The Campbells of the Ark, Vol 1: Men of Argyll in 1745

In the course of his long poem An Airce, ‘The Ark’, the Jacobite poet Alexander MacDonald shows the Campbells being subjected to trial by water for the part they played in defeating Prince Charles’s army in 1745–6. Some will be drowned outright, he says, some just given a good ducking – and some will be honorably treated. He names forty individuals; Ronald Black puts their lives and deeds under the microscope to see how far they deserved their allotted fate. The result is a well-balanced portrait of the leading men of Argyll in the eighteenth century and a refreshingly new perspective on one of the most colorful episodes in Scottish history.