Gaelic world,
amy be said to be the root 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 grand-son and heir,
colin, was created Earl of Argyll. His marriage to a daughter of
the Stewart Lord of Lorne brought him the Lordship of Lorne, which gave
much land and the castle of Dunstaffanage, but the most important fact
was that the title represented the senior line of the descendants of
Somerled; from this point the Campbells quartered the birlinn, or war
galley, on their coat of arms.
The Campbell family held other
earldoms in both the south and north of the country, such as Loudon and
Cawdor; both came about through adroit marriages.
However, internal rivalry for
the chiefship threatened to split the clan. Campbell of Cawdor, a
guardian of the young 7th Chief of Campbell, was murdered in 1592
during a conspiracy by some other guardians. The young Earl of
Cawdor survived a suspected poisoning attempt by the principal house of
Campbell, as he was under suspicion, but survived to become an able
soldier.
Campbell support for the royal
government brought rewards. In 1607 Archibald, 7th Earl of
Argyll, was granted the former MacDOnald lands in Kintyre, while in
1615 Campbell of Cawdor was allowed to purchase Islay and most of Jura
(the south), which had previously belonged to the MacLeans of Duart
(Note: While the Campbells may have 'bought' southern Jura, it was
several centuries before Campbells could safely transit Jura's length,
due to the ferocity of the MacLeans...).
The civil war and the invasion
of the Irish MacDonalds in Argyll brought wholesale death and
destruction, and at Inverlochy in 1645 the clan suffered its greatest
defeat in its history. Archibald, the eighth earl, had tried to
walk a line between the Covenanters and Charles II's attempts to win
support for the crown-but he was executed for treason after the
Restoration. His on, the ninth earl, suffered the same fate as
his father, because he supporth Monmouth's rebellion against the king.
The revolution of 1688 once
more restored the families fortunes, much as it had for the Mackays in the northwest. William of
Orange created the tenth earl as Duke of Argyll and Marquess of Lorne
and Kintyre, with a string of lesser titles. The second duke was
one of the first officers of the British Army to be promoted to the
rank of Field Marshall; his military skills were said to be equal to,
if nor greater than the more well known Marlbourough, and he became
commander-in-chief of the British army. He was succeeded by his
brother, the most influential man in Scotland and a proponent of the
Treay of the Union of 1707.
The success of the Campbells
owed mcuh to a remarkable succesion of chiefs, although they could not
have achieved what they did without the support of their people.
By 1745, Clan Campbell could field some 5,000 men, equal to the size of
several modern day British Army regiments.
Since that time, the Campbells
have evolved with the unifaction of the two countries, with the
ultimate being the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter, Princess
Louise, to the Marquess of Lorne, the ninth duke's heir, in a marriage
that was sensational for the day. The news was related to an
older Highland gentlewoman, who replied, "Och, well, Her Majesty will
be a proud woman the day her daughter gets married to the son of
MacCailein Mor!". Nothing more need be said about Highland pride
than that.
Places associated with the
Campbells of Jura are Ardfin, Jura House, and virtually
the entie island as a cadet branch owned the island for some three
centuries.