teen hundred men, mostly trained soldiers. Though advised to wait for the reinforcements which were approaching to his assistance, under Lord Forbes, Argyll, relying on his superiority in numbers, resolved to risk a battle, taking, however, the precaution of encamping on a strong position. Campbell of Lochnell treacherously made known to Huntly the disposition of Argyll's forces, and promised to desert to him during the engagement. At his suggestion an attack was suddenly made on the morning of 3 Oct., when the troops of Argyll were at prayers, by a discharge of artillery at Argyll's banner. Lochnell met with the fate which he had hoped might have befallen Argyll, and was struck down dead by a stray missile, but his followers seem to have faithfully carried out his instructions. A large number of the highlanders took to instant flight. Argyll, with only twenty men left around him, scorned to give up the conflict, and was forcibly led off the field by Murray of Tullibardine, shedding tears of grief and rage at the disgraceful cowardice of his followers. In his captured baggage several letters were found dissuading him from the fight. Shortly afterwards Argyll was informed of the conspiracy against his life, and also of the treachery of Lochnell. Hurrying to the north he proclaimed a war of extermination against Huntly and those who had deserted him at Glenlivat. To put an end to the conflict the king interfered, and in January following imprisoned Argyll in the castle of Edinburgh for oppression, said to have been committed by his followers (Calderwood, History, v. 361). On finding caution he was shortly afterwards liberated, and on 13 Feb. 1603 the king, before leaving for England, succeeded in reconciling him with Huntly. In 1608 he and Huntly combined against the Macgregors, and almost extirpated the clan. He was also completely successful in suppressing the lawless Clandonalds, after which, in 1617, he received from the king a grant of their country, which included the whole of Kintyre, and the grant was ratified by a special act of parliament. But although successful in winning for his family an unexampled influence in the west of Scotland, he found himself impoverished rather than enriched by his conquests. ‘So great,’ says Sir John Scot in his ‘Staggering State of Scottish Statesmen,’ ‘was the burden of debt on the house of Argyll, that he had to leave the country, not being able to give satisfaction to his creditors.’ On the pretence of going abroad to the Spa for the benefit of his health, he obtained, in 1618, permission from the king to leave the country, but instead he went over to West Flanders to serve the King of Spain. In going abroad he was actuated by another motive besides the desire to escape the importunity of his creditors. For his second wife he had married, 30 Nov. 1610, Anne, daughter of Sir William Cornwallis of Brome, and by her influence had become a convert to the catholic faith. For leaving his country to fight in support of a catholic king he was on 16 Feb. 1619 denounced as a traitor and rebel at the market-cross of Edinburgh (ib. vii. 357), but on 22 Nov. 1621 he was again declared the king's free liege (ib. 515). On the departure of Argyll, Alex. Craig, author of ‘Poeticall Essayes,’ wrote the following verses, preserved by Scot in his ‘Staggering State:’
Now Earl of Guile and Lord Forlorn thou goes,
Quitting thy Prince to serve his foreign foes,
No faith in plaids, no trust in highland trews,
Cameleon-like they change so many hues.
He afterwards returned to England, and died in London in 1638. His later years were spent in retirement. From the time that he left Scotland in 1619 his estates were held by his son Archibald (1598–1661), afterwards Marquis of Argyll [q. v.] By his first wife he had one son and four daughters, and by his second one son and one daughter. To his first wife William Alexander, earl of Stirling, inscribed his ‘Aurora,’ in 1604. There is a portrait of her in Walpole's ‘Royal and Noble Authors’ (ed. Park, v. 64); but it was the second countess, not the first, as Walpole states, who collected and published in Spanish a set of sentences from the works of Augustine.
[Reg. Privy Council of Scotl. vols. iv. v. and vi.; State Papers, Scottish Ser. vol. iv.; Calderwood's Hist. of the Kirk of Scotland (Wodrow Soc.), vols. v. vi. and vii.; Sir John Scot's Staggering State of Scottish Statesmen (ed. 1872), pp. 40–41; Acts of the Parl. of Scotland, passim; Donald Gregory's Hist. of the Western Highlands; A Faithful Narrative of the Great and Marvellous Victory obtained by George Gordon, Earl of Huntly, and Francis Hay, Earl of Erroll, Catholic noblemen, over Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll, lieutenant, at Strathaven, 3 Oct. 1594, in Scottish Poems of the Sixteenth Cent. ed. Dalyell, Edin. 1801, i. 136; Douglas's Scottish Peerage, i. 93–4; Histories of Tytler and Hill Burton.
CAMPBELL, ARCHIBALD, Marquis of Argyll and eighth Earl (1598–1661), was eldest son of Archibald, seventh earl of Argyll [q. v.], by his first wife, Lady Anne Douglas, daughter of the first Earl of Morton, and was born in 1598. During the last desperate struggle of the Clandonalds, in 1615, he was present with his father at the conflicts which
