During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, the Marquis of Montrose led an army of Royalist supporters into the heartland of Campbell territory in Argyll. Between December 1644 and January 1645, Montrose's army burned and sacked Inveraray and the surrounding territory, striking directly at the power base of the Marquis of Argyll. The town at that time was a small but strategically significant settlement on the estuary of the River Aray, at the intersection of a trading route through Glen Aray and an anchorage on Loch Fyne, and it had grown up in the shadow of the early Inveraray Castle, seat of the Earls of Argyll since the early fifteenth century.
Montrose's forces descended on the town and its surrounding lands, burning and ravaging the area in what amounted to a deliberate campaign of destruction aimed at humiliating the Campbell interest. The raid lasted several weeks before Montrose departed on 14 January 1645, heading north to fight at the Battle of Inverlochy on 2 February 1645.
The sack caused considerable damage to the town and its surrounding territory, though Inveraray survived as a settlement. It subsequently became a Royal Burgh on 28 January 1648 following incorporation by Charles I, suggesting the town recovered its civic standing within a few years of the attack.
The timing and target of the raid speak to its political purpose. Inveraray was not merely a town but the ancestral seat of the Campbell chiefs, the Earls of Argyll, and by attacking and burning it Montrose struck at the very prestige and heartland of one of the most powerful magnate families in Scotland. He departed on 14 January 1645, pressing north to further victories, leaving the scorched seat of Campbell power behind him.
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