It was said that Mac Callum More after Mac Callum More had, with unwearied, unscrupulous, and unrelenting ambition, annexed mountain after mountain and island after island to the original domains of his House.

Some tribes had been expelled from their territory, some compelled to pay tribute, some incorporated with the conquerors.

At length the number of fighting men who bore the name of Campbell was sufficient to meet in the field of battle the combined forces of all the other western clans, [324] It was during those civil troubles which commenced in 1638 that the power of this aspiring family reached the zenith.

The Marquess of Argyle was the head of a party as well as the head of a tribe.

Possessed of two different kinds of authority, he used each of them in such a way as to extend and fortify the other.
The knowledge that he could bring into the field the claymores of five thousand half heathen mountaineers added to his influence among the austere Presbyterians who filled the Privy Council and the General Assembly at Edinburgh.