Archibald Campbell , 1st Marquess of Argyll Archibald Campbell , 1st Marquess of Argyll , 8th Earl of Argyll , chief of Clan Campbell , ( March 1607 – 27 May 1661 ) was the " de facto " head of government in Scotland during most of the conflict known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms , also known as the British Civil War . He was a major figure in the Covenanter movement that fought for the Presbyterian religion and what they saw as Scottish interests during the English Civil War of the 1640s and 1650s . He is often remembered as the arch - enemy of the royalist general James Graham , 1st Marquis of Montrose . Family and early life . He was eldest son of Archibald Campbell , 7th Earl of Argyll , by his first wife Agnes Douglas daughter of William Douglas , 6th Earl of Morton , and was educated at St Andrews University , where he matriculated on 15 January 1622 . He had early in life , as Lord Lorne , been entrusted with the possession of the Argyll estates when his father renounced Protestantism and took arms for Philip III of Spain ; and he exercised over his clan an authority almost absolute , disposing of a force of 20 , 000 retainers , being , according to Baillie , by far the most powerful subject in the kingdom . He married Lady Margaret Douglas , eldest daughter of William Douglas , 7th Earl of Morton , by whom he had two sons and four daughters . In the Covenanter movement . On the outbreak of the religious dispute between the king and Scotland in 1637 , his support was eagerly sought by Charles I . He was made a privy councillor in 1628 . In 1638 , the king summoned him , together with Traquair and Roxburgh , to London , but he refused to be won over , warned Charles against his despotic ecclesiastical policy , and showed great hostility towards William Laud . In consequence , a secret commission was given to the Earl of Antrim to invade Argyll and stir up the MacDonalds against him . Argyll , who inherited the title at the death of his father in 1638 , originally had no preference for Presbyterianism , but now definitely took the side of the Covenanters in defence of national religion and liberties . He continued to attend the meetings of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland after its dissolution by the Marquis of Hamilton , when Episcopacy was abolished . In 1639 , he sent a statement to Laud , and subsequently to the king , defending the General Assembly ' s action . He raised a body of troops and seized Hamilton ' s castle of Brodick in Arran . After the pacification of Berwick - upon - Tweed , he carried a motion , in opposition to James Graham , 1st Marquis of Montrose , by which the estates secured to themselves the election of the lords of the articles , who had formerly been nominated by the king . This was a fundamental change to the Scottish constitution , whereby the management of public affairs was entrusted to a representative body and withdrawn from the control of the crown . An attempt by the king to deprive him of his office as justiciary of Argyll failed , and on the prorogation of the parliament by Charles , in May 1640 , Argyll moved that it should continue its sittings and that the government and safety of the kingdom should be secured by a committee of the estates , of which he was the guiding spirit . In June , he was trusted with a Commission of fire and sword against the royalists in Atholl and Angus , which , after succeeding in entrapping the John Murray , 1st Earl of Atholl , he carried out with completeness and cruelty . It was on this occasion that the Bonnie Hoose o ' Airlie was burned . By this time , the personal dislike and difference in opinion between Montrose and Argyll led to an open breach . The former arranged that on the occasion of Charles ' s approaching visit to Scotland , Argyll would be accused of high treason in the parliament . The plot , however , was disclosed , and Montrose , among others , was imprisoned . Accordingly , when the king arrived , he found himself deprived of every remnant of influence and authority . It only remained for Charles to make a series of concessions . He transferred control over judicial and political appointments to the parliament , created Argyll a marquess in 1641 , and returned home , having , in Clarendon ' s words , made a perfect deed of gift of that kingdom . Meanwhile , there was an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap Argyll , Hamilton , and Lanark , known as The Incident . Argyll was mainly instrumental in this crisis in keeping the national party faithful to what was to him evidently the common cause , and in accomplishing the alliance with the Long Parliament in 1643 . English and Scottish Civil War . In January 1644 , he accompanied the Scottish army into England as a member of the Committee of Both Kingdoms and in command of a troop of horse , but was soon compelled , in March , to return to suppress royalists in the Scottish Civil War and to defend his own territories . He forced Huntly to retreat in April . In July , he advanced to abet the Irish troops now landed in Argyll , which were fighting in conjunction with Montrose , who had put himself at the head of the royalist forces in Scotland . Neither general succeeded in obtaining an advantage over the other , or even in engaging in battle . Argyll then returned to Edinburgh , threw up his commission , and retired to Inveraray Castle . Montrose unexpectedly followed him in December , compelling him to flee to Roseneath , and devastating his territories . On 2 February 1645 , while following Montrose northwards , Argyll was surprised by him at Inverlochy . He witnessed , from his barge on the lake to which he had retired after falling from his horse , a fearful slaughter of his troops , which included 1500 of the Campbells . He arrived at Edinburgh on 12 February and was again present at Montrose ' s further great victory on 15 August at Kilsyth , whence he escaped to Newcastle . Argyll was at last delivered from his formidable antagonist by Montrose ' s final defeat at Philiphaugh on 12 September . In 1646 , he was sent to negotiate with the king at Newcastle after his surrender to the Scottish army , when he endeavoured to moderate the demands of the parliament and at the same time to persuade the king to accept them . On 7 July 1646 , he was appointed a member of the Assembly of Divines . Up to this point , Argyll ' s statesmanship had been highly successful . The national liberties and religion of Scotland had been defended and guaranteed , and the power of the king in Scotland reduced to a mere shadow . In addition , these privileges had been still further secured by the alliance with the English opposition , and by the subsequent triumph of the parliament and Presbyterianism in the neighboring kingdom . The king himself was a prisoner in their midst . But Argyll ' s influence could not survive the rupture of the alliance between the two nations on which his whole policy was founded . He opposed in vain the Engagement , concluded in December 1647 , between the Charles I and the Scots against the parliament . James , Duke of Hamilton commanded an Engager army that marched into England and was defeated by Cromwell at Preston the following August . Argyll , after a narrow escape from a surprise attack at the Battle of Stirling in September 1648 , joined the Whiggamores , a body of Covenanters at Edinburgh ; and , supported by John Campbell , 1st Earl of Loudoun and Alexander Leslie , 1st Earl of Leven , he established a new government , which welcomed Oliver Cromwell on his arrival there on 4 October 1648 . War with the English Parliament and personal ruin . This alliance , however , was at once destroyed by the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649 , which excited universal horror in Scotland . In the series of tangled incidents which followed , Argyll lost control of the national policy . He describes himself at this period as " a distracted man . . . in a distracted time " whose " remedies . . . had the quite contrary operation . " He supported the invitation from the Covenanters to Charles II to land in Scotland , and gazed upon the captured Montrose , bound on a cart to execution at Edinburgh . When Charles II came to Scotland , having signed the Covenant and repudiated Montrose , Argyll remained at the head of the administration . After the defeat of Dunbar , Charles retained his support by the promise of a dukedom and the Garter , and an attempt was made by Argyll to marry the king to his daughter , Lady Anne . On 1 January 1651 , he placed the crown on Charles ' s head at Scone . But his power had now passed to the Hamiltonian party . He strongly opposed , but was unable to prevent , the expedition into England . In the subsequent reduction of Scotland , after holding out in Inveraray Castle for nearly a year , he was at last surprised in August 1652 and submitted to the Commonwealth . His ruin was then complete . His policy had failed , his power had vanished . He was hopelessly in debt , and on terms of such violent hostility with his eldest son and heir Archibald as to be obliged to demand a garrison in his house for his protection . Later life and writings . During his visit to Monck at Dalkeith in 1654 to complain of this , he was subjected to much personal insult from his creditors , and on visiting London in September 1655 to obtain money due to him from the Scottish parliament , he was arrested for debt , though soon liberated . In Richard Cromwell ' s parliament of 1659 Argyll sat as member for Aberdeenshire . At the Restoration , he presented himself at Whitehall , but was at once arrested by order of Charles II and placed in the Tower ( 1660 ) , being sent to Edinburgh to stand trial for high treason . He was acquitted of complicity in the death of Charles I , and his escape from the whole charge seemed imminent , but the arrival of a packet of letters written by Argyll to Monck showed conclusively his collaboration with Cromwell ' s government , particularly in the suppression of Glencairn ' s royalist rising in 1652 . He was immediately sentenced to death , his execution by beheading on the ' Maiden ' taking place on 27 May 1661 , before the death warrant had even been signed by the king . His head was placed on the same spike upon the west end of the Tolbooth as that of Montrose had previously been exposed , and his body was buried at the Holy Loch , where the head was also deposited in 1664 . A monument was erected to his memory in Church of St Giles in Edinburgh in 1895 . While imprisoned in the Tower he wrote " Instructions to a Son " ( 1661 ) . Some of his speeches , including the one delivered on the scaffold , were published and are printed in the " Harleian Miscellany " .