Argyllshire

“ A complete history of Highland clearances would, we doubt not, both interest and surprise the British public. Men talk of the Sutherland clearings as if they stood alone amidst the atrocities of the system; but those who know fully the facts of the case can speak with as much truth of the Ross-shire clearings, the Inverness-shire clearings, the Perthshire clearings, and, to some extent, the Argyllshire clearings. The earliest of these was the great clearing on the Glengarry estate, towards, we believe, the latter end of the last century. ”

“ He compelled Huntly to retreat in April, and in July advanced to meet the Irish troops now landed in Argyllshire, which were acting in conjunction with Montrose, who had put himself at the head of the royalist forces in Scotland. A campaign followed in the north in which neither general succeeded in obtaining any advantage over the other, or even in engaging battle. Argyll then returned to Edinburgh, threw up his commission, and retired to Inveraray Castle. ”

“ Being also sheltered from the north and east by the hills at the foot of which it nestles, the town enjoys an exceptionally mild climate for its latitude. The public buildings include the Roman Catholic pro-cathedral, erected by the 3rd marquis of Bute, the county buildings and two hospitals. It is the centre of tourist traffic for western Argyllshire and the islands. ”

“ Awe, Loch, in the centre of Argyllshire, overshadowed by mountains, 25 m. in length, the second in size of Scottish lakes, studded with islands, one with the ruin of a castle; the scenery gloomily picturesque; its surface is 100 ft. above the sea-level.
Axel, archbishop of Lund; born in Zealand; a Danish patriot with Norse blood; subdued tribes of Wends, and compelled them to adopt Christianity. ”

“ These resided chiefly in Campbeltown, Inveraray, and Oban; and if we deduct from the total population for that year, numbering 100,973, even the larger estimate, 15,000 of an urban or town population, we have still left, in 1831, an actual rural population of 85,973, or within a fraction of double the whole rural population of the county in 1881. In other words, the rural population of Argyllshire was reduced in fifty years from 85,973 to 46,081, or nearly by one-half.
The increase of the urban or town population is going [240] on at a fairly rapid rate ”

“ The only motive Baillie could discover to ‘make that man’ to side with the covenanters ‘in that necessary time, to the extreme hazard of his head,’ was ‘the equity of the cause,’ and so far as this implies that Lorne was incapable of acting from mere headstrong impulse, no objection can be taken to it. As yet the king had not come to an open and irreconcilable breach with Lorne when he left London, but he gave a secret commission to the Earl of Antrim, the patron of the outlawed Clandonalds, to invade Argyllshire ostensibly on his own account. ”

“ Argyllshire is rich in legends, for many of which no date can be given except the elastic one long ago or in byegone times. Let me cite one or two of these:—
MACIVORS, MACVICARS, AND MACALLISTERS.
On the road to Kilmartin is a place called the Robber's Den, the locality of which may be firmly fixed in the tourist's memory by noting that it is just{319} behind a large distillery. Here, long ago, lived one Macvicar, whose wife was a Macivor. These names are important, and so also is that of the Macallisters of Tarbert, who one day stole cattle belonging to the Macivors. Mrs. ”

“ None of the mainland counties of Scotland can boast of such wonderful ramifications of sea and loch as the county of Argyll. The present amiable and cultured head of the Clan Campbell declaimed, with great applause, at a social gathering not long ago, a fine poem, in which the beauties of his ancestral shire were floridly—but not unjustly—elaborated. It would be difficult to over-praise the county of Argyll, with its splendid sea-board, its rugged and impressive peaks, and its unrivalled fiords and lakes. Thanks to its proximity to large centres of population, few counties are so much visited. ”

“ A suspicion being entertained by some of the members of the privy council, which is said to have been shared in by the king himself, that many of the disturbances in the Isles were secretly fomented by the Argyll family, that they might obtain possession of the estates forfeited by the chiefs thus driven into rebellion, and an opportunity soon presenting itself, the king eagerly availed himself of it, to curb the increasing power of the Earl of Argyll in that remote portion of the kingdom. ”

“ Not a single man was of course raised in Argyleshire, and scarcely any in the adjoining part of Inverness-shire, to which the influence or power of Argyle extended. The Earl of Sutherland, who had been appointed a colonel of foot in his own division, declined the office, and Lord Reay was so disgusted with “Duke Hamilton’s failure,” that he took shipping at Thurso in the month of July, and went to Norway, [377] where he was appointed governor of Bergen, and received the colonelcy of a regiment from the King of Denmark, whom he had formerly served. ”

“ The banders flocked to the town with so great backing, the Chancellor and Argyle’s company was so small, that there was a great rumour raised of a wicked design against Argyle’s person; but incontinent the gentry and ministry of Fife running over in thousands, and the Lothians with the town of Edinburgh cleaving to Argyle above expectation, the banders courage and companies of foot and horse melted away as snow in a hot sunshine. A paper of Sir Archibald Johnston’s, as a letter to a friend, gave good satisfaction to the minds of men. ”

“ On his way to join them, Argyll, with a body of highlanders, was surprised by the Earl of Lanark while dining with the Earl of Mar at Stirling, but galloping across Stirling bridge he reached North Queensferry, and crossed the Firth in a small boat to Edinburgh, where the ‘Whigamores,’ as they were afterwards called, had already arrived. The incursion known as the ‘Whigamore Raid’ dealt the final blow to the cause of the king. At Edinburgh a new committee of estates was formed with Argyll at its head. ”

“ In the series of tangled incidents which followed, Argyll lost control of the national policy. He describes himself at this period as “a distracted man ... in a distracted time” whose “remedies ... had the quite contrary operation.” He supported the invitation from the Covenanters to Charles II. to land in Scotland, gazed upon the captured Montrose, bound on a cart on his way to execution at Edinburgh, and subsequently, when Charles II. came to Scotland, having signed the Covenant and repudiated Montrose, Argyll remained at the head of the administration. ”

“ During the rule of Argyle and Leslie in Scotland, a rule which might aptly be denominated a reign of terror, the possessions of the chief in Mull had been ravaged by the parliamentary troops, without any resistance from the harmless inhabitants, who had been instructed by their lord to offer no retaliation that could furnish a plea for future oppression. The castle of Duart had been besieged, and surrendered to Argyle and Leslie, upon condition that the defenceless garrison, and eight Irish gentlemen, inmates of the hospitable Highlander's home, should be spared. ”

“ Even so late as Sunday, the twenty-ninth of January, when Argyle's troops left Stirling and advanced to Braco Castle, Lord Mar appears to have been in ignorance of their actual movements. Perhaps, like the busy world of London politicians, he regarded the project of an attempt upon Perth [Pg 177] in such weather as impracticable. Such was the opinion at St. James's. "Argyle's friends here," writes one near the Court, "speak of the march and the attempt at present as madness." And another individual writes, that "one half of their people must die of cold, and the other be knocked o' the head. ”

“ The professions of Argyll, as interpreted by Charles, were to a certain extent carried out in his speech on 25 June in the Painted Chamber before the committee of the lords and commons, in which he deprecated the persecution of ‘peaceable men who cannot through scruple of conscience come up in all things to the common rule,’ but he was careful to add that the personal regard for the king in Scotland ‘hath never made them forget that common rule, “The safety of the people is the supreme law”’ (The Lord Marques of Argyle's Speech, London, printed for Laurence Chapman, 27 June 1646) . ”

“ The rule of George I. in England implied the domination of that great Whig clan, and its chief the Duke of Argyle, over the lands north of Forth and Clyde. For now, as in 1645 and 1685, the chief of the Campbells, the MacCallain Mor, as his clansmen called him, was at the head Pg 487 of the Presbyterian or Whig party in Scotland. The chiefs of the other Highland tribes were as bitterly hostile to the present Duke of Argyle as their ancestors had been to his father and grandfather. ”

“ Although Argyle’s obvious plan was at once to have dashed into the western Lowlands, where the spirit of disaffection was deeply prevalent, and where a great accession of force might have been expected, he, contrary to the advice of some of his officers, remained in Argyle a considerable time in expectation of hearing of Monmouth’s landing, and spent the precious moments in chasing out of his territories a few stragglers who infested his borders. Amid the dissensions which naturally arose from this difference of opinion, the royalists were hemming Argyle in on all sides. ”

“ Of this committee Argyll was not a member, but he was ‘major potestas,’ and ‘all knew that it was his influence that gave being, life, and motion to the new-modelled governors.’ On 12 June a commission of ‘fire and sword’ was issued by the committee of estates to Argyll against the Earl of Atholl and the Ogilvies, who had taken up arms in behalf of the king. With a force of four thousand men he swept over the districts of Badenoch, Atholl, and Mar, according to the hostile chroniclers stripping the fields of the sheep and cattle. ”

“ His presence so alarmed the men of Argyle, that they immediately made their submission. Several of the chiefs fled for safety, and to punish them, the king distributed their lands among his officers and their followers. After this invasion Argyle was brought under the direct jurisdiction of the Scottish king, although the descendants of the race of Somerled, Lord of the Isles, still continued to be the chief magnates. ”

“ Unfortunate Argyle. This nobleman, how far soever he may be thought misled in principle, was certainly in his person a very brave and a very gallant hero. They made haste to draw him out and bring him to himself; after which, being delivered up to the officers, the erring, unfortunate great man, was conducted to Edinburgh and there beheaded.
Many gentlemen that followed the fortunes of this great man, though not in his death, they shared in all the other calamities attending his overthrow. They most of them fled into the remotest isles and the obscurest corners of all Scotland ”

“ The fugitives were welcomed back to the capital with the assurance that they were honest men, loyal subjects, and good patriots. Argyll on his return carried all before him. The offices of State were filled with his nominees. The Privy Council was carefully weeded to make room for his friends. The unfortunate King, to [Pg 122] fill the cup of his humiliation full, scattered titles with a lavish hand. Argyll was raised to a marquisate; Almond was created Earl of Callendar; bluff old Leslie took his seat among the peers of Scotland as Earl of Leven. ”

“ After this, two days before Argyle was broken and taken, he was near Wigtown in Galloway; a considerable number of men were gathered together in arms, to go for his assistance; they pressed him to preach, but he positively refused, laying, he would souls pray with them where he continued long, and spent some part of that time in praying for Ireland, pleading that the Lord would spare a remnant, and not make a full end in the day of his anger; and would put it in the hearts of his own to flee over to this bloody land, where they would find safety for a time. ”

“ Up to 1222 Argyll had formed an independent Celtic princedom; but in that year it was reduced by Alexander II., the Scottish king, to a sheriffdom, and was henceforth regarded as an integral part of Scotland. Among the various clans in Argyll, the Campbells of Loch Awe, a branch of the clan McArthur, now began to come to the fore, though the mainland was still chiefly in the possession of the MacDougals. The position of the lords of the house of Somerled was now curious, since they were feudatories of the king of Norway for the isles and of the king of Scotland for Argyll. ”

“ Argyll was frequently consulted by the government in the more important matters relating to Scotland, and there are a large number of his letters in the Carstares ‘State Papers.’ By letters patent dated at Kensington 23 June 1701, he was created duke of Argyll, marquis of Lorne and Kintyre, earl of Campbell and Cowal, viscount of Lochow and Glenisla, lord Inverary, Mull, Morven, and Tyree. ”

“ A boat’s crew whom he sent on shore at Orkney being taken prisoners, gave information of his design, and the bishop of that diocese immediately carried the intelligence to Edinburgh. The militia of the kingdom was called out. The gentlemen of Argyle’s clan were seized and brought to the capital. The earl, finding all his prospects blighted, made a hesitating and timid advance towards Glasgow, where he hoped, but vainly, to be joined by the persecuted people of the west. The government forces advancing on every hand to meet him, his troops melted away ”