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Archiver > RHEA > 1997-10 > 0875767776


From: <>
Subject: Monmouth and Argyll
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 00:49:36 -0400 (EDT)


I asked a question on the Scotch-Irish list, and this is what i got. I
thought some of you might be interested. What I want to know is how did
Castle Peel, Isle of Mann get into the history of Matthew Campbell.

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The only battle fought on British soil in 1685 was the Battle of Sedgemoor in
Somerset in south-west England. It was fought between the Royal Army of King
James VII and II(who succeeded his father Charles II as King of great Britain
in February of that year) and that raised by James Scott, Duke of Monmouth.
Monmouth was the Protestant illegitimate son of King Charles II determined
to oppose the King's adherence to the Roman Catholic religion. Sedgemoor ws
the end of "Monmouth's Rebellion" and of the force raised in Scotland,
conveyed via the Netherlands and reinforced with west countrymen of Cornwall,
Somerset and Dorset.

Following the battle some 250 rebels were executed and 850 more transported
to the colonies. For months afterwards Chief Justice Jeffreys conducted his
"Bloody Assize" trying and sentencing to death many of those who had
supported or assisted Monmouth's force before or after the battle. He had
over 350 prisoners hanged and sold over 800 as slaves (indentured labourers)
in the West Indies.

Archibald Campbell became 9th Earl of Argyll after his father, Archibald
Marquis of Argyll, had been executed at the market cross in Edinburgh for
opposing the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The 9th Earl was also a
Protestant and opposed to the Roman Catholicism of King James VII and against
the Episcopal Church which King Charles II had reimposed on Scotland. From
exile in the Netherlands, he attempted to mount an invasion of Scotland which
was synchronized with Monmouth's landing in SW England.

Argyll landed on the west coast in Argyllshire and found few of his clansmen
and even fewer of his fellow Covenanters prepared to join him. he quarrelled
with his companions and they split up. After a failed attempt to shoot
himself, Argyll was caught by the Government forces at Inchinnan, near the
town of REnfrew, and was taken to Edinburgh. having previously been condemned
as a under the reign of Charles II (for refusing to subscribe to the Test
Act), it was not thought necessary to try the earl again. So he was
executed, on the same spot and in the same manner as his father, on June 30,
1685.

The Covenanter already imprisoned before Argyll's landing, who were supposed
to support Argyll were taken to Dunnottar Castle outside Stonehaven in
Kincardineshire. There were some 200 men and women. About a hundred were
shut up in a vault of the castle, known to this day as the "Whig's Vault",
and many died from disease, hunger and the rancourous air. The surviving
prisoners were brought to Leith near Edinburgh, and got the choice of
acknowledging James VII as their king or of being sent as slaves to America.
Most refused and accepted exile.

both of these failed risings were forerunners to the "Glorious Revolution" of
1688 when James was defeated and dethroned, being replaced by his sister mary
and her husband, William of Orange.

No reference to the Isle of Man which is an island and part of Great Britain,
located in the Irish Sea, about midway betwen the coasts of Northern Ireland
and England. The Isle of Man is not part of the United Kingdom but is still
a direct dependency of the British crown.

England was united with Scotland in two stages; the Union of the Crowns in
1603, when Jame VI of Scotland became james II of England and decreed that
the country would be styled Great Britain; and the Union of the Scots and
English Parliaments, which occurred in 1707.

I asked where this material came from and he said my notes were written with
the help of:

"The Complete Guide to the Battlefields of Britain" by David Smurthwaite,
published by Mermaid Books in 1993 at 12.95 pounds, ISBN 0-7181-3655-1.

"A History of Scotland" by Professor J. D. Mackie, published in 1977 in
paperback by penguin Books.

" A Short History of Scotland" by P. Hume Brown, published in Edinburgh in
1908 by Oliver and Boyd.

Pat

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