The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

358 THE HIGHLANDERS [part ii
Castle of Dunstaffnage, with a considerable part of the forfeited
territor}^ of Lorn, and his descendants added Strachur in Cowall,
and a considerable part of Glendochart and Glenfalloch, to
their former possessions. In the reign of Davdd II. the Mac
Cailinmor branch, who since the marriage of Sir Neil with the
sister of Robert Bruce had been rapidly increasing in power
and extent of territory, appear to have taken the first steps
towards placing themselves at the head of the clan, but were
successfull}' resisted b}- Mac Arthur, who obtained a charter,
Arthuro Campbell quod nulli subjicitur pro terris nisi regi ;
and the Mac Arthurs appear to have maintained this station
until the reign of James I., when the}' were doomed to incur
that powerful monarch's resentment, and to be in consequence
so effectuall)- crushed as to offer no further resistance to the
encroaching power of Mac Cailinmor.
When James I. summoned his parliament at Inverness for
the purpose of entrapping the Highland chiefs, John Mac
Arthur was one of those who fell into the snare, and he seems
to have been among the few especially devoted to destruction,
for he was beheaded along with Alexander, the lord of Gar-
moran, and his whole property forfeited, with the exception
of Strachur and some lands in Perthshire, which remained to
his descendants. His position at the head of the clan is
sufficiently pointed out b\' Bower, who calls him ''
pHnceps
iiiagtms apud suos et dux mille hominum," but from this period
the Mac Cailinmore branch were unquestionably at the head
of the clan, and their elevation to the peerage, which took
place but a few years after, placed them above the reach of
dispute from an}- of the other branches of the clan. The
Strachur famil}-, in the meantime, remained in the situation
of one of the principal of the Ceann Tighe, preserving an
unavailing claim to the position of which the}'
had been
deprived. After this period the rise of the Argyll family to
power and influence was rapid, and the encroachments which
had commenced with the branches of their own clan soon
their
involved most of the clans in their neighbourhood ; and
history is most remarkable from their extraordinary progress
from a station of comparative inferiority to one of unusual
eminence, as well as from the constant and steady adherence