The Dukes (58 page)

The King of Spain had been certain of victory. He planned to divide England among his nobles, and the money he sent over with this ship was intended as wages for his invading forces. We all know that his plans were thwarted, but what meanwhile happened to the treasure? It rested on the silt at the bottom of Tobermory Bay, and has since resisted all attempts to recover it. Charles I gave up trying, and granted salvage rights to the 1st Duke of Argyll, who was thereby permitted to keep whatever booty the wreck might con­tain, supposing always that he would be able to lay his hands on it, with the sole condition that the royal coffers might receive one per cent of the treasure's value. The present Duke of Argyll still retains this unique right.

In 1950 the new Duke enlisted the help of the Royal Navy in a final attempt to locate the wreck. On nine occasions between 1661 and 1919 attempts had been made, and small pieces had been brought to the surface — candlesticks, doubloons, swords, compasses. By now, the wreck had sunk so deeply into the mud that it was completely invisible, and sophisticated devices were required to discover where it was. On 2nd April the experts announced that they had indeed dis­covered a galleon, and brought to the surface specimens of African oak,' which is precisely what the ship would be made of. Sceptics kept their silence.

Having located the galleon, the Royal Navy's task was complete. It was for others to plunder the treasure. Four years later, the Duke financed another try. This time, more ship's timber was found, some scabbards, and a cannon. But no treasure. The dive had to be abandoned, as being both too dangerous and too expensive, but the Duke had established that the Tobermory Bay galleon was no legend; it was the only known galleon of the Spanish Armada, and it was still there. In al] likelihood, if it did contain £30 million as Eliza­beth I's spies maintained, then it contains as much now

At all events, the search brought the Duke of Argyll to public notice. It was a romantic and exciting quest, and he as the questor was a popular figure, a folk hero. He was hardly out of the news­papers. But the publicity he received a few years later was of a far less welcome kind, and for a period of four years he eclipsed in public attention even the Duke of Bedford.

Argyll had not been brought up at Inveraray, being only a cousin of his predecessor. He had been educated in the United States, had fought in World War II, and been taken prisoner. The years from 1940 to 1945 were spent in a P.O.W. camp, an experience which broke his health. He had already married twice when he succeeded to the title. His first wife had been a daughter of Lord Beaverbrook, by whom he had a daughter, Lady Jeanne Louise Campbell, who later married the American writer Norman Mailer for a few months. His second wife, a divorcee called Louise Morris, gave him two sons, one of whom is the present Duke. In 1951 this marriage also ended in divorce, and Argyll married an old friend, Margaret Sweeney (born 19
14).

The new Duchess had been a famous debutante of the 1930s, perhaps the most photographed woman in the inter-war years. She had been born Margaret Whigham, daughter of a poor Glasgow worker who made himself a very wealthy man, and left her his for­tune. She was educated in the United States, and "came out" in London with the effect of a seismic shock. Among the men who sought her were the Earl of Warwick and the Aly Khan, the former of whom she was ready to marry, but withdrew not long before the ceremony. Her husband, in the end, was an American businessman called Charles Sweeney, by whom she had a daughter who is now the Duchess of Rutland.

It was as Margaret Sweeney that she married the Duke of Argyll in 1951. Whatever else may have happened, she devoted herself to the task of restoring Inveraray Castle with a passion for which the local inhabitants are still grateful, "Her Grace has come to Inveraray like a touch of spring," said one.
¹⁷
It was largely as the result of her work that the little town of Inveraray, a model of town planning, was recognised as worthy of protection as a national monument. In August 1959 the marriage erupted into a public quarrel which
bounced in and out of the courts for the next four years. The Duchess defended unsuccessfully, providing the newspapers with their best opportunity to be shocked, prurient, and snobbish all at the same time. Historians will find in the details of this case an interesting comment on the circular movement of social fashions; there had certainly not been as amazing a divorce case in high circles since the Duchess of Cleveland, mother to the dukes of Grafton had her marriage annulled in 1706.

The Duke was granted his divorce, and married for a fourth time not long afterwards. Both he and the Duchess wrote about their marriage in the Sunday newspapers, he in terms so private that she successfully brought an order compelling him to excise some sen­tences. The judge read to a silent court the offending passage. "How any man with any decent feelings," he said, "could seek to publish such a thing to the world for his pecuniary benefit passes compre­hension." The principle that marital confidence should be protected was upheld, and occasioned much editorial comment. It contributed to the debate on the limits of privacy. As a direct result of this article, the Duke was asked politely to leave his club, White's.

In 1969 the Duke went to live in France, where he had spent much of his youth (he was bilingual), and where he felt happiest. He returned to Scotland an ill man in 1973, and died in hospital. The 11th Duke of Argyll had led a life pursued by newspapermen from the day he succeeded to the day he died. It was not always of his choosing. He preferred the quiet life at Inveraray. But his judge­ment sometimes failed him, and the press triumphantly relished his mistakes.

Very different from his father is Ian Campbell, 12th Duke of Argyll, who is handsome, responsible and happy. Born in 1937 and brought up in the United States, he married Iona Colquhoun of Liss in 1964, and they have two children, Torquhil and Louise. Before he succeeded in the title in 1973, Ian Campbell had tackled a dozen different jobs and had lived in many parts of the world. For four years he worked behind the Iron Curtain, in East Germany, Hungary and Romania, for Rank Xerox. He still has disparate business interests which have nothing to do with the Argyll estates, and has brought to the running of the estate the businessman's priorities of efficiency and profit. The result is that a dynamic pulse is felt at Inveraray which has been lacldng for years. The Duke claims to be able to do any of the jobs which the estate requires of its employees, and has done them all at some stage in his life. He loves every acre at Inveraray, and accepts that the tasks he was born to undertake there involve hard work and responsibility. He does not feel that the treasures in the house (which include a magnificent library) are
his,
but that he is their custodian.

The Duchess is a quiet, sensible, disciplined woman, even-tempered and patient. She epitomises the Englishman's idea of a Scottish beauty.

The Duke and his heir together represent the continuation of a history which is awesome in its antiquity. Dunstaffnage Castle, of which Argyll is Hereditary Keeper, is where the early Scottish kings were crowned. The hereditary baton used by the dukes in their capacity as Keeper of the Royal Household in Scotland was stolen from Inveraray in 1952, and has never been found. The Duke has had a new one made to replace it.

On 5th November, 1975, fire broke out at Inveraray Castle, com­pletely destroying the top floor and the roof in a conflagration which could be seen for miles. Two hundred paintings stored in the attic were all lost, including a Gainsborough, but damage to the rest of the house was caused by the millions of gallons of water which were pumped in to beat the flames. The entire house was saturated, and all the floors and ceilings had to be lifted and removed to prevent dry and wet rot. None of the furnishings and pictures normally on show to the public was damaged beyond repair, but the house was rendered un­inhabitable, until the Duke of Argyll and his family were able to move into the basement rooms, formerly the old kitchens and laundries, in 1976. The roof was entirely rebuilt in one year, a formidable under­taking for such a large house, and the renovations were scheduled for completion by the end of 1977. The cost of restoration was estimated at £850,000, only 21% of it to be covered by insurance. The remainder was raised from private donations and receipts from a special Fire Exhibition held in the summer of 1976, which attracted 75,000 visitors. Cause of the fire was presumed to be electrical.

Perhaps the most impressive relic at Inveraray, more eloquent even than a ducal coronet, is a very simple sporran which belonged to Rob Roy.

* *

Rob Roy takes us neatly back to the beginning of the eighteenth century, and to the beginning of another dukedom, for the man who captured Rob Roy in 1717 was that mortal enemy of the Campbells and staunch Hanoverian, the 1st Duke of Atholl (1660- 1724). Poor Atholl was waging two wars, one on a national scale against the Jacobite rebellion, and one a private squabble with members of his own family. The House of Atholl was irretrievably divided over the rebellion, with Murrays on both sides. For the government there was the Duke, and his second son, Lord James Murray. For the Jacobites there were the three other sons, Lord Charles, Lord George, and the heir, Marquess of Tullibardine. These three were pledged to return the House of Stuart to the throne; they were uncompromising in their support, and if it meant schism within the family, so be it. Tullibardine actually took Blair Castle by force, with 500 men, from his own brother. He accompanied the Young Pretender into Scotland, and was intimately identified with his cause. Of the three Murrays involved in the Rising, perhaps the most significant, and the most illustrious leader, was Lord George Mur­ray. But for the purposes of our story, the eldest son, Tullibardine, affects matters more closely.

The Marquess of Tullibardine brought disgrace upon the family (in his father's eyes, and in the eyes of the government, with which the Duke had busily ingratiated himself) by his Jacobite actions. He was in due course attainted for High Treason and imprisoned in the Tower. His father then procured an Act of Parliament to divert his titles and estates from the heir to his second son, Lord James Murray, who was ideologically safe. Tullibardine thus found himself, most irregularly, disinherited. He can hardly have been surprised. His friend and mentor, the Pretender, in 1717 re-clothed him with some suitable titles, including that of Duke of Rannoch, but of course this was only a nominal dignity, never ratified. (The present Duke of Atholl could lay claim to the dukedom of Rannoch, but it is doubtful whether any support in peerage law would be forthcoming.) When the 1st Duke of Atholl died in 1724, the Jacobites naturally recog­nised the imprisoned and shorn former Marquess as 2nd Duke, but the rest of the country, which is what mattered, recognised the other son, James. In the course of time, James became
de facto
Duke as well as parliamentary Duke, as Tullibardine died in prison in 1746, frustrated and unheeded.

However matters turned out, there is no doubt that the discredited Tullibardine was a much moie colourful character than his insipid brother, who became Duke. Tullibardine was fiery, passionate, head­strong, a bright blazing man whose eyes shone with the convictions in his breast. The 2nd Duke of Atholl (1690-1764), though of the same blood, was quiet and dull. He was Lord Privy Seal, like his father, but little is recorded of any achievement in his long life. He married the widow of a Hammersmith merchant, by whom he had two sons, who died in infancy, and two daughters. The eldest girl, Jean, was ordered in the family interest to marry cousin Johnny (who was in line to be 3rd Duke), but she refused, choosing instead to elope, at the age of seventeen, with the forty-five-year-old 20th Earl of Crawford. Little good did it do her, for she caught the plague on her honeymoon, and died. Her husband died two years later of an old battle-wound. The torch then passed to the only surviving daughter, Charlotte, who dutifully married cousin Johnny, the 3rd Duke of Atholl (1729-1774). The couple, who were sovereigns by inheritance of the Isle of Man, sold their sovereignty to the govern­ment in 1765 for £70,000, retaining, however, an ancient right to present the kings and queens of England with two falcons on the day of their coronation. The present Duke still has this right, but has yet to have an opportunity to exercise it.

The 3rd Duke died dramatically. He was seized with an apoplectic fit, then swallowed a teacup full of hartshorn (something like ammonia), after which he bled violently at the nose and mouth and complained of being so hot that the only cure would be to sit up to his chin in the River Tay. In fact, his reason had gone. At eight o'clock one evening he managed to slip out of the house unseen, and first leaving his hat on the bank of the river, he plunged in. His body was found eight miles downstream the next day.
¹⁸

Excesses became more and more common with the Atholl family. The rebel Tullibardine is the archetype of a Murray who does not know where to draw the line. The 3rd Duke's brother, General Murray, was a recognised fanatic "with a deranged state of understanding".
¹⁹
His son Lord George Murray, who became Bishop of St David's, was pious in the extreme, while his namesake, the Jaco­bite Lord George, is said to have hidden in the Highlands reading the Bible for months on end. His grandson, the 5th Duke, was quite mad.

In the meantime, there was the 4th Duke, a forester who intro­duced larch into Scotland and planted millions of trees, to finance which he asked Parliament to vote him more money for the sale of the Isle of Man. They did. His son and heir, Lord Tullibardine, was a good-looking bright young man, who began to give cause for concern as he was highly excitable one moment, and deeply reflective the next. When he reached the age of twenty, he was sent to Portugal with his regiment, and a personal physician to watch over him, Dr Alexander Menzies. No sooner had they arrived than Tullibardine began to show some alarming symptoms which could no longer be ascribed t. tempera­ment. Something awful happened in Portugal, though exactly what it was cannot now be ascertained. The family have always thought he was struck on the head; Menzies thought it might be the heat of the sun. Whatever it was, Menzies felt obliged to write in strictest confi­dence to the family physician, Sir Walter Farquhar: "I think it my duty to inform you that on Friday last he discovered some appear­ances of mental derangement." This was on 13th April 1798. Menzies trembled at the prospect of having to tell the Duke his son was a lunatic, and asked Farquhar if he would do the job for him. Mean­while, Menzies would endeavour to keep the matter as secret as possible, though "the attack was so violent and unexpected that in the circumstances in which he was placed in a garrison under military command, it was impossible to conceal it".
²⁰
He would bring the Marquess back to England as soon as possible.