[4] Scandal erupted in 1690 when Captain Campbell, aided by Sir John, son of Sir William of Johnston (who had served in King William's War and as a captain at the Battle of Boyne),[3] and by Archibald Montgomery, abducted and married a young heiress in London.
[6] There, she was forcibly married to Campbell, without her consent, and without the presence of her legal guardian Robert Byerley, the son of her great aunt.
[6] By order of the Lord Chief Justice, the marriage was annulled and Mary was returned to her guardian within two days, to whom she was wed two years later.
[6] Reputedly a "nasty piece of work",[2] Johnston had previously been involved in a similar elopement with a Miss Magrath in County Clare, Ireland and had subsequently been imprisoned in Dublin as a debtor.
[4] Abduction and forced marriage was an ancient custom in the Scottish Highlands,[8] but in London Campbell was regarded as lucky to have escaped the hangman's noose.
His relationship with his brother faltered during the 1690s, but had recovered sufficiently by 1699 that Campbell was elected in the Argyll interest to Parliament of Scotland, as a burgh commissioner for Renfrew.
Argyll controlled Inverary and Campbeltown, so with three of five burghs backing James Campbell, a challenge would have been futile.
[11] By the time of his election in 1708 Campbell had taken and then left another commission in the army, probably as colonel of a foot regiment.
His efforts in 1709 to secure reinstatement to the army failed, and neither appeals to the Duke of Marlborough nor the lobbying of his nephew Argyll were enough to win him a new commission.