page_title: Clan Campbell
section_title: 15th century and royal relations
hierarchical_section_title: Clan Campbell / History / 15th century and royal relations
caption_attribution_description: Small island in Loch Awe with excellent castle ruins - formerly a stronghold of the Campbells
context_page_description: Clan Campbell is a Highland Scottish clan. Historically one of the largest and most powerful of the Highland clans, their lands were in Argyll and the chief of the clan became the Earl and later Duke of Argyll.
context_section_description: The Campbells gave support to the Crown throughout the 15th century. By the end of the 15th century the power of the Lords of the Isles (chiefs of Clan Donald) who were the Crown's most powerful rivals had been broken leaving the Campbells as the main power in the area. From this time onwards the Campbells acted as the main instrument of central authority in the area and this could be the real cause of the ancient enmity between the Campbells and the MacDonalds.
  Descendants of Sir Duncan Campbell, 1st Lord Campbell (Donnchadh) and his wife Lady Marjorie Stewart would be descendants of Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland and Robert II Stewart, King of Scotland. Lady Marjorie Stewart, b. 1390 was the daughter of King Robert II's son, Robert Stewart, 1st Duke of Albany. This would make all descendants of Sir Duncan Campbell and Lady Marjorie Stewart descendants of Robert I Bruce and most of the early Kings of Scotland.
  The first Lord Campbell was created in 1445. It was from the 15th century that the Campbells came to take an increasingly prominent role. The personal reign of James I of Scotland, saw that king launch a great political assault on the Albany Stewarts and their allies in the west, however Duncan Campbell, 1st lord Campbell (Donnchadh), escaped the fate of his Albany kinsmen who were all either executed or exiled.
  Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll (Cailean) was en-nobled as the Earl of Argyll in 1457 and later became Baron of Lorn and was also granted lands in Knapdale, signs that the Argylls were one of the major forces in Scotland. In 1493 after the forfeiture of the MacDonald, Lord of the Isles, the Campbell lords may well have viewed themselves as natural successors to the Clan Donald in terms of leadership of the Gaels of the Hebrides and western Highlands. The Campbell lordship thus remained one of the most significant bastions of Gaelic learning and culture in late medieval and early modern Scotland.
  In the Battle of Knockmary, 1490, men of the Clan Campbell and the Clan Drummond joined forces to defeat the Clan Murray. This also became known as the Massacre of Monzievaird. In 1499, Campbell of Inverliver defeated the Clan Calder at the Battle of Daltullich and Sir John Campbell, the younger son of the Earl of Argyll, received the estate of Calder and Cawdor Castle through his marriage to the heiress, Muriel Calder.
caption: Innis Chonnell Castle on Loch Awe, possibly the earliest seat of the Clan Campbell.
exif: {}