Skip to content

Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

Text size

ARGYLL, EARLS AND DUKES OF. The rise of this family of Scottish peers, originally the Campbells of Lochow, and first ennobled as Barons Campbell, is referred to in the article ARGYLLSHIRE.

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, 5th earl of Argyll (1530-1573), was the elder son of Archibald, 4th earl of Argyll (d. 1558), and a grandson of Colin, the 3rd earl (d. 1530). His great-grandfather was the 2nd earl, Archibald, who was killed at Flodden in 1513, and this nobleman's father was Colin, Lord Campbell (d. 1493), the founder of the greatness of the Campbell family, who was created earl of Argyll in 1457. With Lord James Stuart, afterwards the regent Murray, the 5th earl of Argyll became an adherent of John Knox about 1556, and like his father was one of the most influential members of the party of religious reform, signing what was probably the first "godly band" in December 1557. As one of the "lords of the congregation" he was one of James Stuart's principal lieutenants during the warfare between the reformers and the regent, Mary of Lorraine; and later with Murray he advised and supported Mary queen of Scots, who regarded him with great favour. It was about this time that William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burghley, referred to Argyll as "a goodly gentleman universally honoured of all Scotland." Owing to his friendship with Mary, Argyll was separated from the party of Knox, but he forsook the queen when she determined to marry Lord Darnley; he was, however, again on Mary's side after Queen Elizabeth's refusal to aid Murray in 1565. Argyll was probably an accomplice in the murder of Rizzio; he was certainly a consenting party to that of Darnley, and then separating himself from Murray he commanded Mary's soldiers after her escape from Lochleven, and by his want of courage and resolution was partly responsible for her defeat at Langside in May 1568. Soon afterwards he made his peace with Murray, but it is possible that he was accessory to the regent's murder in 1570. After this event Argyll became lord high chancellor of Scotland, and he died on the 12th of September 1573. His first wife was an illegitimate daughter of James V., and he was thus half-brother-in-law to Mary and to Murray. His relations with her were not harmonious; he was accused of adultery, and in 1568 he performed a public penance at Stirling.

He left no children, and on his death his half-brother Colin (d. 1584) became 6th earl of Argyll. This nobleman, whose life was partly spent in feuds with the regent Morton, died in October 1584. He was succeeded as 7th earl by his young son Archibald (1576-1638), who became a Roman Catholic, fought for Philip III. of Spain in Flanders, whither he had gone to avoid his creditors, and, having entrusted the care of his estates to his son, died in London.

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, 1st marquess and 8th earl of Argyll (1607-1661), eldest son of Archibald, 7th earl, by his first wife, Lady Anne Douglas, daughter of William, 1st earl of Morton, was born in 1607[1] and educated at St Andrews University, where he matriculated on the 15th of January 1622. He had early in life, as Lord Lorne, been entrusted with the possession of the Argyll estates when his father renounced Protestantism and took service with Philip of Spain; and he exercised over his clan an authority almost absolute, disposing of a force of 20,000 retainers, and being, according to Baillie, "by far the most powerful subject in the kingdom." On the outbreak of the religious dispute between the king and Scotland in 1637 his support was eagerly desired by Charles I. He had been made a privy councillor in 1628, and in 1638 the king summoned him, together with Traquair and Roxburgh, to London; but he refused to be won over, openly and courageously warned Charles against his despotic ecclesiastical policy, and showed great hostility towards Laud. In consequence a secret commission was given to the earl of Antrim to invade Argyllshire and stir up the Macdonalds against the Campbells, a wild and foolish project which completely miscarried. Argyll, who inherited the title by the death of his father in 1638, had originally no preference for Presbyterianism, but now definitely took the side of the Covenanters in defence of the national religion and liberties. He continued to attend the meetings of the Assembly after its dissolution by the marquess of Hamilton, when Episcopacy was abolished. In 1639 he sent a statement to Laud, and subsequently to the king, defending the Assembly's action; and raising a body of troops he seized Hamilton's castle of Brodick in Arran. After the pacification of Berwick he carried a motion, in opposition to Montrose, by which the estates secured to themselves the election of the lords of the articles, who had formerly been nominated by the king, a fundamental change in the Scottish constitution, whereby the management of public affairs was entrusted to a representative body and withdrawn from the control of the crown. An attempt by the king to deprive him of his office as justiciary of Argyll and Tarbet failed, and on the prorogation of the parliament by Charles, in May 1640, Argyll moved that it should continue its sittings and that the government and safety of the kingdom should be secured by a committee of the estates, of which, though not a member, he was himself the guiding spirit. In June he was entrusted with a "commission of fire and sword" against the royalists in Atholl and Angus, which, after succeeding in entrapping the earl of Atholl, he carried out with completeness and some cruelty. It was on this occasion that took place the burning of "the bonnie house of Airlie." By this time the personal rivalry and difference in opinion between Montrose and Argyll had led to an open breach. The former arranged that on the occasion of Charles's approaching visit to Scotland, Argyll should be accused of high treason in the parliament. The plot, however, was disclosed, and Montrose with others was imprisoned. Accordingly when the king arrived he found himself deprived of every remnant of influence and authority. It only remained for Charles to make a series of concessions. He transferred the control over judicial and political appointments to the parliament, created Argyll a marquess (1641) with a pension of L1000 a year, and returned home, having in Clarendon's words "made a perfect deed of gift of that kingdom." Meanwhile the king's policy of peace and concession had, as usual, been rudely and treacherously interrupted by a resort to force, an unsuccessful attempt, known as the "incident," being made to kidnap Argyll, Hamilton and Lanark. Argyll was mainly instrumental at this crisis in keeping the national party faithful to what was to him evidently the common cause, and in accomplishing the alliance with the Long Parliament in 1643. In January 1644 he accompanied the Scottish army into England as a member of the committee of both kingdoms and in command of a troop of horse, but was soon in March compelled to return to suppress royalist movements in the north and to defend his own territories. 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. Thither Montrose unexpectedly followed him in December, compelled him to flee to Roseneath, and devastated his territories. On the 2nd of February 1645, when following Montrose northwards, Argyll was surprised by him at Inverlochy and witnessed from his barge on the lake, to which he had retired owing to a dislocated arm, a fearful slaughter of his troops, which included 1500 of the Campbells. He arrived at Edinburgh on the 12th of February and was again present at Montrose's further great victory on the 15th of August at Kilsyth, whence he escaped to Newcastle. Argyll was at last delivered from his formidable antagonist by Montrose's final defeat at Philiphaugh on the 12th of September. In 1646 he was sent to negotiate with the king at Newcastle after his surrender to the Scottish army, when he endeavoured to moderate the demands of the parliament and at the same time to persuaade the king to accept them. On the 7th of July 1646 he was appointed a member of the Assembly of Divines.

Up to this point the statesmanship of Argyll had been highly successful. The national liberties and religion of Scotland had been defended and guaranteed, and the power of the king in Scotland reduced to a mere shadow. In addition, these privileges had been still further secured by the alliance with the English opposition, and by the subsequent triumph of the parliament and Presbyterianism in the neighbouring kingdom. The sovereign himself, after vainly contending in arms, was a prisoner in their midst. But Argyll's influence could not survive the rupture of the alliance between the two nations on which his whole policy was constructed. He opposed in vain the secret treaty now concluded between the king and the Scots against the parliament, and while Hamilton marched into England and was defeated by Cromwell at Preston, Argyll, after a narrow escape from a surprise at Stirling, joined the Whiggamores, a body of Covenanters at Edinburgh; and, supported by London, Leven and Leslie, he established a new government, which welcomed Cromwell on his arrival there on the 4th of October. This alliance, however, was at once destroyed by the execution of Charles I., which excited universal horror in Scotland. 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. After the defeat of Dunbar, Charles retained his support by the promise of a dukedom and the Garter, and an attempt was made by Argyll to marry the king to his daughter. On the 1st of January 1651 he placed the crown on Charles's head at Scone. But his power had now passed to the Hamilton party. He strongly opposed, but was unable to prevent, the expedition into England, and in the subsequent reduction of Scotland, after having held out in Inveraray Castle for nearly a year, was at last surprised in August 1652 and submitted to the Commonwealth. His ruin was then complete. His policy had failed, his power had vanished. In his estate he was hopelessly in debt, and on terms of such violent hostility with his eldest son as to be obliged to demand a garrison in his house for his protection. During his visit to Monk at Dalkeith in 1654 to complain of this, he was subjected to much personal insult from his creditors, and on visiting London in September 1655 to obtain money due to him from the Scottish parliament, he was arrested for debt, though soon liberated. In Richard Cromwell's parliament of 1659 Argyll sat as member for Aberdeenshire. At the Restoration he presented himself at Whitehall, but was at once arrested by order of Charles and placed in the Tower (1660), being sent to Edinburgh to stand his trial for high treason. He was acquitted of complicity in the death of Charles I., and his escape from the whole charge seemed imminent, but the arrival of a packet of letters written by Argyll to Monk showed conclusively his collaboration with Cromwell's government, particularly in the suppression of Glencairn's royalist rising in 1652. He was immediately sentenced to death, his execution by beheading taking place on the 27th of May 1661, before even the death warrant had been signed by the king. His head was placed on the same spike upon the west end of the Tolbooth on which that of Montrose had previously been exposed, and his body was buried at the Holy Loch, where the head was also deposited in 1664. A monument was erected to his memory in St Giles's church in Edinburgh in 1895.

While imprisoned in the Tower he wrote _Instructions to a Son_ (1661; reprinted in 1689 and 1743). Some of his speeches, including the one delivered on the scaffold, were published and are printed in the _Harleian Miscellany_. He married Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of William, 2nd earl of Morton, and had two sons and four daughters.

See also the _Life and Times of Archibald Marquis of Argyll_ (1903),
by John Willcock, who prints for the first time the six incriminating
letters to Monk; _Eng. Hist. Review_, xviii. 369 and 624; _Scottish
History Society_, vol. xvii. (1894); _Charles II. and Scotland in
1650_, ed. by S.R. Gardiner, and vol. xviii. (1895); _History of
Scotland_, by A. Lang, vol. iii. (1904).

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, 9th earl of Argyll (1629-1685), eldest son of the 8th earl, studied abroad, and at the age of thirteen was appointed captain in the Scottish regiment serving in France under his uncle the earl of Irvine. He returned home at the close of 1649, and was made captain of Charles II.'s life guards on the king's arrival in Scotland in 1650. He declared himself a royalist in opposition to his father, with the view, as some said, of securing the family estates in any event. He fought at Dunbar on the 3rd of September 1650, and after the battle of Worcester joined Glencairn in the Highlands. Bitter disputes arose, and on the 2nd of January 1654 Lorne, quitting his troops, fled to avoid arrest. In 1653 he submitted to Monk. He appears, however, to have maintained communications with Charles, and on his refusal to take the oath renouncing allegiance to the Stuarts in 1657 he was imprisoned, remaining in confinement probably till a short time before the Restoration. He was then well received at court by Charles II. After the execution of his father, he endeavoured to obtain the restitution of his forfeited estates and title, but having incautiously attacked certain members of the government in letters which were made public, he was indicted at Edinburgh on the capital charge of "leasing-making" and was sentenced to death on the 26th of August. He remained a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle till the 4th of June 1663, when the sentence was cancelled and he was re-created earl and restored to his estates. He disapproved of the severities practised upon the Covenanters in the west, and in 1671 pleaded for milder methods. His staunch Protestantism rendered him exceedingly obnoxious to James, duke of York, who in 1680 arrived as high commissioner in Scotland and at once expressed his jealousy of Argyll's immense territorial influence. Argyll moved the re-enactment of "all the acts against popery" omitted on James's account, and opposed the exemption of the royal family from the test, though allowing it in the case of James. In signing the test himself, in its final form both ambiguous and self-contradictory, he made the reservation "so far as consistent with itself and the Protestant faith," and declined to engage himself not to promote any alteration of advantage in church or state. On his refusal to record his oath in writing and to sign it, he was dismissed from the Scottish privy council, and on the 9th of November 1681 was accused of treason, a charge which Halifax declared openly in England "they would not hang a dog upon." A trial followed, a scandalous exhibition of illegality and injustice, at the close of which Argyll was sentenced to death and to the forfeiture of his estates. Shortly afterwards, through the instrumentality of his step-daughter, Sophia Lindsay, he succeeded in making his escape, and after some adventures retired to Holland. His subsequent movements are uncertain, but he appears to have again visited London, and was in correspondence with the Rye House plotters and proposing to head a rebellion in Scotland in 1683. In 1685 he joined the conspiracy in Holland to set Monmouth on the throne instead of James II., arriving in Orkney on the 6th of May and making his way to his own country. But his clansmen refused to join him, and whatever small chances of success remained were destroyed by constant and paralysing disputes. His ships and ammunition were captured, and after some aimless wanderings he found himself deserted, with but one companion, Major Fullerton. On the 18th of June he was taken prisoner at Inchinnan and arrived at Edinburgh on the 20th, where he was paraded through the streets and put in irons in the castle. James ordered his summary execution on the 29th, and it was carried out by beheading on the following day, on the old charge of 1681. His head was exposed on the west side of the Tollbooth, where his father's and Montrose's had also been exhibited, his body finding its final place of burial at Inveraray.

By his first wife, Lady Mary Stewart, daughter of the 4th earl of Moray (Murray), he had four sons and three daughters.

See _Argyll Papers_ (1834); _Letters from Archibald, 9th Earl of
Argyle, to the Duke of Lauderdale_ (1829); _Hist. MSS. Comm_. vi. Rep.
606; _Life of Mr Donald Cargile_, by P. Walker, pp. 45 et seq.; _The
3rd Part of the Protestant Plot ... and a Brief Account of the Case of
the Earl of Argyle_ (1682); Sir George MacKenzie's _Hist. of
Scotland_, p. 70; and J. Willcock, _A Scots Earl in Covenanting Times_
(1908).

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, 1st duke of Argyll (?1651-1703), was the eldest son of the 9th earl. He tried to get his father's attainder reversed by seeking the king's favour, but being unsuccessful he went over to the Hague and joined William of Orange as an active promoter of the revolution of 1688. In spite of the attainder, he was admitted in 1689 to the convention of the Scottish estates as earl of Argyll, and he was deputed, with Sir James Montgomery and Sir John Dalrymple, to present the crown to William III. in its name, and to tender him the coronation oath. In 1690 an act was passed restoring his title and estates, and it was in connexion with the refusal of the Macdonalds of Glencoe to join in the submission to him that he organized the terrible massacre which has made his name notorious. In 1696 he was made a lord of the treasury, and his political services were rewarded in 1701 by his being created duke of Argyll. He had two sons by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Lionel Talmash, John (the 2nd duke) and Archibald (the 3rd duke.)

JOHN CAMPBELL, 2nd duke of Argyll and duke of Greenwich (1678-1743), was born on the 10th of October 1678. He entered the army in 1694, and in 1701 was promoted to the command of a regiment. On the death of his father in 1703, he was appointed a member of the privy council, and at the same time colonel of the Scotch horse guards, and one of the extraordinary lords of session. In return for his services in promoting the Union, he was created (1705) a peer of England, by the titles of baron of Chatham and earl of Greenwich, and in 1710 was made a knight of the Garter. He first distinguished himself in a military capacity at the battle of Oudenarde (1708), where he served as a brigadier-general; and was afterwards present under the duke of Marlborough at the sieges of Lille, Ghent, Bruges and Tournay, and did remarkable service at the battle of Malplaquet in 1709. He was very popular with the troops, and his rivalry with Marlborough on this account is thought to have been the cause of the enmity shown by Argyll afterwards to his old commander. In 1711 he was sent to take command in Spain; but being seized with a violent fever at Barcelona, and disappointed of supplies from home, he returned to England. Having a seat in the House of Lords, and being gifted with an extraordinary power of oratory, he censured the measures of the ministry with such freedom that all his places were disposed of to other noblemen; but at the accession of George I. he recovered his influence. On the breaking out of the rebellion in 1715 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in North Britain, and was principally instrumental in effecting the total extinction of the rebellion in Scotland without much bloodshed. He arrived in London early in March 1716, and at first stood high in the favour of the king, but in a few months was strippee of his offices. This disgrace, however, did not deter him from the discharge of his parliamentary duties; he supported the bill for the impeachment of Bishop Atterbury, and lent his aid to his countrymen by opposing the bill for punishing the city of Edinburgh for the Porteous riot. In the beginning of the year 1719 he was again admitted into favour, appointed lord steward of the household, and, in April following, created duke of Greenwich; he held various offices in succession, and in 1735 was made a field marshall. He continued in the administration till after the accession of George II., when, in April 1740, a violent speech against the government led again to his dismissal from office. He was soon restored on a change of the ministry, but disapproving the measures of the new administration, and apparently disappointed at not being given the command of the army, he shortly resigned all his posts, and spent the rest of his life in privacy and retirement. He died on the 4th of October 1743. A monument by Roubillac was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey. He was twice married, and by his second wife, Jane Warburton, had five daughters; his Scottish titles passed to his brother, but his English titles became extinct, and though his eldest daughter was created baroness of Greenwich in 1767 this title also became extinct on her death in 1794.

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, 3rd duke of Argyll (1682-1761), was born at Ham House in Surrey, in June 1682. On his father being created a duke, he joined the army, and served for a short time under the duke of Marlborough. In 1705 he was appointed treasurer of Scotland, and in the following year was one of the commissioners for treating of the Union; on the consummation of which, having been raised to the peerage of Scotland as earl of Islay, he was chosen one of the sixteen peers for Scotland in the first parliament of Great Britain. In 1711 he was called to the privy council, and commanded the royal army at the battle of Sheriffmuir in 1715. he was appointed keeper of the privy seal in 1721, and was afterwards entrusted with the principal management of Scottish affairs to an extent which caused him to be called "king of Scotland." In 1733 he was made keeper of the great seal, an office which he held till his death. He succeeded to the dukedom in 1743. Both as earl of Islay and as duke of Argyll he was prominently connected (with Duncan Forbes of Culloden) with the movement for consolidating Scottish loyalty by the formation of locally recruited highland regiments. The duke was eminent not only for his political abilities, but also for his literary accomplishments, and he collected one of the most valuable private libraries in Great Britain. He died suddenly on the 15th of April 1761. He was married but had no legitimate issue, and his English property was left to a Mrs Williams, by whom he had a son, William Campbell.

The succession now passed to the descendants of the younger son of the 9th earl, the Campbells of Mamore; the 4th duke died in 1770, and was succeeded by his son JOHN, the 5th duke (1723-1806) He was a soldier who had fought at Dettingen and Culloden, and became colonel of the 42nd regiment (Black Watch), and eventually a field marshall. He sat in the House of Commons for Glasgow from 1744 to 1761, when on his father's succession to the dukedom he became legally disqualified, as courtesy marquess of Lorne, for a Scottish constituency; he could sit, however, for an English one, and was returned for Dover, which he represented till 1766, when he was created an English peer as Baron Sundridge, the title by which till 1892 the dukes of Argyll sat in the House of Lords. The 5th duke was an active landlord, and was the first president of the Highland and Agricultural Society. In 1759 he had married the widowed duchess of Hamilton (the beautiful Elizabeth Gunning), by whom he had two sons and two daughters. The eldest of his sons, GEORGE (d. 1841), became 6th duke, and on his death was succeeded as 7th duke by his brother JOHN (1777-1847), who from 1799-1822 sat in parliament as member for Argyllshire. He was thrice married, and by his second wife, Joan Glassell (d. 1828), had two sons, the eldest of whom (b. 1821) died in 1837, and two daughters, the second of whom died in infancy.

GEORGE JOHN DOUGLAS CAMPBELL, 8th duke (1823-1900), the second son of the 7th duke, was born on the 30th of April 1823, and succeeded his father in April 1847. He had already obtained notice as a writer of pamphlets on the disruption of the Church of Scotland, which he strove to avert, and he rapidly became prominent on the Liberal side in parliamentary politics. He was a frequent and eloquent speaker in the House of Lords, and sat as lord privy seal (1852) and postmaster-general (1855) in the cabinets of Lord Aberdeen and Lord Palmerston. In Mr Gladstone's cabinet of 1868 he was secretary of state for India, and somewhat infelicitously signalized his term of office by his refusal, against the advice of the Indian government, to promise the amir of Afghanistan support against Russian aggression, a course which threw that ruler into the arms of Russia and was followed by the second Afghan War. His eminence alike as a great Scottish noble, and as a British statesman, was accentuated in 1871 when his son, the marquess of Lorne, married Princess Louise, the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria; but in the political world few memorable acts on his part call for record except his resignation of the office of lord privy seal, which he held in Mr Gladstone's administration of 1880, from his inability to assent to the Irish land legislation of 1881. He opposed the Home Rule Bill with equal vigour, though Mr Gladstone subsequently stated that, among all the old colleagues who dissented from his course, the duke was the only one whose personal relations with him remained entirely unchanged. Detached from party, the duke took an independent position, and for many years spoke his mind with great freedom in letters to _The Times_ on public questions, especially such as concerned the rights or interests of landowners. He was no less active on scientific questions in their relation to religion, which he earnestly strove to reconcile with the progress of discovery. With this aim he published _The Reign of Law_ (1866), _Primeval Man_ (1869), _The Unity of Nature_ (1884), _The Unseen Foundations of Society_ (1893), and other essays. He also wrote on the Eastern question, with especial reference to India, the history and antiquities of Iona, patronage in the Church of Scotland, and many other subjects. The duke (to whose Scottish title was added a dukedom of the United Kingdom in 1892) died on the 24th of April 1900. He was thrice married: first (1844) to a daughter of the second duke of Sutherland (d. 1878); secondly (1881) to a daughter of Bishop Claughton of St Albans (d. 1894); and thirdly (1895) to Ina Erskine M'Neill. Few men of the duke's era displayed more versatility of intellect, and he was remarkable among the men of his time for his lofty eloquence.

He was succeeded as 9th duke by his eldest son JOHN DOUGLAS SUTHERLAND CAMPBELL (1845- ), whose marriage in 1871 to H.R.H. Princess Louise gave him a special prominence in English public life. He was governor-general of Canada from 1878 to 1883; member of parliament for South Manchester, in the Unionist interest, 1895 to 1900; and he also became known as a writer both in prose and verse. In 1907 he published his reminiscences, _Pages from the Past_.

See the _Autobiography and Memoirs_ of the 8th duke, edited by his
widow (1906), which is full of interesting historical and personal
detail. (P. C. Y.; H. Ch.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The date of 1598, previously accepted, is shown by Willcock to be
incorrect.

ARGYLLSHIRE, a county on the west coast of Scotland, the second largest in the country, embracing a large tract of country on the mainland and a number of the Hebrides or Western Isles. The mainland portion is bounded N. by Inverness-shire; E. by Perth and Dumbarton, Loch Long and the Firth of Clyde; S. by the North Channel (Irish Sea); and W. by the Atlantic. Its area is 1,990,471 acres or 3110 sq. m. The principal districts are Ardnamurchan on the Atlantic, Ardnamurchan Point being the most westerly headland of Scotland; Morven or Morvern, bounded by Loch Sunart, the Sound of Mull and Loch Linnhe; Appin, on Loch Linnhe, with piers at Ballachulish and Port Appin; Benderloch, lying between Loch Creran and Loch Etive; Lorne, surrounding Loch Etive and giving the title of marquess to the Campbells; Argyll, in the middle of the shire, containing Inveraray Castle and furnishing the titles of earl and duke to the Campbells; Cowall, between Loch Fyne and the Firth of Clyde, in which lie Dunoon and other favourite holiday resorts; Knapdale between the Sound of Jura and Loch Fyne; and Kintyre or Cantyre, a long narrow peninsula (which, at the isthmus of Tarbert, is little more than 1 m. wide), the southernmost point of which is known as the Mull, the nearest part of Scotland to the coast of Ireland, only 13 m. distant.

There are no navigable rivers. The two principal mountain streams are the Orchy and Awe. The Orchy flows from Loch Tulla through Glen Orchy, and falls into the north-eastern end of Loch Awe; and the Awe drains the loch at its north-western extremity, discharging into Loch Etive. Among other streams are the Add, Aray, Coe or Cona, Creran, Douglas, Eachaig, Etive, Euchar, Feochan, Finart, Fyne, Kinglass, Nell, Ruel, Shiel, Shira, Strae and Uisge-Dhu. The county is remarkable for the numerous sea-lochs which deeply indent the coast, the principal being Loch Long (with its branches Loch Goil and the Holy Loch), Loch Striven (Rothesay's "weather glass"), Loch Riddon, Loch Fyne (with Loch Gilp and Loch Gair), Lochs Tarbert, Killisport, Swin, Crinan, Craignish, Melfort, Feochan, Etive, Linnhe (with its branches Loch Creran, Loch Leven and Loch Eil) and Sunart. There are also a large number of inland lakes, the total area of which is about 25,000 acres. Of these the principal are Lochs Awe, Avich, Eck, Lydoch and Shiel. The principal islands are Mull, Islay, Jura, Colonsay, Lismore, Tyree, Coll, Gigha, Luing and Kerrera. Besides these there are the two small but interesting islands of Staffa and Iona. The mountains are so many as to give the shire a markedly rugged character. Some of them are among the loftiest in the kingdom, as Ben Cruachan with its summit of twin pyramids (3689 ft.), Ben More, in Mull (3172), Ben Ima (3318), Buachaille Etive (3345), Ben Bui (3106), Ben Lui (or Loy), on the confines of the shires of Perth and Argyll (3708), Ben Starav near the head of Loch Etive (3541), and Ben Arthur, called from its shape "The Cobbler" (2891), on the borders of Dumbartonshire. There are many picturesque glens, of which the best-known are Glen Aray, Glen Croe, Glen Etive, Glendaruel, Glen Lochy ("the wearisome glen"--some 10 m. of bare hills and boulders--between Tyndrum and Dalmally), Glen Strae, Hell's Glen (off Lech Goil) and Glencoe, the scene of the massacre in 1692. The waterfalls of Cruachan are beautiful; and those of Connel, which are more in the nature of rapids, caused by the rush of the ebbing tide over the rocky bar at the narrowing mouth of Loch Etive, have been made celebrated by Ossian, who called them "the Falls of Lora." In several of the glens, as Glen Aray, small falls may be seen, enhanced in beauty when the rivers are in flood. Pre-eminently Argyll is the shire of the sportsman. The lovely Western Isles provide endless enjoyment for the yachtsman; the lochs and rivers abound with salmon and trout; the deer forests and grouse moors are second to none in Scotland.

_Geology._--The mainland portion of the county consists chiefly of the
metamorphic rocks of the Eastern Highlands, nearly all the
subdivisions of that series (see SCOTLAND: _Geology_) being
represented. They form parallel belts of varying width trending
north-east and south-west. The slates and phyllites referred to the
lowest group occur along the shore at Dunoon, and are followed by the
Beinn Bheula grits and albite schists, forming nearly all the highest
ground in Cowall between Loch Fyne and the Firth of Clyde and the
greater part of Kintyre. The green beds, Glensluan mica-schists and
Loch Tay limestones are developed in Glendaruel, and have been traced
north-east to Glen Fyne and at intervals south-west to Campbeltown.
The next prominent zone is that of the Ardrishaig phyllites, with
quartzites in the lower portion and soft phyllites in the upper part,
which cover a belt from 3 to 6 m. across, stretching from Glen Shira
by Inveraray and Ardrishaig to south Knapdale.

Next in order come the Easdale slates, phyllites with thin dark
limestone, the main limestone of Loch Awe and the pebbly quartzite
(Schiehallion), which are repeated by innumerable folds and spread
northwards to Loch Linnhe and westwards to Jura and Islay. The slates
of this horizon have been largely quarried at Easdale and
Ballachulish, and this main limestone is typically developed near Loch
Awe, near Kilmartin, on the islands of Lismore and Shuna, and in Islay
between Bridgend and Portaskaig. The quartzites of this series form
the highest hills in the south of Islay, occupy nearly the whole of
Jura, and are continued in the mainland, where, by means of the rapid
isoclinal folding, they form lenticular masses. In Islay and at
various localities on the mainland a conglomerate occurs at or near
the base of the quartzites, which contains fragments of the underlying
rocks and boulders of granite not now found in place in that region.

On the mainland, on the north side of the compound synclinal folding
of Loch Awe, the Ardrishaig phyllites reappear at Craignish near
Kilmartin, and the quartzites of this group are supposed to come to
the surface again in Glencoe, not far from the outcrop of the
Schiehallion quartzite.

The metamorphic rocks are associated with bands of epidiorite which
have shared in the folding and metamorphism of the region. These are
largely developed near Loch Awe, in Knapdale, and on the south-east
coast of Islay. They have been usually regarded as intrusive, but
south of Tayvallich on the mainland, lavas and tuffs, which have
escaped deformation, occur in the Easdale slates and the pebbly
limestone.

The Lower Old Red Sandstone, chiefly composed of volcanic rocks--lavas
and tuffs--rests unconformably on the metamorphic series. These rocks
cover a wide area in Lorne between Loch Melfort, Oban and the Pass of
Brander, and they reappear in the lofty mountains on both sides of
Glencoe. Representatives of this formation are found in Kintyre, south
of Campbeltown, where the sediments prevail. The intrusive igneous
rocks belonging to this period are widely distributed and form
conspicuous features. The plutonic masses are represented by the
granite of Ben Cruachan, by the diorite of Gleann Domhainn, and by the
kentallenite (a basic rock related to the monxonites), near
Ballachulish. Throughout the Lorne volcanic plateau there are numerous
dykes of porphyrite which likewise traverse the schists and part of
the Ben Cruachan granite. Sheets of quartz-porphyry, lamprophyre and
diorite are also represented, the first of these types being quarried
at Crarae on the north shore of Loch Fyne.

The Upper Old Red Sandstone forms isolated patches resting
unconformably on all older rocks, on the west coast of Kintyre, and
between Campbeltown and Southend. In the district of Campbeltown these
red sandstones and cornstones are followed by the volcanic rocks of
the Calciferous Sandstone series, which lie to the south of the
depression at Machrihanish, and are succeeded by the lower limestones
and coals of the Carboniferous Limestone series.

On the north and south shores of the promontory of Ardnamurchan there
are small patches of Jurassic strata ranging from the Lower Lias to
the Oxford Clay, and in Morvern on the shores of Loch Aline
representatives of the Upper Greensand are covered by the basaltic
lavas of Tertiary age. The acid and basic plutonic rocks (gabbros and
granophyres) of Tertiary time occur in Ardnamurchan. A striking
geological feature of the county is the number of dolerite and basalt
dykes trending in a north-west direction, which are referred to the
same period of intrusion. There is, however, another group of dolerite
dykes running east and west near Dunoon and elsewhere, which are cut
by the former and are probably of older date.

Lead veins occur at Strontian which have yielded a number of minerals,
including sphalerite, fluorite, strontianite, harmotone, brewsterite
and pilolite. Near Inveraray, nickeliferous ore has been obtained at
two localities.

_Climate._--The rainfall is very abundant. At Oban, the average annual amount is 64.18 in.; in Glen Fyne, 104.11 in.; at the bridge of Orchy, 113.62 in., and at Upper Glencoe 127.65. The prevailing winds, as observed near Crinan, are south-west and south-east, and next in frequency are the north-west and north-east. The average yearly temperature is 48 deg. F.

_Agriculture._--Argyllshire was formerly partly covered with natural forests, remains of which, consisting chiefly of oak, ash, pine and birch, are still visible in the mosses; but, owing to the clearance of the ground for the introduction of sheep, and to past neglect of planting, the county is now remarkable for its lack of wood, except in the neighbourhood of Inveraray, where there are extensive and flourishing plantations, and a few other places. Replanting, however, has been carried on. Most of the county is unfitted for agriculture; but many districts afford fine pasturage for mountain sheep; and some of the valleys, such as Glendaruel, are very fertile. The chief crop is oats; there is a little barley, but no wheat. The shire is one of those where the crofting system exists, but it is by no means universal. It is predominant in Tyree and the western district of the mainland, but elsewhere farms of moderate size are the rule. The cattle, though small, are equal to any other breed in the kingdom, and are marketed in large numbers in the south. Dairy farming is carried on to some extent in the southern parts of Kintyre, where there is a large proportion of arable land. In the higher tracts sheep have taken the place of cattle with excellent results. The black-faced is the species most generally reared.

_Industries._--Whisky is manufactured at Campbeltown, in Islay, at Oban, Ardrishaig and elsewhere. Gunpowder is made at Kames (Kyles of Bute), Melfort and Furnace. Coarse woollens are made for home use; but fishing is the most important industry, Loch Fyne being famous for its herrings. The season lasts from June to January, but white fishing is carried on at one or other of the ports all the year round. Slate and granite quarrying and some coal-mining are the only other industries of any consequence.

_Communications._--Owing partly to the paucity of trading industries and partly to the fact that, owing to its greatly indented coast-line, no place in the shire is more than 12 m. from the sea, the railway mileage in the county is very small. The Tyndrum to Oban section of the Caledonian railway company's system is within the county limits; a small portion of the track of the North British railway company's line to Mallaig skirts the extreme west of the shire, and the Caledonian line from Oban to Ballachulish serves the northern coast districts of the Argyllshire mainland. In connexion with this last route mention should be made of the cantilever bridge crossing the Falls of Lora with a span of 500 ft. at a height of 125 ft. above the water-way. The chief means of communication is by steamers, which maintain regular intercourse between Glasgow and various parts of the coast. In order to avoid the circuitous passage round the Mull of Kintyre the Crinan Canal, across the isthmus from Ardrishaig to Loch Crinan, a distance of 9 m., was constructed in 1793-1801, at a cost of L142,000. It has 15 locks, an average depth of 10 ft., a surface width of 66 ft., and bottom width of 30 ft., is navigable by vessels of 200 tons, and runs through a district of remarkable beauty. Another canal unites Campbeltown with Dalavaddy. In summer the mails for the islands and the great bulk of the tourist traffic by the MacBrayne fleet is conveyed through the Crinan Canal, transhipment being effected at Ardrishaig and Crinan. Throughout the year goods traffic between the Clyde and elsewhere and the West Highland ports is conveyed by deep-sea steamers round the Mull. Before the advent of railways the shire contained many famous coaching routes, but now coaches only run during the tourist season, either in connexion with train and steamer, or in districts still not served by either.

_Population and Government._--Owing to emigration, chiefly to Canada, the population has declined, almost without a break, since 1831, when it was 100,973, to 74,085 in 1891 and 73,642 in 1901, in which year there were 24 persons to the sq. m. In 1901 the number of Gaelic-speaking persons was 34,224, of whom 3313 spoke Gaelic only. The chief towns are Campbeltown (population in 1901, 8286), Dunoon (6779) and Oban (5427), with Ardrishaig (1285), Ballachulish (1143), Lochgilphead (1313) and Tarbert (1697). The county returns a member to parliament. Inveraray, Campbeltown and Oban belong to the Ayr district group of parliamentary burghs. Argyllshire is a sheriffdom, and there are resident sheriffs-substitute at Inveraray, Campbeltown and Oban; courts are held also at Tobermory, Lochgilphead, Bowmore in Islay, and Dunoon. Both Presbyterian bodies are strongly represented; there are Roman Catholic and (Anglican) Episcopal bishops of Argyll and the Isles, and there is a Roman Catholic pro-cathedral at Oban. Campbeltown, Dunoon and Oban have secondary schools, Tarbert public school has a secondary department, and several other schools earn grants for giving higher education. Part of the "residue" grant is spent by the county council on classes of navigation and other subjects in various schools, short courses in agriculture for farmers, and in providing bursaries.

_History._--The early history of Argyll (Airergaidheal) is very obscure. At the close of the 5th century Fergus, son of Erc, a descendant of Conor II., _airdrigh_ or high king of Ireland, came over with a band of Irish Scots and established himself in Argyll and Kintyre. Nothing more is known till, in the days of Conall I., the descendant of Fergus in the fourth generation, St Columba appears. Conall died in 574, and Columba was mainly instrumental in establishing his first cousin, Aidan, founder of the Dalriad kingdom and ancestor of the royal house of Scotland, in power. In the 8th century Argyll, with the Western Islands and Man, fell under the power of the Norsemen until, in the 12th century, Somerled (or Somhairle), a descendant of Colla-Uais, _airdrigh_ of Ireland (327-331), succeeded in ousting them and established his authority, not only as thane of Argyll, but also in Kintyre and the Western Islands. Somerled died in 1164 and his descendants maintained themselves in Argyll and the islands, between the conflicting claims of the kings of Scotland, Norway and Man, until the end of the 15th century.

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. Their policy in the wars between the two powers was a masterly neutrality. Thus, during the expedition of Alexander II. to the Western Isles in 1249, Ewan (Eoghan), lord of Argyll, refused to fight against the Norwegians; in 1263 the same Ewan refused to join Haakon of Norway in attacking Alexander III. Forty years later the clansmen of Argyll, mainly MacDougals, were warring on the side of Edward of England against Robert Bruce, by whom they were badly beaten on Loch Awe in 1309. The clansmen of the house of Somerled in the isles, on the other hand, the MacDonalds, remained loyal to Scotland in spite of the persuasions of John of Argyll, appointed admiral of Edward II.'s western fleet; and, under their chief Angus Og, they contributed much to the victory of Bannockburn. The alliance of John, earl of Ross and lord of the Isles, with Edward IV. of England in 1461 led to the breaking of the power of the house of Somerled, and in 1478 John was forced to resign Ross to the crown and, two years later, his lordships of Knapdale and Kintyre as well. In Argyll itself the Campbells had already made the first step to supremacy through the marriage of Colin, grandson of Sir Duncan Campbell of Lochow, first Lord Campbell, with Isabel Stewart, eldest of the three co-heiresses of John, third lord of Lorne. He acquired the greater part of the lands of the other sisters by purchase, and the lordship of Lorne from Walter their uncle, the heir in tail male, by an exchange for lands in Perthshire. In 1457 he was created, by James II., earl of Argyll. He died on the 10th of May 1493. From him dates the greatness of the house of the earls and dukes of Argyll (q.v.), whose history belongs to that of Scotland. The house of Somerled survives in two main branches--that of Macdonald of the Isles, Alexander Macdonald (d. 1795) having been raised to the peerage in 1776, and that of the Macdonnells, earls of Antrim in Ireland. The principal clans in Argyll, besides those already mentioned, were the Macleans, the Stewarts of Appin, the Macquarries and the Macdonalds of Glencoe, and the Macfarlanes of Glencroe. The Campbells are still very numerous in the county.

Argyllshire men have made few contributions to English literature. For long the natives spoke Gaelic only and their bards sang in Gaelic (see CELT: _Literature:_ Scottish). Near Inistrynich on the north-eastern shore of Loch Awe stands the monumental cairn erected in honour of Duncan Ban McIntyre (1724-1812), the most popular of modern Gaelic bards. But the romantic beauty of the country has made it a favourite setting for the themes of many poets and story-tellers, from "Ossian" and Sir Walter Scott to Robert Louis Stevenson, while not a few men distinguished in affairs or in learning have been natives of the county.

The antiquities comprise monoliths, circles of standing stones, crannogs and cairns. In almost all the burying-grounds--as at Campbeltown, Keil, Soroby, Kilchousland, Kilmun--there are specimens of sculptured crosses and slabs. Besides the famous ecclesiastical remains at Iona (q.v.), there are ruins of a Cistercian priory in Oronsay, and of a church founded in the 12th century by Somerled, thane of Argyll, at Saddell. Among castles may be mentioned Dunstaffnage, Ardtornish, Skipness, Kilchurn (beloved of painters), Ardchonnel, Dunolly, Stalker, Dunderaw and Carrick.

AUTHORITIES.--The (Eighth) Duke of Argyll, _Commercial Principles
Applied to the Hire of Land_ (London, 1877); _Crofts and Farms in the
Hebrides_ (Edinburgh, 1883); _Iona_ (Edinburgh, 1889); _Scotland as it
Was and Is_ (Edinburgh, 1887), _House of Argyll_ (Glasgow, 1871); A.
Brown, _Memorials of Argyllshire_ (Greenock, 1889); Harvie-Brown and
Buckley, _Vertebrate Fauna of Argyll and the Inner Hebrides_
(Edinburgh, 1892); D. Clerk, "On the Agriculture of the County of
Argyll" (_Trans. of H. and A. Soc._, 1878); T. Gray, _Week at Oban_
(Edinburgh, 1881); Stewart, _Collection of Views of Campbeltown_. For
antiquities see _The Sculptured Stones of Scotland_, vol. ii.,
published by the Spalding Club, and Capt. T.P. White's
_Archaeological Sketches in Kintyre_ and _Proc. Antiq. Soc. of
Scotland_, vols. iv., v., viii.

ARGYRODITE, a mineral which is of interest as being that in which the element germanium was discovered by C. Winkler in 1886. It is a silver sulpho-germanate, Ag8GeS6, and crystallizes in the cubic system. The crystals have the form of the octahedron or rhombic dodecahedron, and are frequently twinned. The botryoidal crusts of small indistinct crystals first found in a silver mine at Freiberg in Saxony were originally thought to be monoclinic, but were afterwards proved to be identical with the more distinctly developed crystals recently found in Bolivia. The colour is iron-black with a purplish tinge, and the lustre metallic. There is no cleavage; hardness 2-1/2, specific gravity 6.2. It is of interest to note that the Freiberg mineral was long ago imperfectly described by A. Breithaupt under the name _Plusinglanz_, and that the Bolivian crystals were incorrectly described in 1849 as crystallized brongniardite. The name argyrodite is from the Greek [Greek: argurodaes], rich in silver.

Isomorphous with argyrodite is the corresponding tin compound Ag8SnS6, also found in Bolivia as cubic crystals, and known by the name canfieldite. Other Bolivian crystals are intermediate in composition between argyrodite and canfieldite. (L. J. S.)

ARGYROKASTRO, or ARGYROCASTRON (Turkish, _Ergeri_; Albanian _Ergir Castri_), a town of southern Albania, Turkey, in the vilayet of Iannina. Pop. (1900) about 11,000. Argyrokastro is finely situated 1060 ft. above sea-level, on the eastern slopes of the Acroceraunian mountains, and near the left bank of the river Dhrynos, a left-hand tributary of the Viossa. It is the capital of a sanjak bearing the same name, and was formerly important as the headquarters of the local Moslem aristocracy, partly owing to the mountainous and easily defensible nature of the district. It contains the ruins of an imposing castellated fort. A fine kind of snuff, known as _fuli_, is manufactured here. Argyrokastro has been variously identified with the ancient Hadrianopolis and Antigonea. In the 18th century it is said to have contained 20,000 inhabitants, but it was almost depopulated by plague in 1814. Albanian Moslems constitute the greater part of the population.

ARGYROPULUS, or ARGYROPULO, JOHN (c. 1416-1486), Greek humanist, one of the earliest promoters of the revival of learning in the West, was born in Constantinople, and became a teacher there, Constantine Lascaris being his pupil. He then appears to have crossed over to Italy, and taught in Padua in 1434, being subsequently made rector of the university. About 1441 he returned to Constantinople, but after its capture by the Turks, again took refuge in Italy. About 1456 he was invited to Florence by Cosimo de' Medici, and was there appointed professor of Greek in the university. In 1471, on the outbreak of the plague, he removed to Rome, where he continued to act as a teacher of Greek till his death. Among his scholars were Angelus Politianus and Johann Reuchlin. His principal works were translations of the following portions of Aristotle,--_Categoriae, De Interpretatione, Analytica Posteriora, Physica, De Caelo, De Anima, Metaphysica, Ethica Nicomachea, Politica_; and an _Expositio Ethicorum Aristotelis_. Several of his writings exist still in manuscript.

See Humphrey Hody, _De Graecis Illustribus_, 1742, and Smith's
_Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, s.v._ Joannes.

ARIA (Ital. for "air"), a musical term, equivalent to the English "air," signifying a melody apart from the harmony, but especially a musical composition for a single voice or instrument, with an accompaniment of other voices or instruments.

Comments

Log in to leave a comment.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Arculf" to "Armour, Philip"Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

0%36 min left in chapter