| Notes |
- Eldest son of Sir Calein Mor. In the record of the parliament of Robert the Bruce held in 1320, the name of the then head of the family, entered as Sir Nigel de Campo Bello. He first swore fealty to Edward I, but afterwards joined Robert the Bruce and married his sister Mary Bruce. By his wife Sir Neil had three sons - Sir Colin, John and Dugal. Neil was appointed Constable of the Royal Castle of Dunoon on the Clyde in Cowal. To his family went many of the lands in Perthshire which had formerly belonged to to David de Strathbogie, 11th Earl of Atholl, whose title was bestowed on Neil's 2nd son, John Campbell. Sir Neil's widow was married to Sir Alexander Fraser, Chamberlain of Scotland under Robert the Bruce. Sir Neil's next brother Donald was the progenitor of the Campbells of Loudon.
Neil probaby didn't marry Margaret de Multon.
===================================================================================================
Archie McKerracher writes in Scots Magazine in the "The Battle at the Red Ford (1294)" (Continued from father's notes):
With Colin's death, the chieftainship of the Campbells passed to Colin's 24 year old son Neil who became the first Mhic Cailean Mhor the son of the great Colin, which became henceforth the patronymic of the Chiefs of the Clan Campbell. He had been educated at the High School of Dundee, where one of his classmates had been a young man from Renfrewshire called William Wallace (Braveheart).
In 1297 Wallace came to him seeking assistance. He had joined an uprising against English domination and led an army of common people. Would Neil join him? A deal was struck that Wallace would first of all help Neil recover his lands and then Neil would assist him. The MacDougalls were pushed back and the Campbells joined Wallace for the decisive battle of Stirling Bridge. But then came Fallkirk and Wallace's defeat and the English regained domination. Neil Campbell was forced into hiding, and his small clan was scattered.
Eight years later, Robert the Bruce killed the Red Comyn in Dumfries' Greyfriars Monastery and thus began the final chapter in the long War of Independence. It so happened the Red Comyn was the nephew of Alexander of Argyll, Lord of Lorn, the 4th MacDougall chief, who had no option but to join a blood feud, and threw the entire might of the MacDougalls against Bruce, almost capturing him at Dalrigh near Tyndrum. In Scotland kith and kin always ranked higher than politics.
Neil Campbell promptly called out his clan to support the cause of Robert the Bruce. It must be said the Campbells would probably have chosen whoever was on the opposite side to the MacDougalls.
Clan Campbell and Bruce's army fell upon the MacDougalls at the Pass of Brander near Taynuilt in the autumn of 1308, and annihilated them. The burial cairns of the dead can be seen across the River Awe hydroelectric barrage. Sir Alexander of Lorn reluctantly gave allegiance to Bruce although his Comyn wife glared her hatred. They were exiled to Gylen Castle on the island of Kerrera. Their son, Lame John, escaped and renewed his allegiance to Edward II, and in 1311 was created English Admiral of the Western Seas.
After the Battle of Bannochburn the MacDougalls forfeited most of their mainland possessions which were granted to Sir Neil Campbell, although it was not until 1318 that Lame John MacDougall and his galleys were finally destroyed by combined fleets of King Robert and Angus Og MacDonald of Islay.
Neil Campbell married Marjory Bruce, the king's sister, setting aside his first wife to do so, and so began Clan Campbell's inexorable and irrresistible rise to overlordship of Argyll and the western seaboard and at one point of Scotland itself.
But as I have already said, the twists of history are peculiar. Supposing instead the MacDougalls had sided with Wallace and Bruce as did their kin clan the MacDonalds, and the small clan Campbell, nurturing its hatred against them, had thrown in its lot with the Comyns and the English, and thereby had been extinguished to become simply a mention in some ancient record.
Today, tourists might flock to visit magnificent Dunollie Castle in Oban, instead of Inverary, and be greeted by mhic Dhughaill, the Duke of Lorn. The MacDougalls and the MacDonalds might have formed a Celtic power bloc on the West Coast, stretching from Mull of Kintyre to the tip of Harris, so powerful as to alter history. We can only guess. Perhaps no Flodden; perhaps no bigoted religious civil wars of the 17th century; perhaps no Massacre of Glencoe; perhaps no Culloden.
That's why I believe the Battle at the Red Ford at the String of Lorn, insignificant as it was at the time, probably altered Scotland's destiny, and the history of the United Kingdom.
===================================================================================================
See also Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_mac_Cailein
|
Abt 1258 - 1316 (58 years)
[2] 