CAMPBELL, Archibald, 8th earl and 1st marquess of Argyll [S] (c.1607-61), of Inveraray Castle, Argyllshire.

The earls of Argyll were the heads of the Clan Campbell, which had originated in Argyllshire and Lorne in the early middle ages. By the early seventeenth century cadet branches of the clan had established themselves as important landowners throughout the highland region, and the Campbells of Glenorchy, Ardkinglas, Auchinbreck and Cawdor all owed fealty to the earls of Argyll. The 7th earl extended the clan’s powerbase still further, as the main beneficiary (as well as the chief instrument) of the royal assault on the Clan Donald, which resulted in the expulsion of the MacDonalds from Kintyre and Jura. Many of the ousted clansmen fled across the North Channel to Ulster, where they sought the protection of their kinsmen, the MacDonnells, earls of Antrim. Other clans also came under Campbell dominance in this period, including the MacLeans of the Isle of Mull, and the MacGregors, Lamonts and MacDougalls on the mainland, although they, like the MacDonalds, bitterly resented the loss of their autonomy.20Willcock, Great Marquess, 1-10; CP; Macinnes, British Confederate, 45-6. Despite his close relationship with James VI, the 7th earl was forced to leave Scotland in 1618 after his conversion to Catholicism, and for nearly four years from January 1619 he was a declared traitor and rebel. In his absence, his son and heir, Archibald Campbell (known as Lord Lorne), became the effective head of the clan at the age of 11. Lorne’s guardian was his cousin, the 9th earl of Morton, and after completing his education at St Andrews, in 1626 Lorne married Margaret Douglas, his guardian’s second daughter.21Willcock, Great Marquess, 17-18. The Morton connection was important in giving Lorne access to the royal family at an early age. He was restored to his father’s position of justice general in 1625, and when he resigned the same to Charles I in 1628, he was made a privy councillor instead. In 1634 he became an extraordinary lord of session, and by this time he had been allowed to take formal possession of his father’s estates, even though he did not succeed to the earldom until the old man’s death in the autumn of 1638.22CP; Great Marquess, 20, 23.

Lorne’s closeness to the crown may explain his reluctance to throw in his lot with the Covenanters in the early months of the movement. His Calvinist credentials were not in doubt – he had engaged in a private quarrel with the bishop of Galloway over religious matters in 1637 – but he remained on the Scottish council, and refused to take the National Covenant himself. In April 1638 he visited London on Charles I’s invitation (and against the advice of the Covenanters), and for a time it looked as if he would be a key mediator between the two sides, before the king turned instead to the marquess of Hamilton. There were two reasons for the breakdown in Lorne’s relations with the king in the next few months. In the summer of 1638 Charles opened negotiations with the earl of Antrim for an Irish invasion of western Scotland in support of the English army’s march into the lowlands. This threatened to re-ignite the old feud between the Campbells and the MacDonalds, and could only be taken as a direct threat by Lorne and his clansmen. Secondly, the death of the old earl of Argyll in the autumn lifted the concern that Lorne could have his inheritance taken away from him if he angered the king. As 8th earl of Argyll, he was at last free to move, and in November 1638 he openly sided with the Covenanters – although, characteristically, he delayed signing the Covenant itself until April 1639.23D. Stevenson, The Scottish Revolution, 1637-44 (Newton Abbot, 1973), 89-90, 100, 123, 128; Macinnes, British Confederate, 97-8, 113. The king was less equivocal. As the English army crossed the Scottish border, he offered terms to the Covenanters, but he specifically excluded Argyll, with other leading figures, from the promised pardon.24Stevenson, Scottish Revolution, 141.

Promoting the Covenant, 1639-47

The brittle peace created by the Pacification of Berwick in June 1639 had shattered by the following spring, and Argyll was commissioned to move against known royalists in the northern and eastern highlands, to prevent them from aiding the king. Argyll accepted the task with alacrity, as he was keen to extend his influence over Badenoch and Lochaber, part of the Huntly patrimony which he had recently claimed as the marquess’s main creditor. He was also happy to ravage areas of the north east associated with his rival in the Covenanter leadership, the earl of Montrose. Argyll’s campaign through the highlands was correspondingly harsh, despite the efforts of Montrose to save his kinsmen and their properties. The successful second bishops’ war in the summer of 1640 confirmed Argyll as the dominant force in the covenanting party, but it alienated the moderates further, provoking them to join Montrose in signing the ‘Cumbernauld Band’ against him. The king had by now also identified Argyll as an implacable enemy, and in the negotiations which led to the Treaty of London, he refused to accept the earl as his chancellor. The eventual conclusion of the treaty, during Charles’s visit to Scotland in the autumn of 1641, was supposed to end the conflict in Scotland once and for all. But Charles’s role in the plot against Argyll and others – known as the ‘Incident’ – in October, exposed the divisions which still lay beneath the surface. The king’s attempts at reconciliation, and his decision to elevate Argyll to the rank of marquess a month later fooled no-one.25Stevenson, Scottish Revolution, 141, 195-9, 206-9, 236-41; Macinnes, British Confederate, 145.

During the winter of 1641-2 the covenanting party still held together. A striking sign of this was the attempt by Argyll to secure a match for his son, Lord Lorne, with a daughter of the marquess of Hamilton in the same period. A marriage contract was drafted, but the wedding plans were abandoned by the mid-summer of 1642, as the Covenanters finally split.26HMC Hamilton, i. 55 The main division was between those, led by Hamilton, who wanted to continue to negotiate with the king and avoid involvement in the civil war in England, and Argyll’s faction, which saw intervention as the only way to secure the religious and political gains in Scotland.27Stevenson, Scottish Revolution, 264. Argyll’s hard-line approach was motivated by his commitment to the Covenant; but he was also influenced by the situation in Ulster and the western highlands. Since the Irish rebellion in October 1641, the marquess had pushed for Scottish involvement, both to secure the Ulster Scots from Catholic invasion and to prevent unrest from spreading into the Gaelic areas of Scotland. For good measure, in 1642 Argyll directed the Scottish troops to ravage co. Antrim, in a move aimed at the MacDonnells.28A.I. Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart (East Linton, 1996), 95-6; Macinnes, British Confederate, 154-7. Argyll’s awareness of the ‘British’ dimension is shown most clearly in the aftermath of the so-called ‘Antrim Plot’, revealed in the summer of 1643. The plot itself planned to unite Irish Catholics and royalists in an invasion of the western isles, and the simultaneous rising led by Huntly, Montrose and others in the highlands.29J.H. Ohlmeyer, Civil War and Restoration in the Three Stuart Kingdoms (Cambridge, 1993), 119-23. Argyll used it to demonstrate Charles I’s duplicity, to whip up anti-Catholicism, and to persuade reluctant Covenanters that an invasion of England was necessary.30Macinnes, Clanship, 96.

The landing of a force led by a MacDonald clansman, Alastair MacColla, in the western isles in November 1643 seemed to justify Argyll’s scare-mongering; but this temporary incursion heralded the growth of a home-grown royalist resistance movement that revealed the crucial weakness in his approach, which tried to encompass all three kingdoms. For intervention in England, combined with a substantial military presence in Ulster, had left Scotland itself vulnerable. And the withdrawal of Scots from the other theatres would merely reduce their ability to dictate the course of war or peace in England or Ireland. In December 1643 Argyll had been appointed president of the committee sent south with the army into England, despite news of MacColla’s arrival in the west; but as rebellion grew, with first Huntly and then Montrose mobilising support in the highlands, Argyll was forced to return to Scotland in April 1644.31Acts Parl. Scot. vi. pt. 1, p. 89; Stevenson, Scottish Revolution, 296; D. Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution in Scot. 1644-51 (1977), 6-7. Once at Edinburgh, Argyll took charge of the expedition against Huntly, marching north to Aberdeen, and forcing his rival to flee northwards. Then news arrived of a new invasion of the west by MacColla, and Argyll hurried away to defend his own lands. As a result, Montrose was left undefeated in the north east, and Argyll was replaced as commander by William Baillie. It was not long before Montrose and MacColla moved against Argyllshire, where they received ready support from the MacLeans, Lamonts and other clans, who set about the systematic destruction of the Campbells and their lands during the autumn and winter of 1644-5, known as the ‘ravaging of Argyll’. Montrose, who reputedly considered Argyll ‘the person he most hated and condemned’, did nothing to stop the devastation.32Clarendon, Hist. iii. 509. In the face of this savagery, Argyll was forced to abandon his seat at Inveraray Castle, and his attempt to turn the tables on MacColla in the spring ended in humiliating defeat at Inverlochy.33Macinnes, British Confederate, 214-7.

The defeat of Montrose at Philiphaugh in September 1645, and the collapse of the royalist cause in the north, was none of Argyll’s doing. Instead of glory, the campaigns against Montrose had brought Argyll defeat and loss of face, not least in the highlands, where the might of the Campbells and his personal reputation had been dealt a severe blow.34Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution, 7-9, 19, 24-6, 47. Indeed, MacColla remained in the Campbell lands of Islay and Kintyre for nearly two years, and Argyll’s inability to winkle him out further discredited him among Covenanters as well as clansmen.35Macinnes, Clanship, 103 This downturn in Argyll’s fortunes was made far worse by the strain that war had put on his finances. His public expenditure, giving donations, advancing loans, raising troops, was increasingly undertaken on credit, which added to the debts he had inherited from his father; and all this against a background of occupation and destruction in his western estates, whence he received no rental income between 1644 and 1647.36Macinnes, Clanship, 98, 105 Argyll’s damaged prestige, and his shaky financial situation, may have contributed to the weakening of his political power in the central government during 1645 and 1646. Until May 1646 Argyll was in Ireland, negotiating for the return of Scottish troops to defend the homeland against further attacks and uprisings. In the meantime, the Scottish government had been conducting negotiations of their own, to persuade the king to abandon Oxford and put himself under the protection of the Covenanter army. Argyll may have accepted the Irish commission in order to distance himself from the negotiations; but it is also likely that the proponents of the deal wanted him out of the way.37Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution, 47-8, 53.

The surrender of Charles I to the Scottish army in May 1646 encouraged an attempt to reunite the competing factions. As Robert Baillie reported in June, Argyll and Hamilton were now on good terms, adding wistfully ‘long may these two agree well’.38Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. ii. 378. In August the royalist duke of Lennox boasted of his ‘firm friendship’ with Argyll.39NRAS 54 (Stewart of Traquair), ‘Fraser Chest’, bundle 7, no. 14. This attempt at unity was based on the hope that Charles could be persuaded to accept the Covenant and agree to reform the English church; but the king’s refusal left the Scots little option but to treat with the Long Parliament under the terms of the Newcastle Propositions.40Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution, 68-70. Without the king’s acceptance of Scottish demands possession of the monarch was a liability, yet delivering him into the hands of the Long Parliament seemed to many little less than a betrayal. By the autumn of 1646 Argyll was convinced that the only option was to surrender the king and withdraw the Scottish army from England on reasonable terms. This would release seasoned troops against MacColla in the western isles, and would prevent a direct confrontation with the English; it would also secure substantial reparations from Parliament, from which he counted on receiving a large sum himself.41Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution, 74, 82; Macinnes, Clanship, 119. Argyll was ultimately unsuccessful in gaining the money he so badly needed, but in other ways the treaty with the parliamentarians was a great success. Argyll supervised the reduction of the Scottish army, and ensured that only anti-royalists were kept in senior commands, and the first priority for the troops kept on was a campaign of reprisals in the west, which paid back the MacLeans, Lamonts and MacDougalls for their dalliance with royalism, and forced MacColla to flee back to Ireland.42Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution, 84, 91; Macinnes, Clanship, 105-7.

Resisting royalism, 1647-51

During the summer of 1647 the cracks within the covenanting alliance could be disguised no longer. Hamilton and his friends were now prepared to support the king on almost any terms, and by the autumn Argyll had little option but to break with them.43Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. iii. 18 Argyll managed to defeat Hamilton in the Scottish Parliament by ensuring that the army was not yet disbanded, but Hamilton’s brother, the earl of Lanark (William Hamilton*), and his ally the earl of Lauderdale, were busy negotiating yet another treaty with Charles in England. The resulting agreement – the Engagement – forced Argyll and his friends to withdraw from the Scottish Parliament, which was intent on raising a new army to march into England on the king’s behalf.44Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution, 92-4, 100-1, 104. During 1648 Argyll began to play an increasingly dangerous game. He met the earls of Eglinton and Cassillis to plot an armed rising of the radical south west against the Engagers, but in the end decided to lie low, until the defeat at Preston in August destroyed the Engager cause. In the meantime he made contact with the English. As early as February he held discussions with the parliamentary commissioners sent to dissuade the Engagers from invading; and in the summer he may have been behind the mission of Major Archibald Strachan to London, possibly to encourage the English army to threaten (if not to cross) the Scottish borders, to put pressure on his Engager enemies. After Preston, Argyll could act openly, supporting the ‘whiggamore’ raiders from the south-west, who seized Edinburgh, and taking charge of the anti-Engagement regime that emerged in the days that followed. At the same time Argyll opened direct talks with Oliver Cromwell*, who was advancing on Edinburgh at the head of an English army.45Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution, 107-9, 114-8; Macinnes, British Confederate, 241, 244-5.

After the Restoration, it was claimed that Argyll had invited Cromwell to invade Scotland, and then had urged him to execute Charles I during their discussions in October 1648. The truth of either charge is difficult to establish. There is no doubt that Cromwell saw Argyll as a potential ally. In September, as he reached the Scottish border, Cromwell sent a message to Argyll inviting him to open negotiations with the English, and Argyll came south to discuss terms in person, leaving Cromwell with the opinion that he was, at heart, ‘well-affected’.46Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 652-3, 669-70. Whether Argyll then ‘invited him to this progress’ into Scotland is doubtful, although the 1st earl of Clarendon (Edward Hyde*) is probably correct in claiming that ‘if he had not invited Cromwell, he was very glad of his coming’, as the marquess needed English support to defeat his Engager enemies once and for all.47Clarendon, Hist. iv. 381. When Cromwell entered Edinburgh in October, he was greeted by Argyll, and further negotiations ensued.48Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 663, 665. The nature of these talks is unclear, despite claims that Cromwell ‘did communicate to them his design in reference to the king’.49Oxford DNB, citing Guthry, Memoirs, 298. Yet in February 1661, when treason charges were levelled against Argyll by the Scottish Parliament, his part in plotting Charles I’s death was accepted unquestioningly, and evidence was gleaned from such unlikely sources as Sir Charles Coote*, who, despite being in Ireland at the time, claimed that Argyll had said that ‘we shall have no peace in this king’s days’.50Willcock, Great Marquess, 310; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 426; HMC Laing, i. 321. Notwithstanding this, the accusation stuck, although Argyll protested to Charles Stuart in 1650, and again on the scaffold in 1661, that he did not know of any plot against his father.51Eg. 2215, f. 62; Charles II in Scot. ed. S.R. Gardiner (Edinburgh, 1894), 73. Such discussions would in any case have been unwise for Argyll in 1648, as, if made public, they would have turned the Scots against him; and it is by no means clear that Cromwell was contemplating the king’s death at this stage, either.52Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution, 124.

The English invasion of Scotland was very useful to Argyll, as it allowed him to complete his victory over the Engagers. Through the winter of 1648-9 there were far-reaching moves to exclude royalists from the Scottish Parliament, and, working with the hardliners of the south west (now organised into a ‘Western Association’) and the radical ‘Kirk party’, he was able to take control of the session which opened in January 1649. The execution of Charles I put all this into jeopardy, however, for to support the English now would be to alienate the majority of Scots, and for this reason Argyll acquiesced with the proclamation of Charles Stuart as king. In the summer of 1649 he also supported new negotiations with the court in exile, even though both moves provoked the republican regime south of the border, and angered radicals at home.53Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution, 125, 129-30, 132, 153-4, 157. It was only in the spring of 1650 that the Covenanter agents persuaded Charles to come to Scotland, and during their negotiations he had authorised yet another royalist rising in the north, led by the marquess of Montrose. The defeat and capture of Montrose was followed, in May 1650, by his trial and execution by hanging. Although he had no reason to mourn the removal of his great rival, Argyll abstained from the proceedings against Montrose, and in a private letter to the earl of Lothian his tone was one of regret, not triumph, at his ‘tragic end’.54Ancram Corresp. ii. 262; Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution, 163-4; cf. Macinnes, British Confederate, 255-6. Yet this was to be another death for which Argyll took the blame in 1661.55Willcock, Great Marquess, 310.

Argyll’s relationship with Charles Stuart, who arrived in Scotland in June 1650, was complicated. The new king was forced to rely on Argyll, but despite public expressions of amity, such as signing a warrant in September 1650 acknowledging his ‘trust and confidence’ in Argyll, promising ‘to hearken to his counsels’ and to make him a duke, a knight of the garter and a gentleman of his bedchamber in due course, Charles did not trust the marquess.56Add. 35838, f. 177; Charles II in Scot. ed. Gardiner, 73. Argyll’s prominence in the king’s entourage, his key role in the coronation on 1 January 1651, and subsequent rumours that he intended to marry his daughter to the new king, did little to conceal the tension that was growing between the two men since the king’s arrival in Scotland.57Nicoll, Diary, 45-6; Ludlow, Mems. i. 257; Wariston Diary, ii. 97-8. Indeed, it soon became apparent that Argyll could not manipulate the new king as he had intended.58cf. Clarendon, Hist. v. 134-5, 170. As early as June 1650 the earl of Balcarres reported that ‘My Lord Argyll is exceedingly unsatisfied’ with the situation, and even before the crushing defeat of the Scottish army at Dunbar in September 1650 Argyll was becoming outspokenly critical of the regime, warning that ‘all would be lost’ when the fighting began, and sending his family back to the safety of Inveraray. Argyll and his close ally, the earl of Lothian, used ‘private freedom’ in their arguments with the king, much to the monarch’s irritation.59Wariston Diary, ii. 9, 14. After Dunbar, however, Argyll did not side with the religious radicals (who later became known as the ‘Protesters’), and opposed their Remonstrance calling for a purge of all former Engagers from the army, but he did not back their opponents, the so-called ‘Resolutioners’, either. As a result he found himself hated by the old Kirk party as much as by the royalists.60Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution, 174, 182-3, 187, 190; Wariston Diary, ii. 29-30.

In the winter of 1650-1, as former royalists were welcomed back into the army by the king, Argyll found that his influence with the king had evaporated completely. Although Argyll helped to raise a new army for Charles in the spring of 1651, tensions with the new favourite, the 2nd duke of Hamilton (formerly earl of Lanark), led to ‘hot words’ between them in public in April.61Ancram Corresp. ii. 346, 351; Wariston Diary, ii. 40. During May Argyll began to fear that his enemies were plotting against him, and he made dark comments about losing his estates (if not his life) because of his opposition to Hamilton.62Wariston Diary, ii. 46, 57. When the royal army marched south into England, Argyll remained in Scotland, and in late July there were reports that he had ‘retired’ to Inveraray.63Wariston Diary, ii. 99, 105; Clarendon, Hist. v. 174-5; Macinnes, British Confederate, 266-7. It was only after the decisive defeat of the Scots at the battle of Worcester in September that Argyll re-emerged, in a brief attempt to try to set up a new Scottish government in the highlands, aided by the earl of Lothian and his kinsman, the earl of Loudoun, but this proved but a forlorn hope.64Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution, 209-10.

Negotiating the Commonwealth, 1651-5

For a year after the defeat of the Scots at Worcester, Argyll was little more than an outlaw. His former associates in the royalist and covenanting camps thought he was preparing to side with the English invaders, while the English thought he was about to raise the highlands against them. In September and October 1652 Argyll may have thought such an insurrection possible, but he received no support even from the radical Covenanters. Wariston records that although the marquess ‘expressed himself as earnest as ever for every man’s rising in arms’, and invited potential insurgents to meet him at Inveraray, the Protesters refused ‘to meddle with these parties’.65Wariston Diary, ii. 141, 150.

Argyll’s isolation prevented him from active resistance to the English, but the new government remained concerned that Argyll was ‘a very fox’ whose ‘heart and designs lie beyond-sea’, with the court in exile.66Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 2. The English received periodic false alarms, such as the report in January 1652 that Argyll was ‘gathering together some hundreds of his highlanders’.67Scot. and Commonwealth, ed. Firth, 29 The tender of union to the Scottish people in the spring of 1652 put Argyll on the spot; but, despite ‘being daily dealt with to that effect, [he] did not condescend’, causing the English government to fear the worst.68Nicoll, Diary, 89-90. Argyll clearly thought he could avoid a formal submission to the conquerors. At first, he sent his steward to treat with them, and when the English protested, he made sure Argyllshire submitted in the required manner, offered to negotiate in person, and sent a letter promising that he himself was ‘very willing to do all which with a safe conscience I may for the peace and union of this island’.69Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 34, 37-8; Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 131-2; Dow, Cromwellian Scot. 63. This, and other assurances from Argyll were not enough to placate the English, who were again receiving reports that the clans were preparing for war and in direct contact with Charles Stuart, and in the summer of 1652 a force was prepared to march into Argyllshire.70Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 41-2; TSP i. 206; Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 180; CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 204, 230. The threat of attack brought Argyll back to the negotiating table, and articles with Richard Deane* were signed on 19 August 1652.71Add. 41295, ff. 129-30. This was not the end of the matter, however. Argyll had insisted on a clause qualifying his submission, ‘that this shall not hinder his lordship’s good endeavours for establishing religion according to his conscience’.72Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 48-9. English suspicions of the marquess were not stilled by events in the autumn of 1652, when rumours of Argyll’s imprisonment provoked a Campbell rising in Kintyre and Argyllshire, and the siege of the newly established government garrisons at Dunollie and Dunstaffnage. A new agreement, limiting English garrisoning of the west, in return for the disarming of the Argyll and his men, was signed on 27 October, and formally brought the unrest to an end.73Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 53, 55-7, 58.

By his two agreements with the English, Argyll had apparently secured his position in the western highlands by distancing himself further from his fellow Scots. The Resolutioner minister Robert Baillie described him as ‘in friendship with the English, but in hatred with the country’, but this is an over-simplification.74Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. iii. 249. From 1653, Argyll’s relations with the Scots were not as prickly, nor those with the English as rosy, as has been suggested. It is true that the royalists in exile hated Argyll as a man ‘guilty’ of many ‘faults’, and accused him of having admitted ‘that he never was for the king, nor ever would be’, yet in the western highlands things were rather different.75Ancram Corresp. ii. 385; Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 53. The royalist rebels led by the earl of Glencairn inevitably looked to Argyll for support. Although Glencairn, as a kinsman of the dukes of Hamilton, was personally hostile to Argyll, some of his agents were hopeful he would join the rebellion.76Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 308-9: TSP i. 515 The marquess refused to become involved, but his son and heir, Lord Lorne, became one of the rebel commanders in the summer of 1654, leading Argyll to threaten him with ‘all the curse and judgements pronounced in God’s word against disobedient children. For you are a curse (I may say a curse) to your father and heaviness to your mother, if you continue your ways’.77Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 165-7 Argyll’s theatricality may have masked his tacit acceptance that with the father nominally on the English side and the heir on that of the rebels, that the Clan Campbell would gain, whatever the outcome. One incident in particular raises doubts about Argyll’s probity during this period. In September 1654 Argyll persuaded the new commander-in-chief, General George Monck* to send supplies to Inveraray by ship to await an English force which was to be sent against the rebels in Argyllshire. Yet, although the ship ‘lay within half a musket shot of the marquess’s house, wherein was Ardkinglass with four score men’, the cargo was seized by Lorne and his men, and then further plundered by the ‘country people’. It seems inconceivable that Argyll was not party to this attack.78Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 175-6, 177.

Despite the ambiguities of much of Argyll’s conduct, successive English commanders were prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Robert Lilburne* had encouraged Argyll to move against the rebels at the very beginning of the rising, praised the way in which he ‘threatens his son very much’ in the autumn of 1653, and in March 1654 recommended to Oliver Cromwell the marquess’s ‘good affection (both in words and actions) to the commonwealth and to your highness’.79Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 61, 64, 85, 161; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke LXXXVI, f. 112v; l, ff. 22-v, 24. In the summer George Monck was eager to mount joint operations with the Campbells, offering to pay Argyll’s troops.80Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 104, 108, 145; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke L, ff. 41v, 50v. This was partly because they were unwilling to provoke him into rebellion, but they also seem to have taken the marquess’s protestations of loyalty at face value. There was no shortage of such protestations. When Argyll sent his letter to Lorne, denouncing him as a traitor, he dispatched a copy to Lilburne, who was duly impressed by its blood-curdling tones.81Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 165-7, 193. On 30 August 1653 Argyll told Lilburne that he considered the rebels as ‘brainsick people’, and that he was sure that no gentlemen in Argyllshire would join them, adding that ‘my way shall be found straight, doing no other than what I profess’.82Willcock, Great Marquess, 383. Even the Inveraray incident did little more than dent relations between Argyll and Monck, with the latter refusing to send government troops to aid the defence of Argyllshire, but taking no direct action against the marquess himself. And it was only a matter of weeks before Monck was won over by Argyll, who again protested his ‘honesty and affection to the service’ in a letter of 14 September.83Willcock, Great Marquess, 386. Colonel Thomas Talbot II* described this and another as ‘smart letters’; John Baynes rechristened the marquess ‘Arch-guile’; and they and other commentators expected Monck to turn against the marquess as a result.84Add. 15858, f. 168; Roundhead Officers ed. Akerman, 97. Yet by the end of October Monck was apparently satisfied by Argyll’s explanations, telling John Lambert* that ‘there is like to be a war between the marquess … and his son’, and reporting to Cromwell a few days later that (presumably by the marquess’s own account) Argyll’s men had ‘routed’ those of Lorne.85Scot. and Protectorate, ed. Firth, 200; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke L, f. 82. A visit from Argyll to Monck in November, his open denunciation of Lorne and a promise of reparations from the local inhabitants, seems to have won over the general entirely.86Nicoll, Diary, 140; Roundhead Officers ed. Akerman, 98. In the same month, Argyll was allowed to maintain 200 troops at the public expense, and Monck wrote to Cromwell with a ‘vindication’ of the marquess’s behaviour against ‘misrepresentations’ made against him by others.87Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke XLVI, unfol.: 16 Nov. 1654. During the early months of 1655 Argyll negotiated with Lorne on behalf of the government, and took the credit for his submission in May 1655.88Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke XLVI, unfol.: 13 Jan. 1655; Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 269. During the summer of 1655 the general was once again extravagant in his praise of the marquess, whom he commended to Cromwell in August for his loyalty to the English and his efforts to keep his clansmen from rebelling.89Dow, Cromwellian Scot. 136; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke XLVII, unfol.: 17 Aug. 1655.

Argyll’s ability to maintain good relations with the English commanders no doubt encouraged the renascence of his political influence in Scotland in the mid-1650s. His power in Argyllshire and the western isles was quickly re-established after the Glencairn rising, especially once his son had made his peace with the English in 1655. More importantly, Argyll was able to build bridges with his former allies in the Protester faction, many of whom were facing their own crisis of conscience when it came to collaborating with the English. Wariston again associated with Argyll from March 1654, and although he initially warned against accepting ‘places of power and trust’ under the English, it was not long before he was also courting the Cromwellian regime, and lobbying for lucrative appointments under it, with Argyll acting as his agent.90Wariston Diary , ii. 218-9, 220; iii. 32. Alexander Brodie* of Brodie (who chose to remain aloof from the government until later in the decade) visited Argyll and his family in the summer of 1655, counselled both the marquess and the marchioness, and tried to effect a reconciliation with their son.91Brodie Diary, 147, 151. By the end of 1657 Alexander Douglas of Spynie told the earl of Morton that Brodie ‘will do anything at my Lord Argyll’s desire’.92NAS, GD150/3447/3. Argyll was also able to extend his influence over the lands he had acquired from the Gordons of Huntly in the north east, relying on such local landowners as Sir Robert Innes of that ilk and Sir Thomas Gordon of Park, as well as Brodie, to settle the estate from 1654 onwards.93Account of the Family of Innes ed. D. Forbes (Aberdeen, 1864), 174, 178, 181; Wariston Diary, ii. 220; Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 60-1. Argyll was also able to re-establish links with some important Scottish nobles. He had remained on good terms with the earl of Lothian even in the dark days of 1651-2, was a welcome guest at Newbattle, and his daughter married Lord Ker.94Nicoll, Diary, 140; Ancram Corresp. ii. 448. He was also on good terms with Alexander Stewart*, earl of Moray, whose sister had married Lord Lorne in 1653.95HMC Leyborne-Popham, 60; NRAS 217 (Stewart of Moray MSS), box 5, nos. 65 and 92. In April 1655 negotiations began which led over two years later to the marriage of another of Argyll’s daughters to the 6th earl of Caithness – a match apparently initiated by Caithness rather than the Campbells, and one which left the earl’s friends ‘not well pleased’.96Brodie Diary, 127; Diary of John Lamont, ed. G.R. Kintoch (Edinburgh, 1830), 101. Argyll was once again an attractive ally, especially for those willing to collaborate with the Cromwellian regime.

Although his political influence was steadily growing, Argyll’s position was hampered by his increasingly severe financial crisis. By the mid-1650s his insolvency had become deeply humiliating: it was well known that he was ‘almost drowned in debt’.97Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. iii. 249. In November 1654 it was reported that when he visited Edinburgh, Argyll received ‘much affronts and disgraces of his creditors … [who] spared not, at all times as he walked, either in street or in the fields abroad, [to call him] a false traitor’, and seized horse furniture and household goods from his lodgings.98Nicoll, Diary, 140. In May 1654 Monck wrote to Cromwell, asking him to give a ‘favourable hearing’ to Argyll’s agent.99Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke L, f. 43; XLV, unfol.: 24 May 1654. In August Argyll wrote to Cromwell personally, asking him to look favourably on his requests.100Add. 4156, f. 73. In the meantime, Lilburne and Monck had relieved the pressure on Argyll’s estates, waiving the payment of assessments on his lands in Argyllshire and Dunbartonshire, allowing the marquess the fishing customs of the western isles, paying for local troops raised by him, and allowing compensation for property damaged by the rebels.101Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke XLIII, f. 35; XLV, unfol.: 27 Oct. 1653, 4 Jan., 20 Mar., 23 June 1654; XLVI, unfol.: 16 Nov., 9 Dec. 1654. In November 1654, when Monck reintroduced the assessment payments for Argyllshire, he allowed Argyll to choose the collector for the shire and the individual parishes.102Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke XLVI, unfol.: 16 Nov. 1654. Argyll’s financial state was eased by such local concessions, but it could not be transformed without the payment of the many debts owed to him on the public account since the 1640s. In the autumn of 1655, therefore, Argyll was given permission to travel to London to lobby the government in person.

Immediately on his arrival in London in October 1655, Argyll found himself pursued by a lawsuit of the countess of Dirleton, who claimed £1,000 owed to her late husband by the marquess for military provisions supplied in the 1640s.103CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 7-8. Despite protests by Argyll, who claimed it was unfair that such a case should be pursued outside Scotland, the countess doggedly continued with the suit, even when ordered not to by the protectoral council.104CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 17, 24, 34, 62. It was only in the new year of 1656 that Argyll was free to conduct his own business, which centred on the need to ratify the articles agreed with General Deane in 1652. At first, his efforts were attended with great success, and there were reports in January 1656 that ‘Argyll continues his credit with Cromwell, and great confidence there appears between them’.105Nicholas Pprs. 261. His petition went to the council in January, and the matter was referred to a committee, which reported back in March.106CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 111, 222. The report, made by John Lambert, was accepted, and it was ordered that ‘the said articles of agreement be confirmed and ratified’.107Add. 41295, f. 130v. In April, Argyll lodged a new petition with the council, pointing out his massive debts on the public account, including sums guaranteed by the Long Parliament. After a long period of deliberation, the matter was referred to the Scottish committee in July, and in September the council agreed to pay Argyll £12,000 from the Scottish excise.108CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 18, 107. Argyll’s success was probably based on his connections with key members of the protectoral council. In June 1656 he met Lambert, Charles Fleetwood* and Henry Lawrence I* – all leading members of the ‘army interest’ at Westminster.109Wariston Diary, iii. 36, 48 Lambert’s interest in Argyll probably stemmed from his close alliance with Monck at this time, and he and Fleetwood shared Monck’s sympathetic attitude to the Protester faction, with which Argyll was still associated. Indeed, in March 1657 Argyll was described as one of the ‘Protesters’ constant apparitors at court’.110Consultations ed. Stephen, ii. 26. Other friends were drawn from the English officers in Scotland and Scots resident in London. When Argyll borrowed £1,000 to pay off the countess of Dirleton in the new year of 1657, the money came from Colonel Ralph Cobbett, with William Lord Cochrane*, Sir John Wemyss* of Bogie and Colonel David Barclay* acting as sureties.111CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 283; HMC Leyborne-Popham, 111. Although in March 1657 Argyll still complained of ‘the incessant importunity of my creditors pressing me’, in political as well as financial terms, his visit to England appeared to have been an unqualified success.112Family of Innes ed. Forbes, 184.

Rearguard actions, 1655-9

Yet during Argyll’s 18 months in England, matters had turned against him in Scotland. The arrival of Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*) as president of the Scottish council in September 1655 had brought an end to the government’s indulgence towards Argyll. This was partly because Broghill was suspicious of the Protester faction in the Kirk, and increasingly at odds with the army interest that championed their cause at Whitehall; but equally important was the new president’s concern at Argyll’s autonomy in the west. In contrast to Lilburne and Monck, Broghill was not convinced of Argyll’s loyalty to the regime, rather being swayed by the ‘good caution’ given to him by Secretary John Thurloe*, who had intelligence of the marquess’s inconstancy, which fitted with Broghill’s own concerns about Lord Lorne ‘playing the rogue’ by encouraging unrest in Ireland as well as Scotland.113TSP iv. 49, 372; v. 18. With the end of the Glencairn rising, Broghill did not have to placate Argyll, for fear of driving him into the arms of the royalists; instead, he set about undermining the marquess’s powerbase in Argyllshire and the western isles. In January 1656 he told Cromwell that he had sent an agent to ‘discover anything which relates to the Lord Agyll’s actings or his son’s’.114Bodl. Rawl. A.27, p. 668. In February 1656 the Scottish council announced that the 1652 agreement with Deane over the Argyllshire assessments was now void, and demanded the repayment of £4,000 arrears, while reducing the monthly abatement to a mere £74, adding curtly that ‘in regard there is so much behind, the council think they have done the marquess of Argyll courtesy therein’.115Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke XLVII, unfol.: 7 Feb. 1656 Acting on information from Thurloe, there were also moves to force the marquess to repay feu duties and other money owed to the crown.116Bodl. Rawl. A.34, p. 73; A.47, f. 251. In the same month, Broghill supported a scheme to divide the shires of Inverness and Argyll into five separate administrative units, and there is little doubt that he was aiming for the marquess’s authority as hereditary sheriff of the latter, as he told Thurloe that he was ready to counter objections from ‘my Lord Argyll’s interest’ over the changes.117TSP iv. 500. The appointment of Colonel Brayne as sheriff of Lochaber and Badenoch (formerly part of Inverness-shire) also encroached on Argyll’s interests, as these were part of his Huntly lands.118Bodl. Rawl. A.34, p. 73. Furthermore, the creation of justices of the peace in Scotland was also used to reduced Argyll’s dominance in the west, and, significantly, Broghill intervened in person and ‘hindered my Lord Argyle being made one’.119Dow, Cromwellian Scot. 224; TSP iv. 250. At the same time as mounting a concerted campaign against Argyll, Broghill also sought to win client lairds over to the government, by giving abatements and other concessions to Campbell of Glenorchy, MacLean, and various members of the MacDonald clan.120P. Little, Lord Broghill and the Cromwellian Union with Ire. and Scot. (Woodbridge, 2004), 117-8.

Broghill was only resident in Scotland for a year, and when he left for England in August 1656, his assault on Argyll had only been partially successful. This can be seen in the parliamentary elections in the same month. In Argyllshire, Dunbartonshire and Bute the marquess was apparently ‘very industrious to be chosen’, but Broghill intervened and ‘put a spoke in his wheel’, as he was sheriff of Argyllshire.121TSP v. 295. The brother of a Scottish councillor, John Lockhart*, was returned instead. Yet Argyll was still able to influence the elections in the north-east, where his associate, the earl of Moray, was returned for the shires of Elgin and Nairn in August 1656. Moray was forced to stand down, however, and a by-election was called for the shires. Argyll wrote to Sir Robert Innes, the younger of that ilk, on behalf of Major Richard Beke*, who was Robert Lilburne’s brother-in-law and ‘a real friend to all honest Scotsmen’; and by 1 December, as Innes noted, ‘the tenor of this letter [was] obeyed in the election of a commissioner to the Parliament’.122Family of Innes ed. Forbes, 182. Argyll’s influence over the Elgin and Nairn election is an important indication of his standing in the old Huntly lands; while the choice of an English soldier, with useful family connections, shows his continuing willingness to court the English interest. This was a tactic that was reaping dividends for Argyll in London at this time, but in Scotland, General Monck was having second thoughts.

When Argyll returned to Scotland in April 1657, he immediately began to reassert his authority in the west. In May there were reports that he had decided to call in the debts owed to him by various client lairds, and to force them to pay the reparations still owed to the government for losses caused during the Glencairn rebellion. The latter threat caused consternation among those who had remained loyal, and were now told ‘that they were to pay with the rest’. These included two important Campbells, the lairds of Cawdor and Glenorchy. Others, like the MacLeans of Mull, were threatened with violence if they did not repay the debts owed to Argyll. Local government broke down once Argyll had returned: it was said that the local magistrates ‘do nothing at all’, and no quarter sessions were held. There were even dark hints that Argyll and Lorne intended to rebel against the government.123TSP vi. 295, 306. More intelligence followed. Argyll had demanded that neighbouring clans – the MacGregors, the MacDonalds and the MacLeans among them – meet him at Inveraray, and was reportedly ‘enraged’ with those who had had ‘any correspondence with the general or who had any way with the English’ in his absence.124Bodl. Rawl. A.51, f. 70. Argyll’s actions were probably provoked by the attempts to reduce his local influence while he was in London, and his methods were unexceptional within their highland context. But Monck was alarmed, telling Thurloe on 10 June that Argyll’s ‘carriage … since his coming home’ had confirmed his existing doubts about the marquess’s behaviour in London: ‘how ill he deserves the £12,000 that was given to him; and, besides, I can make it appear that he owes £18,000 to the state’.125TSP vi. 341. Argyll dutifully attended the proclamation of Cromwell’s second protectorate at Edinburgh in July 1657, but it was already clear that Monck, at least, now viewed him with hostility.126Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 362. Over the next 12 months Monck steadfastly refused to obey orders from London to pay Argyll compensation from the Scottish excise.127CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 85; 1657-8, pp. 23, 58, 117.

Monck’s hostility towards Argyll was apparent in the elections for the third protectorate Parliament of January 1659. On 30 December 1658, Monck told Thurloe that he was working with the keeper of the Scottish seal, Samuel Disbrowe*, to get approved members chosen across Scotland, and had been reasonably successful, ‘but for my lord of Argyll, and some others, who … have endeavoured all they can, to get Scotsmen chosen’. More moderate Scots had by this time come to prefer English representatives at Westminster; a call for more Scots was a sign of a radical resurgence. Worse was in store, as Monck added that ‘the marquess of Argyll himself endeavours to be chosen, notwithstanding he is sheriff of Argyllshire; neither do I guess he will do his highness’s interest any good’.128TSP vii. 584. In the event, Argyll was returned for Aberdeenshire, probably through his newly acquired lordship of the Huntly estates in the north east, and there was little Monck could do to prevent his return. This did not stop Monck from trying to get Argyll ejected from the Commons once Parliament had convened, and in March 1659 he was busy collecting a dossier of damning evidence against him, telling Samuel Disbrowe that

I think in my heart there is no man in the three nations does more disaffect the English interest than he, and I am confident I am not mistaken, and I think you will do very well to follow your resolution in keeping of him out of the House, and I think there is enough (he being sheriff too) to do it.129Eg. 2519, f. 19.

Despite the machinations of Monck, Argyll arrived at Westminster on 17 March, and took his seat on 23 March.130NLS, Wodrow Folio MSS, vol. 26, f. 165v; Burton’s Diary, iv. 236. In the last month of the session he was one of the most active members of the Commons, especially in late March and early April, when he was reported to be sitting ‘daily’, and ‘hath begun to speak frequently in the House’.131NRAS 217 (Stewart of Moray MSS), box 6, no. 140; Consultations ed. Stephen, ii. 161. His closest political associate was the leading Protester, Sir Archibald Johnston* of Wariston, who sat in the Other House, and the reversal of their roles caused some amusement among their critics. Sir William Balfour told the earl of Moray on 5 April that many in London ‘ask the question, how it comes to pass, and for what reason is it, that the marquess of Argyll sits in the House of Commons, and the Lord Wariston … sits in the Other House, formerly called the House of peers or Lords’.132NRAS 217, box 6, no. 140. Balfour’s comments are seconded by those of the Resolutioner agent, James Sharp, who had heard that ‘Wariston … is thought to be Argyll’s man (though he now doth sit as a peer)’, and advised his friends to ‘have an eye upon their actions’.133Consultations ed. Stephen, ii. 160-1.

Argyll’s priorities in the Commons were mostly personal and factional. When he supported transacting with the Other House (apparently in support of the protectorate, and acted as teller with his old enemy Secretary Thurloe), Argyll may have been following a very different agenda.134CJ vii. 621a, 627a. In part, he may have wished to bolster Wariston’s position as a member of the upper chamber; but he also wanted to counter moves by the Presbyterians and ‘country’ gentlemen to open the new House to all the old hereditary peers. On 28 March he argued, emotively, that such a clause would ‘take away the Petition and Advice’, and he joined John Swinton* of Swinton and others in withdrawing from the crucial vote.135Burton’s Diary, iv. 291-3. Other business reflected Argyll’s money worries, which he later claimed were the reason he sought election in the first place, ‘not daring to go to London otherwise for fear of arrests’.136Bodl. Clarendon 74, f. 401v. Argyll’s finances had certainly deteriorated further in the previous months, leaving him (in Baillie’s words) ‘drowned in debt’, and in Parliament he was reported to be ‘making friends in the House to get the remainder of his £12,000’ from the Scottish exchequer.137Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. iii. 387; Eg. 2519, f. 29. This concern undoubtedly explains his inclusion in two committees named on 13 April, to consider the petition of Sir William Dick of Braid, the failed Edinburgh financier with whom Argyll’s own financial difficulties were very much linked, and also the state of the excise, which would have a bearing on its Scottish counterpart, from which Argyll’s money would be repaid.138CJ vii. 637b, 639a; Burton’s Diary, iv. 435; Acts Parl. Scot. vi. pt. 2, pp. 266, 332, 481.

In religion, Argyll played a devious game. As James Sharp, the Resolutioner agent in London, reported back to Scotland on 24 March, the marquess, in close alliance with radicals such as Wariston, was preparing to use his influence in the Protesters’ favour. On 31 March Sharp was concerned that Argyll ‘doth insinuate with some honest men in the House’ – including the Scottish councillor, Nathaniel Whetham II* – to put the maintenance of Scottish ministers back under Protester control.139Consultations ed. Stephen, ii. 161-3. When a national fast day was proposed, it was inevitable that many Scots would object, as the order would come from the state not the Kirk. In debate on 2 April, Argyll appeared to argue for concessions that would make the fast ‘more suiting the way of Scotland’, including provision that the fast was ‘recommended’, not ‘required’, and thus made optional to those of tender consciences, ‘but he was over-ruled in this his opinion’. He afterwards professed that this ‘was moved by him, not as to his private judgement, for he could very well allow to the magistrate the power of appointing fasts as the king of Judah, but he knew it would not satisfy the ministers of Scotland’.140Consultations, ed. Stephen, ii. 163-4; Burton’s Diary, iv. 330-2. On the surface, this sounded very generous to his more scrupulous countrymen, but his Resolutioner enemies soon had reason to suspect that he had another motive. On 4 and 5 April ‘the Church of Scotland hath been … made the subject of much agitation’ in the light of Argyll’s earlier speech, as his comments had been followed by leading republicans, Sir Henry Vane II, Henry Nevill, Thomas Scot I and Thomas Chaloner; and, as Broghill told Sharp, ‘Argyll did all he could to bring all your ministers under a rebellion against an act of Parliament’. Sharp then confronted Argyll, telling him that he had ‘needlessly given occasion to this defaming of the Church of Scotland in this day of rebuke’.141Consultations ed. Stephen, ii. 165-7. It is difficult to know whether Argyll was being disingenuous, or whether the republicans were taking advantage of his words to discredit the Kirk. Sir Arthur Hesilrige’s recommendation of Argyll (alongside another new ally, Arthur Annesley) as a new member of the revenue committee suggests some contact between him and the republicans, but this is not conclusive.142Burton’s Diary, iv. 364. In any case, the panicky reaction of the Resolutioners, like corbies mobbing an eagle, shows that Argyll was still greatly feared in Scotland.

Argyll’s personal and factional concerns tend to overshadow his involvement in major political questions. Although active in the Committee of Scottish affairs, he followed his own agenda when it came to important business.143CJ vii. 623b. When a new Scottish union bill was discussed on 14 April, Argyll was a prominent speaker, proposing a religious clause; but this was thoroughly partisan, stipulating that ‘church judicatures and discipline’ should be set as they were in 1650 – a move that would effectively exclude the Resolutioners from all control over the Kirk, and give complete victory to the Protesters.144Consultations ed. Stephen, ii. 172-3. Argyll’s speech on 21 April, when the grant of control of the militia to the protector was discussed, finally seems to reveal his attitude to the protectorate. He advised the Commons ‘to give no more nor less than is necessary’, and continued with his own experiences: ‘I was here in 46, in your service. The proposition that you agreed on was, that the king would grant the militia to be disposed of by both Houses, without him, for 20 years’. The protector could no more be trusted than the king. ‘If you vote the militia to be in the protector and the parliament, add “to be disposed of as you shall direct, as to the executive power”, and so you determine it’.145Burton’s Diary, iv. 479. In advising Parliament not to give concessions to the protector (and even likening the protector to the tyrant, Charles I), Argyll aligned himself squarely with the republican critics of Richard Cromwell.

Running out of options, 1659-61

After the collapse of the protectorate, Argyll’s allegiances become increasingly hard to identify. A libel against the Scottish ‘grandees’, written in May, attacked Argyll for duplicity, serving the English ‘cordially, so long as the heart or power is in their hands’, but ‘keeping his eldest son for a reserve, to show the reality of his hypocrisy, if ever hereafter the king shall become master’.146Nicoll, Diary, 238. During the summer of 1659 George Monck was convinced that the marquess would throw in his lot with the pro-royalist rebels who had risen in northern England under Sir George Boothe*, although there is no evidence to link Argyll with the rebellion, and there are no signs the enemies of the regime treated him with anything other than suspicion.147CCSP iv. 312, 313, 323. Indeed, during the early summer the marquess was actively courting the new commonwealth regime in London. During May 1659 Argyll was linked with another Scottish radical, John Swinton, and both were considered as members of a new Scottish council. There were even stories that Argyll had been proposed for the English council of state, but this was more than he could stomach. When Wariston was himself chosen, the marquess tried to dissuade him from sitting ‘because of their looseness of religion’.148Wariston Diary, iii. 106-7, 109, 112. Such criticisms did not stop Argyll from supporting Wariston’s attempts to draw up a new union bill, which tried once again to secure control of the Kirk for the Protester faction.149Consultations ed. Stephen, ii. 185. Argyll returned to Scotland in June, leaving behind him the usual array of angry creditors.150Consultations ed. Stephen, ii. 188; CSP Dom. 1658-9, pp. 369-70. By July he had changed his position, becoming wary of involvement in English politics, and telling Wariston that he could not contemplate a marriage alliance between their families ‘because of the ticklishness of the times that would overturn me’; he added, snidely, that Wariston was ‘ruined for meddling with these people’.151Wariston Diary, iii. 124. Wariston did not take such comments to heart, and in October he was working (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) to get Argyll a place on the committee of safety.152Wariston Diary, iii. 148. With the new year of 1660, and Monck’s intervention in England, the position of both Argyll and Wariston became ever more precarious, and in early May Wariston was left with the stark realisation that ‘Argyll and I were two hated men’.153Wariston Diary, iii. 182.

Argyll did not share Wariston’s sense of hopelessness. Instead, encouraged by the favourable reception extended to Lord Lorne by the royalists, he seems to have thought that he could charm Charles Stuart in 1660 as he had in 1650-1. Argyll arrived in London in early July, and sought an audience with the newly restored king. Clarendon refused to meet him in person, but warned Lorne that his father was considered ‘a fatal man’.154Willcock, Great Marquess, 302-3; Consultations ed. Stephen, ii. p.xlii. When Charles discovered that Argyll was in London, he immediately ordered his arrest, and the marquess was sent to the Tower, where he remained until December when he was shipped to Edinburgh in the company of his former political associate, John Swinton.155Willcock, Great Marquess, 303-5. Formal charges were levelled against Argyll by the Scottish Parliament on 13 February. These included accusations that he had dealt treacherously against Charles I in the 1640s, encouraging Scottish intervention in England, refusing to help the Engagers in 1648, and then inviting Cromwell to invade in 1648. He was also blamed for the murders carried out under his authority in the western highlands during and after the Montrose campaigns (supported by evidence from the Lamonts, MacDonalds and other clans), and of procuring the execution of Montrose himself in 1650. He was charged with assisting the usurpation of Cromwell after 1652, of siding with the English against Glencairn, and of sitting as an MP in 1659. Finally, and most tenuously, he was accused of having plotted Charles I’s death in October 1648.156Willcock, Great Marquess, 310-1; Nicoll, Diary, 321. Lord Lorne worked hard to defend his father in London, and, perhaps with Clarendon’s help, he was reasonably successful, persuading Charles to absolve Argyll for his activities before 1651 under the king’s own act of indemnity.157Bodl. Clarendon 82, f. 261. The matter of Argyll’s plotting the late king’s death was another matter, but this was used to blacken the marquess’s character, rather than as a direct charge against him – perhaps in tacit acknowledgement that the case did not stand close scrutiny. This left the charges of his having complied with Cromwell’s usurpation.158Willcock, Great Marquess, 314-5.

The case could not have been weaker, as so many others, now reconciled to the Restoration regime, had done the same – or worse – than Argyll. The marquess pointed this out himself: in a letter to Clarendon he complained of attempts ‘to load me with the burden of all calamitous events … to lay the blame at one man’s door (the more innocent then many others)’; and he pointed out that ‘the prince hath pardoned all the invaders and usurpers’ except him.159Bodl. Clarendon 82, f. 261; Carte 74, f. 401v. Argyll did not name names, but he may have had in mind George Monck, who had supported Cromwell, commanded (not just assisted) the suppression of Glencairn, and governed Scotland for much of the decade on the usurper’s behalf. Yet Monck had made the right choices in 1659-60, and had been created duke of Albemarle as a result. And it was Monck who now made sure Argyll paid the price of failure in full, by sending the prosecutors a packet of letters to himself and Lilburne, dating from 1653 and 1654, in which Argyll professed his willing compliance with the English against Glencairn’s men.160Willcock, Great Marquess, 378-86; HMC Laing, i. 320-1. There were many ironies in this. Monck had courted Argyll’s compliance himself; it is likely that Argyll’s professions in 1653-4 were disingenuous; and the general had turned against the marquess in 1657-9 because he suspected him of being a closet royalist. In engineering Argyll’s death in 1661, Monck was not only taking revenge against a man who had duped him in the mid-1650s, he was also providing a Scottish scapegoat, who was, by this time, almost universally disliked.

Argyll ‘submitted himself to the king’s mercy’ on 16 March 1661, but no pardon was forthcoming.161Nicoll, Diary, 323. He was convicted of high treason on 24 May, and executed at the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh on 27 May. His head was put on the same place on the Tolbooth until recently occupied by that of his arch-rival, Montrose.162Lamont Diary, ed. Kintoch, 131, 136; Nicoll, Diary, 335. On the scaffold, Argyll made a last speech which again protested his innocence, but refused to take revenge on others. ‘I come not to justify myself, nor condemn others’, he proclaimed, ‘I come not to justify myself, but the Lord who is holy in all his works’. What rankled was the charge of his abetting Charles I’s death, and Argyll denied knowing of any who ‘intended prejudice against the king’s person, authority and government, neither did I ever intend it myself’.163Eg. 2215, f. 62. Argyll’s body was buried at Kilmun in the highlands. His lands were confiscated, but after a decent interval, the earldom was restored to his eldest son, Lord Lorne, who became 9th earl of Argyll in October 1663.164Willcock, Great Marquess, 330-1, 335.