Sir Colin Campbell, the eldest son of Sir Duncan, born about 1577, succeeded as eighth laird of Glenurchy. Little is known of this Sir Colin save what is highly to his honour, namely, his patronage of George Jamesone, the celebrated portrait painter. Sir Colin married Lady Juliana Campbell, eldest daughter of Hugh, first Lord Loudon, but had no issue. He was succeeded by his brother, Sir Robert, at first styled of Glenfalloch, and afterwards of Glenurchy. Sir Robert married Isabel, daughter of Sir Lauchlan Mackintosh, of Torcastle, captain of the clan Chattan, and had eight sons and nine daughters. William, the sixth son, was ancestor of the Campbells of Glenfalloch, the representatives of whom have succeeded to the Scottish titles of Earl of Breadalbane, &c. Margaret, the eldest daughter, married to John Cameron of Lochiel, was the mother of Sir Ewen Cameron.
The eldest son, Sir John Campbell of Glenurchy, who succeeded, was twice married. His first wife was Lady Mary Graham, eldest daughter of William, Earl of Strathearn, Menteith, and Airth.
Sir John Campbell of Glenurchy, first Earl of Breadalbane, only son of this Sir John, was born about 1635. He gave great assistance to the forces collected in the Highlands for Charles the Second in 1653, under the command of General Middleton. He subsequently used his utmost endeavours with General Monk to declare for a free parliament, as the most effectual way to bring about his Majesty’s restoration. Being a principal creditor of George, sixth Earl of Caithness, whose debts are said to have exceeded a million of marks, that nobleman, on 8th October 1672, made a disposition of his whole estates, heritable jurisdictions, and titles of honour, after his death, in favour of Sir John Campbell of Glenurchy, the latter taking on himself the burden of his lordship’s debts; and he was in consequence duly infefted in the lands and earldom of Caithness, 27th February 1673. The Earl of Caithness died in May 1676, when Sir John Campbell obtained a patent, creating him Earl of Caithness, dated at Whitehall, 28th June 1677. But George Sinclair of Keiss, the heir-male of the last earl, being found by parliament entitled to that dignity, Sir John Campbell obtained another patent, 13th August 1681, creating him instead Earl of Breadalbane and Holland, Viscount of Tay and Paintland, Lord Glenurchy, Benederaloch, Ormelie, and Weik, with the precedency of the former patent, and remainder to whichever of his sons by his first wife he might designate in writing, and ultimately to his heirs-male whatsoever. On the accession of James II., the Earl was sworn a privy councillor. At the Revolution, he adhered to the Prince of Orange; and after the battle of Killiecrankie, and the attempted reduction of the Highlands by the forces of the new government, he was empowered to enter into a negotiation with the Jacobite chiefs to induce them to submit to King William, full details of which, as well as of his share in the massacre of Glencoe, have been given in the former part of the work.
When the treaty of Union was under discussion, his Lordship kept aloof, and did not even attend parliament. At the general election of 1713, he was chosen one of the sixteen Scots representative peers, being then seventy-eight years old. At the breaking out of the rebellion of 1715, he sent five hundred of his clan to join the standard of the Pretender; and he was one of the suspected persons, with his second son, Lord Glenurchy, summoned to appear at Edinburgh within a certain specified period, to give bail for their allegiance to the government, but no further notice was taken of his conduct. The Earl died in 1716, in his 81st year. He married first, 17th December 1657, Lady Mary Rich, third daughter of Henry, first Earl of Holland, who had been executed for his loyalty to Charles the First, 9th March 1649. By this lady he had two sons—Duncan, styled Lord Ormelie, who survived his father, but was passed over in the succession, and John, in his father’s lifetime styled Lord Glenurchy, who became second Earl of Breadalbane. He married, secondly, 7th April 1678, Lady Mary Campbell, third daughter of Archibald, Marquis of Argyll, dowager of George, sixth Earl of Caithness.
John Campbell, Lord Glenurchy, the second son, born 19th November 1662, was by his father nominated to succeed him as second Earl of Breadalbane, in terms of the patent conferring the title. He died at Holyrood-house, 23d February 1752, in his ninetieth year. He married, first, Lady Frances Cavendish, second of the five daughters of Henry, second Duke of Newcastle. She died, without issue, 4th February 1690, in her thirtieth year. He married, secondly, 23d May 1695, Henrietta, second daughter of Sir Edward Villiers, knight, sister of the first Earl of Jersey, and of Elizabeth, Countess of Orkney, the witty but plain-looking mistress of King William III. By his second wife he had a son, John, third earl, and two daughters.
John, third earl, born in 1696, was educated at the university of Oxford, and after holding many highly important public offices, died at Holyrood-house, 26th January 1782, in his 86th year. He was twice married, and had three sons, who all predeceased him.
The male line of the first peer having thus become extinct, the clause in the patent in favour of heirs-general transferred the peerage, and the vast estates belonging to it, to his kinsman, John Campbell, born in 1762, eldest son of Colin Campbell of Carwhin, descended from Colin Campbell of Mochaster (who died in 1678), third son of Sir Robert Campbell of Glenurchy. The mother of the fourth Earl and first Marquis of Breadalbane was Elizabeth, daughter of Archibald Campbell of Stonefield, sheriff of Argyleshire, and sister of John Campbell, judicially styled Lord Stonefield, a lord of session and justiciary. In 1784 he was elected one of the sixteen representative peers of Scotland, and was rechosen at all the subsequent elections, until he was created a peer of the United Kingdom in November 1806, by the title of Baron Breadalbane of Taymouth, in the county of Perth, to himself and the heirs-male of his body. In 1831, at the coronation of William the Fourth, he was created a marquis of the United Kingdom, under the title of Marquis of Breadalbane and Earl of Ormelie. In public affairs he did not take a prominent or ostentatious part, his attention being chiefly devoted to the improvement of his extensive estates, great portions of which, being unfitted for cultivation, he laid out in plantations. In the magnificent improvements at Taymouth, his lordship displayed much taste; and the park has been frequently described as one of the most extensive and beautiful in the kingdom. He married, 2d September 1793, Mary Turner, eldest daughter and coheiress of David Gavin, Esq. of Langton, in the county of Berwick, and by her had two daughters and one son. The elder daughter, Lady Elizabeth Maitland Campbell, married in 1831, Sir John Pringle of Stitchell, baronet, and the younger, Lady Uary Campbell, became in 1819 the wife of Richard, Marquis of Chandos, who in 1839 became Duke of Buckingham. The marquis died, after a short illness, at Taymouth Castle, on 29th March 1834, aged seventy-two.
The marquis’ only son, John Campbell, Earl of Ormelie, born at Dundee, 26th October 1796, succeeded, on the death of his father, to the titles and estates. He married, 23d November 1821, Eliza, eldest daughter of George Baillie, Esq. of Jerviswood, without issue. He died November 8th, 1862, when the marquisate, with its secondary titles, in the peerage of the United Kingdom, became extinct, and he was succeeded in the Scotch titles by a distant kinsman, John Alexander Gavin Campbell of Glenfalloch, Perthshire, born in 1824. The claim of the latter, however, was disputed by several candidates for the titles and rich estates. As we have already indicated, the title of Glenfalloch to the estates was descended from William, sixth son of Sir Robert Campbell, ninth laird and third baron of Glenurchy. He married, in 1850, Mary Theresa, daughter of J. Edwards, Esq., Dublin, and had issue two sons, Lord Glenurchy and the Honourable Ivan Campbell; and one daughter, Lady Eva. This the sixth earl died in London, March 20, 1871, and has been succeeded by his eldest son.
Of the Macarthur Campbells of Strachur, the old Statistical Account of the parish of Strachur says:—“This family is reckoned by some the most ancient of the name of Campbell. The late laird of Macfarlane, who with great genius and assiduity had studied the ancient history of the Highlands, was of this opinion. The patronymic name of this family was Macarthur (the son of Arthur), which Arthur, the antiquary above-mentioned maintains, was brother to Colin, the first of the Argyll family, and that the representatives of the two brothers continued for a long time to be known by the names of Macarthur and Maccaellein, before they took the surname of Campbell. Another account makes Arthur the first laird of Strachur, to have descended of the family of Argyll, at a later period, in which the present laird seems to acquiesce, by taking, with a mark of cadetcy, the arms and livery of the family of Argyll, after they had been quartered with those of Lorn. The laird of Strachur has been always accounted, according to the custom of the Highlands, chief of the clan Arthur or Macarthurs.” We have already quoted Mr Skene’s opinion as to the claims of the Macarthurs to the chiefship of the clan Campbell; we cannot think these claims have been sufficiently made out.
Macarthur adhered to the cause of Robert the Bruce, and received, as his reward, a considerable portion of the forfeited territory of MacDougall of Lorn, Bruce’s great enemy. He obtained also the keeping of the castle of Dunstaffnage. After the marriage of Sir Neil Campbell with the king’s sister, the power and possessions of the Campbell branch rapidly increased, and in the reign of David II. they appear to have first put forward their claims to the chieftainship, but were successfully resisted by Macarthur, who obtained a charter “Arthuro Campbell quod nulli subjicitur pro terris nisi regi.”