daughter of John, lord of Lorne, succeeded his father in 1493. In a charter of 30 June 1494 he is designated Lord High Chancellor of Scotland, and in the same year he was appointed master of the household. In 1499 he and others received from the king a commission to let on lease for the term of three years the entire lordship of the Isles as possessed by the last lord, both in the Isles and on the mainland, with the exception of the island of Isla and the lands of North and South Kintyre. He also received a commission of lieutenancy over the lordship of the Isles, and some months later was appointed keeper of the castle of Tarbert, and baillie and governor of the king's lands in Knapdale. Along with the Earl of Huntly and others he was in 1504 charged with the task of suppressing the rebellion of the islanders under Donald Dubh; and after its suppression in 1506 the lordship of the Isles was shared between him and Huntly, the latter being placed over the northern region, while the south isles and adjacent coast were under Argyll. From this time till his death the western highlands were free from serious disturbance. At the battle of Flodden, 9 Sept. 1513, Argyll, along with the Earl of Lennox, held command of the right wing, composed wholly of highlanders, whose impetuous eagerness for a hand-to-hand fight when galled by the English archers was the chief cause of the defeat of the Scots. Argyll was one of the thirteen Scottish earls who were slain. By his wife, Elizabeth Stewart, eldest daughter of John, first earl of Lennox, he had four sons and five daughters. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Colin, third earl of Argyll [q. v.] His fourth son, Donald (d. 1562) [q. v.], is separately noticed.
[Register of the Great Seal of Scotland; Douglas's Scotch Peerage, i. 90; Donald Gregory's Hist of the Western Islands.]
CAMPBELL, ARCHIBALD, fourth Earl of Argyll (d. 1558), eldest son of Colin, third earl of Argyll [q. v.], and Lady Jane Gordon, eldest daughter of Alexander, third earl of Huntly, immediately after succeeding to the title and offices of his father, in 1530, was employed in command of an expedition to quell an insurrection in the southern isles of Scotland. The voluntary submission of the principal chiefs rendered extreme measures unnecessary, and Alexander of Isla, the prime mover of the insurrection, was able to convince the king not only that he was personally well disposed to the government, but that the disturbances in the Isles were chiefly owing to the fact that the earls of Argyll had made use of the office of lieutenant over the Isles for their own personal aggrandisement. The earl was therefore summoned before the king to give an account of the duties and rental of the Isles received by him, and, as the result of the inquiry, was committed for a time to prison. Shortly afterwards he was liberated, but was deprived of his offices, and they were not restored to him until after the death of James V. In a charter to him of the king's lands of Cardross in Dumbartonshire, 28 April 1542, he is called ‘master of the king's wine cellar.’ Along with the Earls of Huntly and Moray he was named one of the council of the kingdom in the document which Cardinal Beaton produced as the will of James, and which appointed Beaton governor of the kingdom and guardian to the infant queen. After the arrest of Beaton, 20 Jan. 1542–3, Argyll retired to his own country to muster a force to maintain the struggle against the Earl of Arran, who had been chosen governor. Shortly afterwards the Earls of Argyll, Bothwell, Huntly, and Moray, supported by a large body of the barons and landed gentry, as well as by the bishops and abbots, assembled at Perth, avowing their determination to resist the measures of the governor to the uttermost. On being summoned by the governor to disperse they deemed it prudent not to push matters to extremities; but when it became known that Henry VIII of England had succeeded in arranging a treaty of marriage between the young queen Mary and Edward, prince of Wales, the Earls of Argyll, Huntly, Lennox, and Bothwell marched from Stirling with a force of ten thousand men, and compelled the governor to surrender to their charge the infant queen, with whom they returned in triumph to Stirling. In the summer of 1544 Lennox, who had gone over to the party of the English king, plundered the Isle of Arran, and made himself master of Bute and the castle of Rothesay, but as he sailed down the Clyde he was fired on by the Earl of Argyll, who with four thousand men occupied the castle of Dunoon. After a consultation with his English officers he determined to attack Dunoon, and, notwithstanding the resistance of Argyll, effected a landing and burnt the village and church. Retreating then to his ships, he subsequently laid waste a large part of Kintyre; but, as he had not succeeded in obtaining possession of the castle of Dumbarton, the main purpose of the expedition was a failure, since it was impossible without it to retain a permanent footing on the Clyde. On the forfeiture of the estates of Lennox, Argyll was rewarded with the largest share. Although Lennox continued to foment discontent in the Isles, the practical result of the
