The Dramatic 1661 Trial and Beheading of the Marquis of Argyle

Archibald Campbell, 8th Earl and 1st Marquis of Argyle, bestrode mid-seventeenth-century Scotland like a granite ridge—unyielding yet fissured by deep fault-lines. Born 1607, educated at St Andrews, he learned early that in a clan-ridden kingdom politics could be deadlier than broadswords. By 1638 he was the civilian strategist of the National Covenant, the manifesto that hurled Scotland into open rebellion against Charles I’s attempt to impose episcopacy. Argyle raised levies, directed field armies, negotiated pacifications, and—critically—kept one eye on England, where Parliament was sliding toward civil war.

Royalists never forgave him; even fellow Covenanters muttered that he loved “power in his own hand” more than pure principle. Yet when Charles I was executed in 1649, Argyle astounded Cromwell’s republic by crowning the dead king’s son Charles II at Scone—albeit under a rigorous Presbyterian oath. That stunt of balancing king-making with Kirk-guarding cemented his fame. It also guaranteed that whichever side prevailed in Britain’s long agony, half the nation would call him hero, half traitor.