Dunbartonshire, Argyllshire and Bute

The yoking together of Dunbartonshire, Argyllshire and Bute into a single constituency ignored their great historical and cultural differences. Dunbartonshire formed a crescent-shape, from the banks of Loch Lomond in the north to a lowland belt bounded to the south by the River Clyde, which included the burgh and royal castle of Dumbarton. The whole shire had formed part of the lordship of Lennox in the middle ages. J. Irving, The Book of Dunbartonshire (Edinburgh, 3 vols. 1879), i. frontispiece. The shire of Bute covered the island of the same name, which jutted into the Firth of Clyde from the west, and was dominated by another royal castle, at Rothesay, and by another lordship – the earldom of Bute. In the seventeenth century, with the earldom in abeyance, the hereditary keepership of the castle fell to the dominant family in the island: the Stewarts, a cadet branch of the royal dynasty. Dunbartonshire and Bute had traditionally formed the first line of defence for the Scottish kings and their lowland subjects against incursions from the Gaels of the western highlands and islands – the area which now formed Argyllshire. As well as Argyll, Lorn and Morvern on the mainland, the shire had expanded in the seventeenth century to include the Hebridean islands of Mull, Kintyre, Jura and Islay. In the middle ages the whole of this region had been dominated by the MacDonalds, Lords of the Isles. Atlas Scot. Hist. 141, 205, 226-7. After the destruction of the lordship in 1493, the power-vacuum was gradually filled by the Campbells of Argyll, whose encroachment on the isles was almost complete by 1638. Despite a last attempt by the MacDonalds and their allied clans to destroy the Campbells during the 1640s (including the ‘ravaging of Argyll’ conducted by Alasdair MacColla in 1644-5), in the early 1650s the head of the Campbells, the marquess of Argyll (Archibald Campbell*), could still treat the shire as his private fiefdom. A.I. Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603-1788 (East Linton, 1996), 37-46, 60-5, 73-6, 94-110; L.M. Smith, ‘Scotland and Cromwell’ (D.Phil., Oxford Univ. 1979), 194.

Dunbartonshire and Bute differed ethnically, culturally and historically from Argyllshire; there were also political tensions between them. Although all three had been part of the western association which had resisted James Hamilton, 1st duke of Hamilton, and the royalist Engagers after 1648, this alignment was not to last. Dow, Cromwellian Scot. 7. Their reactions to the tender of union made by the English invaders in 1652 were certainly very different. Bute and Dunbartonshire were enthusiastic in their acceptance. According to the Bute deputy, John McGilchrist, they accepted the offer ‘heartily’, being ‘very well satisfied therewith’. Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 50. The Dunbartonshire deputies, Sir James Hamilton* of Orbiston and John Douglas of Mains, were even more positive in their reply, saying that they ‘cordially accept and cheerfully acquiesce’ to the tender, which they saw as ‘the excellent blessing of God’ to effect ‘the long-desired settlement of the island’. Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 51-3. Argyllshire, by contrast, saw union as a threat. The deputies, James Campbell of Ardkinglass and Dougal Campbell of Lagg – both kinsmen and clients of the marquess of Argyll – delayed their assent to union, claiming that they first had to consult ‘the shire’. In the end, Ardkinglass went to Edinburgh on his own, and there accepted the union, but demanded that the religious settlement should accord with the Covenant, and asked for freedom from taxation and military garrisons, adding that the existing ‘judicatories’ – including the marquess of Argyll as hereditary sheriff – should be re-established. Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 146-7, 163-4, 169-73. The wariness of Argyllshire over collaborating with the English contrasted strongly with the apparent willingness of Dunbartonshire and Bute. This was a theme which would recur later in the decade.

The establishment of English government in Dunbartonshire was relatively straightforward. The local gentry were actively involved in the administration of the shire from the very beginning. John Houston served as collector of assessments from 1653, with the committee to regulate them being chosen by the ‘heritors’ of the shire; and when he was replaced by his deputy, John Cunningham, the change was conditional on determining that ‘the gentlemen of the shire be willing to stand his friend’. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke lxxxvi, f. 99v; xlv, unfol.: 23 Aug. 1653; xlvii, unfol.: 7 Feb. 1656. Disputes, where they arose, were over matters of detail, rather than marking hostility to the new regime, as in September 1653, when the revaluation of the shire was delayed ‘by reason of some differences amongst the heritors of the shire, they cannot agree upon fit persons to be chosen with general satisfaction’. Once the commander in Scotland, Robert Lilburne*, had devised a fair system, with penalties for those who ‘do anything unjustly in favour of themselves to the prejudice of their neighbours’ there were no further problems levying the assessment in Dunbartonshire. Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 219-20. During the protectorate, many of the lairds of Dunbartonshire were appointed as assessment commissioners (from 1655) and as justices of the peace (from 1656), and in 1656-7 the sheriff was a prominent local laird, Sir John Colquhoun of Luss. Acts. Parl. Scot. vi. part 2, 839; Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 311; NRS, JC26/26, unfol.; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xliii, f. 81v.

The situation on the Isle of Bute proved more difficult, because its loyalty to the Cromwellian government during the earl of Glencairn’s rebellion had led to its devastation by the royalist forces. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvi, unfol.: 22 Nov. 1654. In order to raise even the modest amount of tax assigned to the island, the government had to vacillate between empty threats (to ‘destroy the island’) and promises to further abate the modest amounts owed by the inhabitants and to reduce the garrison at Rothesay. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvii, unfol.: 12 June, 28 July, 17 Aug., 20 Dec. 1655. In October 1655 George Monck* even lifted a ban on the garrison drinking locally made whisky, for fear that such strictures would ruin the already fragile local economy. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvii, unfol.: 22 Oct. 1655. The traditional rulers of Bute were allowed to run the administration: the high sheriff in 1653 was Sir James Stewart of Kirktoun, and the collection of the assessment was regulated by the provost and bailies of Rothesay. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke lxxxvi, f. 101; xliii, ff. 12v, 21v. When action was necessary to force local landowners to pay up, the task was given to a commission headed by the governor of Rothesay and the laird of Kirktoun. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvii, unfol.: 11 Feb., 14 Mar. 1656.

With the possible exception of Inverness-shire, Argyllshire was the Scottish county where English rule was weakest. The overlord, the marquess of Argyll, was careful to court successive commanders-in-chief in Edinburgh, but also connived at the royalist activities of his son, Lord Lorne, who supported Glencairn in 1653-4 and refused to submit to English rule until 1655. At times Argyll condemned his son as a ‘traitor’ and promised to ‘engage in blood’ with the English; but at others he tacitly encouraged the rebels, even allowing the murder of officials and kidnap of army officers in the neighbourhood of his main seat at Inveraray. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke lxxxvi, f. 78; l, f. 50v; xlvi, unfol.: 5 Feb. 1655, 18 Apr. 1655; Smith, ‘Scotland and Cromwell’, 202. It was thought the inhabitants of Argyllshire were seen to ‘more incline to his son than to him’, and the English garrisons at Duart (on the Isle of Mull) and Dunstaffnage were constantly in fear of ‘engaging the whole country against them’ by imposing their rule too stringently. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke l, f. 74. As a result, the tax collection system could not be enforced. In October 1653 Lilburne gave the assessment straight to the gentry and told them to keep the peace; in April 1654 Monck stipulated that the marquess should choose his own man to be collector for the shire, and have a say in the appointment of the sheriff; and it was only with Argyll’s permission that the shire paid any assessments at all before 1656. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xliii, f. 21v; xlv, unfol.: 27 Oct. 1653; xlvii, unfol.: 21 May, 18 June, 4 July, 18 July, 28 Aug.and 31 Dec. 1655.

Relations between the government and Argyllshire were further complicated by the hostility shown towards the marquess of Argyll by the president of the Scottish council, Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*) after 1655. When magistrates were appointed for the shire in November 1655, Broghill ‘hindered my Lord Argyll being made one’, and he undermined Argyll’s role as sheriff by seeking to divide Argyllshire and Inverness-shire into five different areas of jurisdiction. TSP iv. 250; Dow, Cromwellian Scot. 182. The assessments due from Argyllshire were increased, the abatements reduced, and pressure put on the marquess’s deputy, James Campbell of Ardkinglass, to pay the substantial sum still in arrears. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvii, unfol.: 7 Feb. 1656. There was even talk of sending in troops to enforce the government’s orders, although with the caveat that it might only ‘be done with safety to the persons they send forth’. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvii, unfol.: 20 Mar. 1656. Subordinate families, such as the Campbells of Glenorchy, the MacLeans of Mull, and various members of the MacDonald clan, were encouraged to assert their independence from the marquess in 1656, but very few accepted the post of magistrate, ‘the refusal whereof was ill-taken’ at Edinburgh. P. Little, Lord Broghill and the Cromwellian Union with Ire. and Scot. (Woodbridge, 2004), 114-18; NRS, GD112/39/101, nos. 6 and 8. The reluctance of the gentry – perhaps fearful of Argyll’s disapproval – to collaborate with the Cromwellian regime, led to heavier-handed tactics, with the government issuing warnings of reprisals when, for example, the collection of the excise on Islay was obstructed in October 1656 and the abatement of Glenorchy’s assessment in Argyllshire was ignored in December 1657. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlviii, unfol.: 31 Oct. 1656, 25 Dec. 1657.

The electoral arrangements for the three shires made it easy to exclude troublesome Argyllshire from the process. When the parliamentary seats were set by ordinance in June 1654, unlike the equally large constituency of Inverness-shire, Argyllshire was not allowed its own MP, instead being lumped together with Dunbartonshire and Bute. This promised to dilute the marquess of Argyll’s influence over the election, as he had no landed interests in Bute, and controlled only a small part of Dunbartonshire (the Rosneath peninsula). Crucially, the place of election was to be Dumbarton: a government garrison well away from Argyll’s patrimony. A. and O. ii. 930. As a result the elections were skewed in favour of the southern shires. In 1654 the MP chosen was the Dunbartonshire landowner (and brother-in-law of Argyll’s opponent, Sir William Lockhart* of Lee), Sir James Hamilton of Orbiston. The hostility of Argyllshire to this choice is suggested by the shire’s refusal to pay Orbiston’s salary, despite repeated requests by Monck, who also wrote to the marquess of Argyll, receiving ‘no return what is done therein’ as late as November 1655. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvii, unfol.: 23 Aug., 28 Nov. 1655. The elections for the second protectorate Parliament in August 1656 were also one-sided. Broghill reported to Secretary John Thurloe* in the same month that ‘Argyll has been very industrious to be chosen, but we have put a spoke in his wheel’. TSP v. 295. The election indenture, dated 20 August, reveals how this was done: of the ten electors who can be identified with certainty (from perhaps 16 names that can be deciphered from the damaged document) all were men associated with Dunbartonshire, including the former deputy, John Douglas of Mains, William Stirling of Law, Hugh Crawford of Cloberhill, Archibald Colquhoun of Kilpatrick, William Colquhoun of Gascadden and John Gartshore of that ilk. C219/45, unfol. None of the named electors was from Argyllshire, and not a single member of the Campbell clan signed the indenture. Whether the exclusion of Argyll’s friends was engineered by Broghill, or the Argyllshire gentry were boycotting the election as a protest is not clear, but the result was the same: the MP elected was another member of the Lockhart affinity: John Lockhart, brother of Sir William. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xxviii, f. 65v.

By the time of the next set of elections, in January 1659, George Monck had joined efforts to exclude the marquess from the electoral process, saying ‘I think there is enough (he being sheriff too) to do it’. Scot. and Protectorate, ed. Firth, 411. The local gentlemen again steered clear of the Campbell interest on this occasion, electing instead an old friend of the protectoral dynasty, Dr William Stane. The marquess did secure a seat in this Parliament, but in Aberdeenshire – on the opposite side of the country from his local powerbase in the western highlands. Monck, perhaps embarrassed by his earlier concessions to Argyll, now condemned the marquess out of hand, saying in March 1659: ‘truly I think in his heart there is no man in the three nations does more disaffect the English interest than he’. Eg. 2519, f. 19. Monck’s animosity was a key factor in the downfall of Argyll in 1661, but in general the Restoration does not seem to have disrupted the political structures in the three shires. The elections to the Scottish Parliament in the same year suggest that the region remained under the control of the traditional lairds, with John Campbell of Ardchattan being elected for Argyllshire, Sir James Stewart of Kirktoun for Bute and Sir John Colquhoun of Luss for Dunbartonshire. Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 789-92.