PREFACE ALL races of men seem to have an intuitive feeling that it is a subject of legitimate pride to be one of a clan or family whose name is written large in past history and present affairs. Everybody likes to know something about his forefathers, and to be able to tell to his children the tales or stories about their ancestors, which he himself has heard from his parents. The commandment "Honor thy father and thy mother" is good and sufficient authority for that feeling of reverence which is so generally shown towards a line of honorable ancestry. The history of the family was a matter of much importance to the Greeks; it was the custom of the early Roman to place in the aula of his house the images of the illustrious men of his family; the Chinese go so far as to magnify such reverence into ancestor worship, and even the red Indian of our own Northwest recorded the traditions of his ancestors on the totem of his tribe. Well, then, may the story of the chivalry, courage and even lawlessness (so often the mate of courage) of their forefathers find a responsive echo in the hearts of Campbells of the present generation, "who come of ane house and are of ane surname, notwithstanding this lang time bygane." It is not intended in this "History of the Campbell Family" to attempt any genealogical investigation or show any family tree, but rather to tell of those bygone Campbells, in whose achieve-5 ments and history it is the common heritage of all who bear the name to take pride and interest. Old stories of Campbells of reckless bravery, of Campbells who were good and true friends and of Campbells who were fierce and bitter enemies. Stories of Campbells who fought hard, lived hard and died as they fought and lived. Those olden days may seem a time of scant respect for law, of misdirected chivalry and of brave deeds often wrongly done, but there is surely no true Campbell who, in his inmost heart, is not proud to claim descent from a clan whose ancient records are replete with such traditions; whose later records tell of those early adventurers who left their native hills and glens for the new land of promise, and whose descendants have, in more prosaic times, earned honors in literature, arms and art. "It is wise for us to recur to the history of our ancestors. Those who do not look upon themselves as links connecting the past with the future do not fulfill their duty in the world." HISTORY OF THE CAMPBELL FAMILY CHAPTER I FEW clans can claim as great an antiquity as Na Cambeulich, The Clan Campbell; and authorities do not agree as to the origin of the name. The Scottish antiquary and historian, Pinkerton, claims that the name is derived from a Norman Knight, styled de Campo Bello, who came to England with William the Conqueror in 1066. But in the Roll of Battle Abbey, a list of all the knights who composed the army of the Conqueror, the name of de Campo Bello does not appear. Further the appearance of the patronymic in Scottish record and ancient documents is always in the form which it still retains, although in the oldest writings it is spelled Cambel or Kambel. These names were, however, written by persons not acquainted with the individuals whose names they record. The manuscript account of the Battle of Halidon Hill, preserved in the British Museum, was written by an unknown English writer; while in the Ragman Roll, 1296, the name given to the collection of instruments by which the nobility of Scotland were compelled to subscribe allegiance to Edward I of England, the name is spelled Kambel by an English clerk. When written by a member of the family, at any period, the name does not appear otherwise than as Campbell.