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Archibald Campbell, 7th Earl of Argyll (c. 1575–1638), also called "Gillesbuig Grumach" ("Archibald the Grim"), was a Scottish peer, politician, and military leader.

Life

Campbell was the son of Colin Campbell, 6th Earl of Argyll and Agnes Keith.

His nickname, "Gillesbuig Grumach", is the Gaelic for "Archibald the Grim". This may originate from his first wife, Agnes Douglas, whose 14th-century ancestor, Archibald Douglas, 3rd Earl of Douglas was so called.

On 15 July 1594 James VI gave him a commission to wage war with "fire and sword" against the Catholic Earls of Huntly and Erroll. He commanded royal troops at the Battle of Glenlivet on 3 October 1594 and was defeated by the rebel earls and their followers.

After the Union of Crowns, Argyll accompanied Anne of Denmark on her journey south to Windsor Castle in June 1603. On the way he quarrelled with the Earl of Sussex. At Worksop Manor, the Duke of Lennox and the Earls of Shrewsbury and Cumberland made a proclamation at that her followers should put aside any private quarrels.

In January 1610 he argued over the precedency of seating of his wife, Anne Cornwallis, with the Earl of Pembroke, at a dinner hosted by Lady Hatton. King James commanded Argyll to yield place to Pembroke until Parliament decided their issue.

By 1619, he had surrendered his estates to his son, Archibald Campbell. He was made a Knight of the Golden Fleece in 1624. He had announced his conversion to Catholicism from the Netherlands and as a consequence he was declared a traitor in Edinburgh on 16 February 1619 and banned from his country. He was very supportive of his new religion even after he was allowed back in 1621. He was interested in military solutions in Ireland in 1622, but he was unable to raise an army. He and his wife returned to Britain and lived at Drury Lane in London having abandoned everything apart from his title to his heir. In 1636, the Earl was indicted for recusancy.

He died in 1638 and was buried at Kilmun Parish Church.

Family

On 24 July 1592, he married his first wife, Lady Agnes Douglas, youngest daughter of the Earl of Morton at Dalkeith Palace. Some "very great personages" had tried to persuade Argyll to marry Marie Stewart sister of the king's favourite, the Duke of Lennox. On the day after their wedding Argyll rode at speed to Falkland Palace to help James VI who was threatened by the Earl of Bothwell.

Argyll and Agnes Douglas had at least five children, including:

• Annabel Campbell (d. 1652), who married Robert Kerr, 2nd Earl of Lothian
• Anne Campbell (d. 1638), who married George Gordon, 2nd Marquess of Huntly
• Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll (1607-1661), who married Margaret Douglas (1610–1678)
• Jane Campbell (? - 1675) became Viscountess Kenmure

After the death of his first wife in 1607 or 1608, Argyll considered marrying Jean Drummond, a lady in waiting to Anne of Denmark. Instead, in 1608 he married Anne (Cornwallis), with whom he had at least four more children. Her sister Cornelia, the wife of Sir Richard Fermor, accidentally shot a young lawyer with a pocket pistol in April 1617. The Earl of Argyll bailed her from the Marshalsea Prison.

In 1618 Archibald Campbell converted to Roman Catholicism, the religion of his new wife, from Presbyterianism. She was at Spa in Belgium in August 1618 and travelled on to Brussels in her coach.

References

1. HMC 4th Report: Duke of Argyll (London, 1874), pp. 488-9.
2. Maurice Lee, Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain: Jacobean Letters (Rutgers, 1972), p. 35.
3. Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar State Papers Domestic, 1603-1610, p. 24 TNA SP 14/2 f.13
4. E. K. Purnell & A. B. Hinds, HMC Downshire, vol. 2 (London, 1936), pp. 216, 221.
5. ^ Callow, J. (23 September 2004). "Campbell, Archibald, seventh earl of Argyll (1575/6–1638), magnate and politician". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 8 December 2017.
6. "Particulars from the Process Book: 1631-41 Pages 128-159 Middlesex County Records: Volume 3, 1625-67". British History Online. Middlesex County Record Society 1888. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
7. Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), pp. 687, 736.
8. Matthew, H. C. G.; Harrison, B., eds. (23 September 2004). "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. ref:odnb/66717. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/66717. Retrieved 24 February 2023. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
9. Thomas Birch & Folkestone Williams, Court and Times of James the First, 2 (London: Colburn, 1849), pp. 7–8, 20.
10. Marshall, R. (22 September 2005). Cornwallis, Anne, countess of Argyll (d. 1635), Roman Catholic benefactor and supposed author. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 8 Dec. 2017, from link
11. HMC 75 Downshire, vol. 6 (London, 1995), pp. 461 no. 1002, 465 no. 1016.

• Prebble, John, The Lion in the North: one thousand years of Scotland's history, London, 1971

• 1570s births
• 1638 deaths
• Earls of Argyll
• Scottish Roman Catholics
• Knights of the Golden Fleece
• Converts to Roman Catholicism from Presbyterianism
• Members of the Parliament of Scotland 1617
• Members of the Parliament of Scotland 1639–1641
• 17th-century Scottish landowners
• Burials at the Argyll Mausoleum
• 16th-century Scottish peers
• 17th-century Scottish peers