Campbell, Archibald, 1st Marquis Argyle

Archibald Campbell was the eldest son of Archibald, 7th Earl of Argyll , and Lady Anne Douglas. In 1622, he graduated from St. Andrews University . After his father converted to Catholicism and emigrated to Spain in 1618, Archibald Campbell took over the management of Campbell's vast estates in western Scotland. The powerful and authoritarian Lord Lorne (Archibald used this title until the death of his father in 1638) already in his youth began to claim a leading position in Scottish society. He was subordinate to the most powerful of the mountain clans of Scotland - the Campbell clan , which could expose its leader an army of up to 2,000 soldiers, as well as land in Argyle , Kintyre , Lorne , Badenoch , Lochaber and Angus . Archibald was rightfully one of Scotland's most powerful aristocrats. His support was sought by King Charles I himself , who in 1628 included Lord Lorne in his Privy Council . However, despite joining the highest body of state administration, Campbell distanced himself from the religious policy of the king, who was trying to reform the Scottish Presbyterian church on the Anglican model .

Perfectly guided by the mood of Scottish society, Lord Lorne refused to participate in the first service in Edinburgh at the new royal liturgy in 1637 , which provoked a powerful uprising that quickly spread throughout the country. At the beginning of 1638 , the rebels adopted the National Covenant , a manifesto of the Scottish people in defense of Presbyterianism and against royal absolutism . Lord Lorne, along with the Lord Treasurer of Scotland, Earl of Trakver, were summoned to London to negotiate with the king. Campbell refused to denounce Covenant and invited Charles I to cancel his church reforms. The angry king in response supported the claims of Count Antrim , the leader of the MacDonald clan , on the Campbell possessions in Kintyre . This further deepened Lord Lorne's distrust of the king and pushed him into the covenanter camp.

At the end of 1638, Archibald Campbell (who became Earl of Argyll after the death of his father) took part in the general assembly of the Scottish church in Glasgow , and he did not obey the decision of the royal representative of the Marquis Hamilton to dissolve the meeting and continued to participate in meetings, in which, in particular, a decision was made to liquidate the episcopate in Scotland. In the war that began in 1639 between the king and the Scottish estates, Argyll sided with the latter and, at the head of a small detachment recruited among the members of the Campbell clan, captured Brodick Castle on Arran . Argyll later became one of the initiators of an important constitutional transformation in the country - depriving the king of the right to influence the formation of the Committee of Articles , the leading law-making body elected by the Scottish Parliament . Argyll joined the new estate committee, which became the de facto government of covenant Scotland, not obeying the king’s decree to postpone parliament.

In June 1640 , Argyll received from the country's parliament the authority to restore order in the Atoll and Angus . He resolutely took up this assignment and, in a short time, not only crushed the royalists and burned Earley’s castle , but also seized the lands of his enemies (primarily the Gordon , Ogilvy , Stuart clans ), which made Argyll the ruler of all western and central Highland . These actions were perceived by a number of covenants as an attempt to use parliamentary powers for personal purposes. In August 1640, even an alliance of moderate and democratically-minded leaders of the covenant movement ( Montrose , Roots , Seafort ) formed against the power of a narrow oligarchy led by Argyle.

In the summer of 1641 , King Charles I arrived in Scotland in search of allies against the revolution that had begun in England. The king granted Argyll the title of Marquis , granted him large land holdings and cash subsidies, appointed him to the board of the State Treasury and entrusted him with the functions of protecting the Scottish coast from possible attacks by Irish Catholics. Argyll used the king’s visit to weaken a hostile group led by the Earl of Montrose, whom he accused of conspiring to kill, leading to Montrose’s temporary arrest. By eliminating the influence of competitors, the Marquis further increased his power in the country and went closer to the radical part of the covenant movement and the country's religious leaders. At the same time, he did not forget about the consolidation of his own power in Highland, and in 1642 he equipped an expedition to Ulster from the soldiers of his clan to suppress the uprising of Catholics .

With the outbreak of the Civil War in England in 1642 , Argyll advocated Scotland's entry into the war on the side of the English Parliament . The Marquise was supported by the General Assembly and a large part of the members of the Scottish Parliament, while most of the members of the government, led by Hamilton, were against it. Nevertheless, using the desire of the covenants to spread the Presbyterian faith to neighboring countries, Argyll and his supporters achieved in 1643 the conclusion of a military-religious union of the English and Scottish parliaments, known as the Solemn League and Covenant . At the beginning of 1644 , Scottish troops entered the territory of England and joined the military operations against the king. Together with them, the Marquis Argyll arrived in England as commander of the Scottish cavalry and a member of the Committee of both kingdoms .

But already in March 1644, when civil war broke out in Scotland itself, Argyll returned to his homeland and quickly suppressed the royalists' performance in Aberdeenshire . However, in July, Alasder MacDonald’s Irish army landed in Ardnamurkhan , most of whose soldiers were members of the mountain clans sharply hostile to Argyll (primarily the MacDonald clan). At the head of this army stood the Marquis Montrose, appointed king of the governor of Scotland. Argyle's attempts to stop the advance of the royalists failed: on October 28, 1644, his troops were defeated by Montrose at the Battle of Thebes . Archibald resigned as commander and retired to his Inverari castle. However, in December of that year, the royalist army invaded Argyll, forcing the Marquis to flee, and engaged in the systematic ruin of the lands of Archibald, while expelling and destroying the civilians of the Campbell clan. In February 1645 , Argyll managed to oust the Highlanders to the north, but at the battle of Inverloha his troops were utterly defeated by Montrose, and the Marquis himself fled again on the ship. The triumphal procession of royalists across Scotland continued in the spring of 1645. Argyll no longer tried to personally command the armies of the covenants, however, he was present in the army as a government representative, including during their next rout in the battle of Kilsite . Fortunately for the covenants, on September 13, 1645, Montrose suffered a decisive defeat at Philip Howe and the power of the Scottish Parliament was restored. According to contemporaries, it was Argyll who ordered the killing of all the highlanders captured by the covenanters after this battle, guided by their own principle, "The Dead Do Not Bite ." By the spring of 1646, Argyll also managed to expel the Irish from their possessions.

When in 1646 Charles I surrendered to the mercy of the Scottish army, Archibald Campbell, on behalf of the Scottish government, participated in negotiations with the king about the conditions for his release. He then traveled to London to help strengthen the Anglo-Scottish alliance and establish Presbyterianism in England. As part of this visit, Argyll took part in the Westminster Assembly of Theologians . However, at the end of 1647 , most members of the Scottish government called for an alliance with the king against the " independents " who had seized power in England. An “ Engagement ” was concluded between the leaders of the covenanters ( Laudon , Lanark and Lauderdale ) and Charles I on a military alliance. Argyll opposed this agreement, but remained in the minority and was effectively removed from power in Scotland. The “ Ingers ” formed a new army, led by the Duke of Hamilton, who invaded England, but was defeated by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Preston on August 19, 1648 .

The defeat of the "ingamers" provoked an uprising of the radical Presbyterians of southwestern Scotland. At the head of these gangs of "Wiggames" (cattle stealers) rose Marquis Argyll. Under his leadership, the rebels entered Edinburgh and overthrew a moderate government. The most radical covenant wing and their leader, the Marquis Argyll, were in power, supported by Lord Chancellor Laudon and the commanders of the Scottish troops, Lieven and Leslie . The Argyll government appealed to Cromwell for help and passed the Class Act in 1649 , which prohibits the occupation of government posts by “ingamers” and royalists.

However, the execution of King Charles I in England again split the public opinion of Scotland. Some covenants supported the restoration of his son, Charles II . Argyle supported this idea, however, subject to the new king's adoption of harsh government conditions. Meanwhile, Montrose, a longtime enemy of Archibald Campbell, was captured, who was executed in early 1650 , with Argyll witnessing the prosecution in the trial against Montrose. After Charles II signed the Breda Accord and adopted the Covenant, the king arrived in Scotland in the summer of 1650. Argyll nevertheless remained at the head of the Scottish government.

On September 3, 1650, the covenanter army was defeated by Cromwell’s troops at the Battle of Dunbar . The real threat of the conquest of the country by the British was created. This forced the government to make concessions to the king. In turn, Charles II promised Argyll for his support for the duchy and the Order of the Garter , and negotiations began on the marriage of the young king and daughter of the Marquis. On January 1, 1651 , Argyll crowned Charles II on Skoon as King of Scotland. The formation of a unified national army began, including not only radical covenants, but also royalists and “ingamers”. This, however, caused a new split in the movement: the most extreme wing of the Presbyterians refused to maintain cooperation with the king and formed a party of repairmen . Argyle found himself in the camp of more moderate resolutionists , who managed to achieve a majority in parliament and repeal the "Class Act".

Strengthening the king’s power soon led to the fall of Argyll. In the government of Scotland, "ingamers" again began to dominate, a plan was formed for a new Scottish invasion of England. As a result, Archibald Campbell left the king’s courtyard and retired to his Inverari castle. The Scots military operations against Oliver Cromwell, however, again failed: in September 1651 , the army of Charles II was utterly defeated by the British at the Battle of Worcester , the king fled to France , and by the end of the spring of next year all of Scotland was occupied by Cromwell's troops.

The conquest of Scotland meant the collapse of all the policies of the Marquis of Argyll. He lost all influence and in August 1652 was forced to submit to Cromwell’s regime. At the same time, Argyll was overtaken by a severe financial and personal crisis: his possessions were exhausted and mortgaged, and relations with his eldest son deteriorated to such an extent that the Marquis asked the British to give him protection. In 1655 , Argyll was even arrested for debt, though he was soon released. On the other hand, the Marquis did not try to fight the Cromwell regime: in 1653 he supported the British suppression of the royalist uprising in Highland (in which his son also participated), and in 1659 he entered the last parliament of Richard Cromwell .

After the Stuart Restoration in 1660 , Argyll arrived at the court of King Charles II, hoping for reconciliation, but was immediately arrested and thrown into the Tower . In 1661 , he appeared in court in Edinburgh on charges of treason and complicity in the murder of King Charles I. Argyle managed to withdraw these charges, but his cooperation with the Cromwell regime was proved, which led to a sentence of confiscation of possessions and the death penalty. On May 27, 1661, Archibald Campbell was beheaded. His head was set on the same peak of Edinburgh Castle as the head of Montrose, the old enemy of Argyll, eleven years earlier.

In 1895 , in Edinburgh, in the Church of St. Gilles, a monument was erected in honor of the Marquis Argyll, a fiery covenant and defender of constitutional freedoms of the Scottish people.

• He is one of the characters in the historical novel " The Legend of Montrose " (1819) by Walter Scott .

• John Willcock The Great Marquess: Life and Times 8th Earl and 1st (and Only) Marquess of Argyll (1607-1661). - Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier, 1903.- 396 p.
• Alastair Campbell. A History of Clan Campbell: From Flodden to the Restoration . - Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004 .-- T. 2 .-- 338 p. - ISBN 1902930185 .
• James K McDonell. Lords of the North. - General Store Pub. House, 1997 .-- 337 p. - ISBN 1896182712 .

• Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquis of Argyll, at The Peerage.com. (eng.)
• Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquis of Argyll, c. 1607-61 on British Civil Wars. (eng.)