James Campbell of Lawers (died 1645) was a Scottish landowner. His home, Lawers, was on the banks of Loch Tay in Perthshire.
He was a son of John Campbell of Lawers and Aberuchill and Beatrix Campbell, a daughter of Colin Campbell of Glenorchy. John Campbell was knighted at the coronation of Anne of Denmark in Edinburgh in 1590. John Campbell had a lodging in Perth. He, or perhaps his son, was found to have committed adultery with more than woman by the Kirk Session of Perth in 1596.[1]
James Campbell married Jean Colville, a daughter of James Colville, Laird of Wemyss in 1595. The expense of the marriages of his daughters was supposed to have caused Colville some distress and he hoped for a financial reward from Elizabeth I.[2] The marriage was promoted to the English ambassador Robert Bowes by John Colville who hoped Campbell and the Laird of Wemyss would be encouraged in their support for English policy.[3] John Colville called Campbell "Junior", his father was still alive and he was known as the "young laird of Lawers". Campbell affectionately addressed John Colville as "father".[4]
Campbell persuaded some Highland and Argyll men not to fight in Ireland against the English, speaking to two or three companies of soldiers on the point of embarking at Tarbert.[5] He made offers to Sir Robert Cecil to support English soldiers in Ireland. The Dean of Limerick thought his youth and inexperience made him ill-equipped be a chief commander as yet, and he observed that Lawers was not a close adherent of the Earl of Argyll because his father's lands were far from the Earl's.[6]
Their eldest son was John Campbell, 1st Earl of Loudoun (1598-1662). A younger son Mungo Campbell of Lawers was killed at the battle of Auldearn in 1645. A daughter married David Dunbar of Enterkine in Ayrshire.
References edit
- ^ John Parker Lawson, The Book of Perth (Edinburgh, 1847), pp. 227-8.
- ^ Calendar State Papers Scotland, 1595-1597, vol. 12 (Edinburgh, 1952), p. 166 no. 141.
- ^ Original Letters of John Colville, p. 149.
- ^ Original Letters of John Colville, p. 272.
- ^ Original Letters of John Colville, p. 272.
- ^ Calendar State Papers Scotland, 1595-1597, vol. 12 (Edinburgh, 1952), pp. 166, 187, 188 no. 160, 194, 209.