CAWDOR,
earl of, a title in
the peerage of the united kingdom, possessed by a branch of the ducal
house of Argyle. The founder of this family was Sir John Campbell, third
son of the second earl of Argyle, who in 1510 married Muriel, daughter
and heiress of Sir John Calder of Calder, in the county of Nairn. (See
CALDER, surname of, and CAMPBELL, surname of).
The name was
anciently Calder, but it was known in the latter form to Hector Boece,
and Shakspeare makes the witches in Macbeth hail him as thane of Cawdor.
This way of spelling the name was adopted as the family title when the
peerage was conferred in 1796. In Bleau’s Atlas it is given as “Cathel,’
hence Caddel (See CADDEL and CALDER, surnames of).
Sir John
Campbell died 1st May 1546. Muriel survived till about 1575.
Their eldest son, Archibald, died in 1551. His next brother, John, was
bishop of the Isles. John, Archibald’s son, tutor to the young earl of
Argyle, was assassinated by Campbell of Ardkinglass in February 1591.
Sir John, his eldest son, acquired Isla. He resigned the estates in
favour of his son, John, in 1622, and died circa 1642. John,
commonly called “the Fair,” married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir
Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty. In 1639, he was cognosced as a lunatic, and
died in June 1654. He was succeeded by his nephew, Sir Hugh, who was
knighted in 1660. Being especially anxious for the introduction of the
Lord’s prayer as part of the regular service in the Presbyterian church,
he repeatedly addressed letters to the presbytery of Inverness, to
Principal Carstairs of Edinburgh, and to the General Assembly. He also
published the following two works on the subject: ‘An Essay on the
Lord’s Prayer,’ 1704, 8vo; and ‘Letters relative to an Essay on the
Lord’s Prayer,’ Edinburgh, 1709, 8vo. Sir Hugh resigned in favour of his
eldest son, Sir Alexander, in 1693, and died in 1716.
Sir Alexander
served in several parliaments as commissioner for the county of Nairn,
and like the other commissioners, he received an allowance from his
shire for his expenses. He married Elizabeth, sister and heiress of Sir
John Gilbert Lort, baronet, of Stackpole court, Pembrokeshire, on whose
death in 1698 that estate passed to the Campbells of Calder, and is now
possessed by the earls of Cawdor. Sir Archibald’s son, John Campbell,
Esq. of Cawdor castle, M.P. for the county of Pembroke, was appointed a
lord of the admiralty in 1736, and of the treasury in 1746. He sold Isla
and the Argyleshire lands. He married Mary, eldest daughter and
co-heiress of Lewis Pryse, Esq. of Gogirthen, Wales, and died in 1775.
He had three sons and three daughters. His sons were, Pryse, his heir;
John Hooke Campbell, Lord Lyon of Scotland; and Alexander, a
lieutenant-colonel in the army, father of General Sir Henry Frederick
Campbell, K.C.B. and G.C.H.
Pryse Campbell
of Cawdor castle, the eldest son, was elected member of parliament for
the counties of Cromarty and Nairn in 1762, and appointed a lord of the
treasury in 1766. He married Sarah, daughter and co-heiress of Sir
Edmund Bacon, Baronet, and had two sons, John, his heir, first Lord
Cawdor; Sir George, admiral of the white, who died in 1821, and a
daughter, Sarah.
John Campbell
of Cawdor castle, the elder son, was born and in part educated in
Scotland, but resided chiefly on his estate in Wales. In 1774 he was
returned member of parliament for the town of Cardigan, and rechosen in
1780, 1784, and 1790. He was created a baron in the peerage of Great
Britain, 21st June, 1796, by the title of Lord Cawdor of
Castlemartin, county of Pembroke. In 1797, when the French landed at
Fishguard, a sea-port town in the county of Pembroke, his lordship
encountered them at the head of a body of peasantry, assisted by a few
troops, and compelled twelve hundred French soldiers to surrender
themselves prisoners. In 1799, he spoke, in the House of Lords, on the
Volunteer Exemption Bill, which he did not altogether approve of, as
precluding the services of many who took refuge in these corps for no
other purpose than exemption from the militia. In 1804 his lordship
expressed his dissent to the Militia officers bill. He did not vote on
the trial of Viscount Melville, but divided with those peers who wished
to go into a committee on the Irish Roman Catholic petition; and on the
meeting of the new parliament in 1807, he assisted at the great dinner
of the party in opposition to the ministry of the duke of Portland. He
married, 27th July 1789, Lady Caroline Howard, eldest
daughter of the fifth earl of Carlisle, and had two sons, John
Frederick, first earl of Cawdor, and George Pryse, a captain in the
royal navy. He died in 1821.
His elder son,
John Frederick Campbell, second baron and first earl of Cawdor, born in
November 1790, married, 5th September 1816, Elizabeth, eldest
daughter of the second marquis of Bath, with issue. On 24th
September, 1827, created earl of Cawdor and viscount Emlyn, in the
peerage of the United Kingdom. Educated at Oxford; D.C.L. 1841; a fellow
of the Royal Society. His eldest son, John Frederick Vaughan, Viscount
Emlyn, born in 1817, married, in 1842, the 2d daughter of the Hon. Col.
Henry F. Compton Cavendish, and granddaughter of 1st earl of
Burlington, with issue.
