Description
A Noble and Potent Lady: Katherine Campbell, Countess of Crawford
Mary Verschuur (2006)
Katherine Campbell was the granddaughter of Archibald, second earl of Argyll. She was first married to James, master of Ogilvy and later to David Lindsay of Edzell, ninth earl of Crawford. Katherine lived through the ‘rough wooings’ and the Scottish Reformation. She outlived both her husbands and was no doubt fortunate that despite the fact that she was a very eligible widow in 1559, she was not required to marry again. This, however, did not ensure for her a genteel retirement.
The dowager Countess of Crawford was faced with bringing up all of her children in the politically and religiously unstable environment of the 1560s. She had given birth to the heirs to Airlie and Edzell and to ten other children besides. Dr Verschuur tells the story of Katherine’s successful management of her own and her children’s affairs in those turbulent times. Her surviving letters, papers and records of her numerous court appearances form the nucleus around which this portrait of A Noble and Potent Lady is drawn.
Mary Verschuur lives in Omaha (USA) but was born and raised in Perth. Her undergraduate studies in the US led to an MA in History after which she returned to her native land to complete a PhD in Scottish history at the University of Glasgow, awarded in 1985. Dr Verschuur’s publications include a monograph on Perth at the time of the Reformation entitled, Politics or Religion? Successes and Failures in the Reformation of the Town of Perth 1540-1570 (Dunedin Academic Press, 2006).
ISBN 978 0 900019 43 2
121 pages, 5 monochrome illustrations
