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- From "Alba: Celtic Scotland in the Middle Ages" by Edward J. Cowan(Editor), R. Andrew McDonald (Editor). Publisher: Tuckwell Press; (April2001) ISBN: 1862321515
Page 9
The Tale of Leper John and the Campbell
Acquisition of Lorn
STEVE BOARDMAN
In 1865, m Port Appin on the eastern shore of Loch Linnhe two old men metto share tales of days bypass one was John Dewar from Rosneath, a manemployed by the eighth duke of Argyll and his agent J. F. Campbell as acollector of traditional histories from the inhabitants of the Highlandsand Islands.' The other was Gillespie MacCombie, an eighty-three year oldwidower and a native of Appin who had lived much of his long life as afarmer on the land of the lairds of Airds.(2). MacCombie's stories wellduly recorded in Dewar's massive collection of traditional lore as "Atale of Gillespie MacCombie in Port Appin, and of those from whom he isdescended, according to his own telling of it'."(3). Overall, it was astrange yarn that MacCombie unfolded for his gueSt It began with thedeath of an unnamed lord of Lorn at the hands of the MacDougalls ofDunollie, who thereafter 'brought caterans with them and went to dwell mCastle Stalker and they sought sustenance ... by plundering thecountry'.(4) Relief was at hand, however, in the shape of DougallStewart, an illegitimate son of the slain lord of Lorn, who 'was stayingat Balquhidder among his mother's relations' and who determined torecover the lands between Loch Creran and Loch Linnhe up to Glenduror(the Ceathramh Fearna, as MacCombie described it)'. Recruiting men fromDumbarton, Loch Lomondside and most especially, MacLarens from Perthshirewith the promise that they and their descendants should have farms solong as Dugald Stewart or his offspring should have lordship', Dougall
took possession of the Ceathramh Fearna, and ... gave farms to theMacLaurins'.5
Within fifteen years of MacCombie and Dewar's meeting a more elaborateand detailed version of the tale of Dougall Stewart found its way.
1 J Dewar, The Dewar Manuscripts, ed J. Mackechine (Glasgow 1964) i, 11,30-1.
2 Ibid., 258-9
3 Ibid., 255.
4 Ibid
5 Ibid.
Page 220. Steve Boarman.
...into print in a family history of the Stewarts of Appin. (6) TheAppin history combined the local oral traditions evidenced by McCrombie'stale with the
authority' of manuscript accounts of the Stewarts of Appinand the MacLarens of Ardvech. The editors of the history also hadrecourse to the printed documentary sources then available for latemedieval Scotland. The result was a rousing, but still apparentlyfabulous, account which explained the origins of Stewart lordship inAppin in the fifteenth century. Agreeing with MacCombie, the Appinhistory asserted that the progenitor of the Stewarts of Appin wasDougall, an illegitimate son of John Stewart, lord of Lorn. The talenarrated how, late in life, John Stewart (also known to tradition as JohnMourach or Leper John) decided to marry Dougall's mother, a daughter ofthe MacLaren lord of Ardvech (near Lochearnhead), and retrospectivelylegitimise their son so that he might succeed to the lordship of Lorn. Onthe morning of the wedding, as John's bride-to-be and his son approachedDunstaffnage Castle with a MacLaren escort, banners flying and pipesplaying, the Lord of Lorn received a fatal wound from an assassin, AllanMcDougal. John was made of stern stuff, however, and if there is anysubstance to his byname he may have been long prepared for his own deathand long inured to physical suffering. In a melodramatic conclusion tothe tale the old lord, his life ebbing away, ground through the marriageceremony in order to secure the lordship for his son. After John's death,the Appin history resentfully records the sweeping aside of Dougall'srights by the naked political and military power of his adversaries,notably Colin Campbell, earl of Argyll and his uncle Colin Campbell ofClenorchy, who were married to Dougall's legitimate sisters.' (7)
At first sight the Stewart tale seems an obvious invention, the wishfulfillment of a family whose illegitimate ancestor was rightly debarredfrom succeeding to his father's lands and title. Manuscript historiesassociated with Clan Campbell, such as the Black Book of Taymouth,provide a far more prosaic and bland account of the circumstances behindEarl Colin's acquisition of Lorn. The earl's right, we are told, restedsquarely on his marriage to Isabel Stewart, one of three daughters andco-heiresses of John Stewart, the last Stewart lord of Lorn who was
6. J. and D. Stewart, The Stewarts of Appin (Edinburgh 1880). The talewas obviously considerably older, for its outlines can be discerned In amanuscript *associated with Clan Campbell dating from 1756. ArgyllRecords, 9-10.
7. Stewart and Stewart, Stewarts of Appin, 73-96. The account alsoincludes four stanzas of a Gaelic poem apparently commemorating the marchof Dougall and his mother from Loch Earn to Dunstaffnage. It may besignificant that John's by- name is found only in Campbell sources.Argyll Records 9.
*"manuscript, which, based upon internal references, was apparentlywritten in 1634, based upon the writings of highland seanachies"sometimes to be keeped in Abbeys." The manuscript was copied in 1756and kept in the British Museum. The manuscript was printed in 1885 aspart of RECORDS OF ARGYLL: LEGENDS, TRADITIONS, AND RECOLLECTIONS OFARGYLLSHIRE HIGHLANDERS, by Lord Archibald Campbell. This is the samemanuscript that is quoted in THE STEWARTS OF APPIN by J. and D. Stewart,published in 1880"
Received from Doug Hickling
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