Clan Campbell

For most of Scottish history the Campbells have dominated the West Highlands and Isles of Scotland. In the middle ages they claimed descent from no less than King Arthur and their inheritance included the right of ‘leadership of the Britons’. Whether this is true is open to debate. What is clear is that they have exercised a huge influence over most of Scottish history. It may be safe to assume, from the various pieces of evidence fossilised in the various genealogies is that their place of origin may have been among the ancient Britons of Strathclyde, whose kingdom stretched from just north of Dumbarton, right down into Cumbria and the west of what is now Northern England. This kingdom was extinguished in the eleventh century.

It is, however, in the Gaelic cultural sphere that the Campbells came to be most associated. Their name, for instance, comes from the Gaelic words Cam ‘crooked’ and Béal ‘mouth’. The first Campbell found in contemporary Scottish records is Gillespie, in 1263. Early grants of land to him and his relations were almost all in east-central Scotland, although the family's first connection with Argyll appears to have come about some generations before, with the marriage of a Campbell to the dynastic heiress of the O'Duines, who brought with her the lordship of Loch Awe. From this seed the Campbells grew.

R. R. McIan described this figure thus:

‘The artist, in accordance with the character of the family of Argyle, who were distinguished as staunch adherents of the ‘solemn league’, has exhibited the figure in the character of one of those doughty opponents of prelacy, poring over the sacred volume to strengthen his resolution to stand for the covenanted work of Scotland's reformation. He is also, as was the practice with those worthies, provided with his trusty broadsword, as if prepared for an attack by Claverhouse and his formidable dragoons'.

The figurine weighs just over 0.8 kilos. It stands 11.5cm tall, on a base rougly 9.5cm by 9.5cm.