The Heart of ScotlandMoncrieff, A. R. Hope (Ascott Robert Hope)
History
The Heart of Scotland
Moncrieff, A. R. Hope (Ascott Robert Hope)
Perthshire (Scotland) -- Description and travel
This accession of wealth the earl used in carrying out improvements on
his large property, adding to it, and building the modern Taymouth
Castle. At William IV.’s coronation he was raised to the marquisate. His
son, the second marquis, could boast of being able to ride a hundred
miles on his own land westward, for, after all, it was towards their
native seas that the Campbells stretched out, getting no farther inland
than Aberfeldy, beyond the St. Petersburg of their possessions. He it
was who in 1842 sumptuously entertained Queen Victoria at Taymouth, when
she seems to have caught that love of the Highlands that went so far to
set a fashion, delighted with the display of kilts, reels, and pipers,
in a blaze of torchlight and a din of loyal salvos. Lord Breadalbane
then kept a prince of pipers, John Mackenzie, to whom he communicated
the Queen’s wish to find for her own service such an one as himself.
“Impossible, my lord!” was the proud musician’s answer.
The second marquis, who, while Lord Ormelie, had sat in the Reformed
Parliament as a Whig, lived in esteem and prosperity till 1862, but
would perhaps have given up half his possessions for a son. At his
death, the new marquisate became extinct; and once more the clan had to
look back some generations for an heir to the estate and the earldom,
this time with appeal to law in a trial not yet forgotten. There were
popularly said to be some fourscore competitors for the prize. One of
them was a schoolfellow of mine, who invited me to Taymouth, when he
should come into his kingdom, but that hospitality fell through. The
real contest lay between Campbell of Glenfalloch and Campbell of
Boreland, both descended from the nearest collateral, a Glenfalloch who
died 1791. The question arose in the liberal view of Scots law as to
proof of marriage. The elder son, while a subaltern in an English
regiment, had eloped with the wife of one Christopher Ludlow, grocer and
apothecary at Chipping Sodbury. This husband died three years later,
both before and after which date the lady had marched with Campbell’s
regiment as his wife. Her son, through whom the claim descended, was
born after she became legally free to marry again; and the dispute
mainly turned upon this delicate point: whether a union begun in
adultery could be confirmed by the usual evidence of habit and repute
marriage. It was shown that the lady had been received at Glenfalloch as
the heir’s wife, that she had drawn a pension as his widow when he died
Quartermaster of the Breadalbane Fencibles, and, what seemed much to
the purpose, that the younger branch had not contested her son’s
legitimacy as heir of Glenfalloch, nor till the tempting prize of the
Breadalbane succession came in view. On these grounds, the Courts
presumed that eloping couple to have taken themselves as husband and
wife, so taken by the world in their lifetime: then their descendant
must be recognised head of the family.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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