The Argylls have prided themselves on being the ‘Campbell Regiment’, but the story of Clan Campbell is so surrounded in myth that it has become a cliché of Scottish history.
The Campbells moved into the void left by the decline of the MacDonald Lordship of the Isles, and at its height, Campbell power extended from Ayrshire, Kintyre and Cowal across to Breadalbane, Angus and even Cawdor in Moray. Their power and success made them hated and feared. Their extreme brand of Calvinist Protestantism made them traitors to the Crown in the 1600s, but loyal servants of the State by the early 1700s.
How did Clan Campbell become so powerful and does the Campbell name deserve to be so infamous?