...A Simple Man...

[Queen Beathag Aberdeen I]

".They

[/size]never asked him his name. In time, the want to ask was erased from the minds of any with the slightest inkling to wonder why a native son took no stock in more than the farm earth that reared him. He fought. He bled. He rallied at first as a boy of ten, a messenger, intent to save the man who wanted to make him more. Among men he would rise a man among them after thirty-three years of service."

"The quandry of his name was answered in the year the Griffin bid him go to Aberdeen. He was a Campbell. Still, the revelation seemed to only inspire more notice of him thereafter. He was a simple man: He fought for it was right to do. He was just, and paid homage to Christ. He kept his family held high and his vows always."

"One thing above all else was clear:"

"The greatness of him is measured neither by the length of his honors nor the breadth of his deeds."

"It is by the honor and valor in his heart."[/center][/font]

Lord Kendrew Laran Campbell , III
Chieftain of Sept House: Argyll-at-Skye
-Lord Guardian-
-Order of the Talon-

Age: 43
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Hazel
Height: 6'5
Dominant Hand(s): Ambidextrious. Sword Hand, Right.Spear, either.
Weapons of Choice: Spear, Pike, Sword, Two Hands
Specialty: Footman, and still to this year prefers his two feet on the earth
Years of Service: 33
Entered in: Age 9-10
Age of Knighting: 25, by the Bruce, at Bannockburn


Born: Scotland, Lowlands, Dumfrieshire
Birth Time: Autumn, November, 1291
Lineage: Scotts: Lowlands, Argyll

Father: Kendrew mac Campbell, II
Occupation: Farmer, Servitor to the Chieftain
Mother: Dona Campbell, born of the Loryne
Occupation: Cornerstone of the home
Sister: Lara Campbell
Brother-in-Law Edward of Normandy, deceased, along with her children
Brother: Roric Campbell, killed in the Clan Wars of 1328
Sister-in-Law: Mary Rebecca, killed, 1328

Married: Liliana Mariskha, now Lady Campbell, Autumn, 1328
Children: 3, Soon to be 4
- Roric the Younger (son of brother, adopted)
-Kiley (daughter of brother, adopted)
-Glenna (first born child with Liliana)


[/color]

[Queen Beathag Aberdeen I]

"You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them."
-Desmond Tutu

• Kendrew Laren Campbell III (Husband; 43)
  
• Liliana Elena Campbell (Wife; 23)
  
• Roric Campbell II (Son[by adoption]; 12)
  
• Kylie Campbell (Daughter[by adoption]; 8)
  
• Glenna Campbell (Daughter; 2½)
  
• Dona Campbell (Mother; 59)
  
• Lara Campbell (Sister; 32)

Kendrew Campbell Husband;:Chieftain 43	Liliana Campbell Wife; 23
Roric Campbell Son; 12	Kylie Campbell Daughter; 8
Glenna Campbell Daughter; 2½	Lara Campbell Sister; 32

[Queen Beathag Aberdeen I]

The Story of a Life

The life of Kendrew began as a story that was simple: "Once, a child was born. He was a boy-child, the eldest, and the first." Expectation and anticipation came with him from the birth passage out to the world. He was not born like a babe of legend, from the moon, stirred in a cauldron. From a mother's womb and a father's loins to live in the village of Dumfries, in the Dumfrieshire of Scotland. He was not as wild as a Highlander, nor had the concerns or elegance of the Lowland clans. It was here nor there really. His mother was a farm wife, his father a farmer, and he the son of good people who were the salt of the Lord's earth.

Kendrew Laren was the third to bare such a name, first his grandfather, his father, and now he. It was said that the name became a tradition in honor of favorite to the chieftain of the highest Campbell families. This man would bring peace between one end of the family and the next, he companioned the chieftains to hunt for boar, and lived a life that saw him leave a legacy of four sons and five daughters to his honorable credit. He had a house in Argyll in the shadow of the chieftain's castle that was high but not higher than the walls, for want to not outdo the glory of his Laird. People talk and stories change. Some say his house was magnificent while others touted that he was too humble to live in a house at all! He took only praise but no treasures. A smile but no mantles for his merit. Either begger-priest or warrior-at-arms, his name was good enough to bestow three times.

*

The father of the knight never told his son that he had ever been more or less than a farmer. From one plot of land to a place of acerage he grew. Once he had no more than a garden, a barn with a lame horse, a cow, and three coppers in his pocket. By the time he bore his son he had a home with five rooms, a large barn, acerage, and was preparing to by for himself two horses to put towards the plow. How he came into possesion of his good fortune is as much a story as any, and this is how it went:

Kendrew Laren mac Campell was the second to hold the name as his own. He was wrapped in the colors of his sirname and baptized in God's house. Of all the Campbell seats to be born in, God saw fit to give him the glory of Argyll to craft a shadow that went behind his high stone height. His father was a man who could through marriage and blood claimed relation to members of Clan MacLeod on the Isle of Skye, and other households of Campbell repute, such as those from Lochaber. He was of the sort who's family had once been servitors, the educated members of a chief's household, who followed the bride to her new home and became members of the new clan. His father, a man of the land, tamed the wild rough patches of unforgiving rocks. Healthy things grew in the earth where salt-water lochs ruined plain root. Truly, his father was a man with the touch of Eden in his fingers. Because of this he was given ample land near Argyll. Placed close to Castle Inveraray, after the building of his home he took a bride that the chieftain chose for him. His wife came from Dumfries, born and reared a woman of good Christian quality to children of the Lorne lot who swore fealty to Campbell. This made them of the clan by oath. At the wedding it was said the bride blushed in such a way as to turn the loch the shade of a rose. People say many things. But it was agreed that one could not find a better pair.

Such an arranged match brought much joy to him, and when his first son was born it is said that the Tanist came with swatches of tartan for his craddle, white lace for his christening gown, and the wishes of many.

He knew many things, but the magnitude of favoritism shown toward his father by others was not readily discussed.

-.-.-.-


My father spoke to me often o' being a good man, a simple man:

"Humility will keep ye heart open n' free of envy, jealousy, and vice," he was once told by his father, "Your mother n' I would rather give our children the food of heaven than' the gluttony of this world. Remember this and you will want for nothin'."


-.-.-


In this, his father was proven right. To care nothing for the glory of man and all of God gives one the finest of what life may offer. It is appreciated, but never taken for granted.

He knew that his grandfather, and father, and the men before each had gone to the service of kith or king. As with all first born sons he learned both his father's trade along with the skill of arms he had to give him. A sword of course was there to learn. To ride served both the warrior and the farmer off to fair, but the truest mark was with the shield and spear.

-.-.-.-


This is why we are pike men..:

"Once there was no money for steel, so a father could not give his son a sword to take to war. He had no money for neither horse, saddle, n' garb to array him, so he would walk in plain clothes. What he could give him was a shield that had been in the family for years. It was old, worn, and he was mocked for keeping it. All he could do was to fashion his son a staff, and with this, offer a spear as a weapon. For this, too, he was mocked. They called him ole legion man, like the sort that stood guard on the wall. But with only these things, he amazed his company of fellow men, and made a name for himself. We may be the last sort of spearmen but the spear is another name now: pike. The staff has an axe on it, scythes, crooks. The old is new again."


-.-.-.-


He was a young boy of only ten years old, he went on the road to follow the warriors of the king armed with the knowledge that went with the spear in his hand. His father had found a way to make it so that the tip could be taken out, so he put it in his pocket. He followed his father in company and then traveled without him when the man was injured too greatly to go to war anymore. With his two hands, this staff, and the bit of sharp on the end he made use of himself delivering the messages of great men and poor men alike. Trapped once between dead men and the enemy, he had only a banner's broken point to defend himself with. He was eleven, perhaps twelve. On finding the men slaughtered, the arriving company watched as the boy slew the two men who wanted to kill him for the contents of his pouch.

Among that company was a friend of his father. Henceforth, he traveled then with that company so that he was watched over when the eyes of kin could not. The man was simply called Henry. It was Henry who saw that between home and company, he was educated to be of use. If he would deliver the messages, he ought know how to read them. If he held parchment, to write letters and numbers. The mind of his pupil was adept, and in time he found both sons of Kendrew the II in his tutelage. Kendrew, the third, and his brother younger by a year, Roric. With company familiar he saw Kendrew open from the quiet, shy boy to a laughing youth who was scolded for the tricks he played while those who punished him laughed behind their hands of the boys who galavanted on stolen sorrel mares, grew to romance girls in many a village, and did excellent in battle.

Roric was a fine soldier, cool, with a sophistication his brother didn't have. It was established at the young age that Roric charmed a woman to the bed with pretty words while Kendrew charmed them with merely his own presence. Be they shy or robust, the young men were of use to the front. A credit to their father's legacy, no two finer footman could be found. Be it with pike or polearm, it was an extension of strength. By Bannockburn, both were made into knights.

-.-.-.-
And he told his wife:

"What it was like to see the King Bruce at Bannockburn field? Liliana, if Mary appeared before you, if all you admired follow after, how could ye not fall to your knee and thank God that you lived to see such a sight? Then, we fought for our freedom, poor and broken, and emerged, whole, and knowing that our people was a free people. It mattered not what others thought. Oh no. Roric n' I smiled as the sword was tipped over us by the knights we'd saved, and then by the King who demanded the honor."

[Queen Beathag Aberdeen I]

The Story of a Life, Untold - II.


The day of his knighting ceremony, Kendrew Campbell was twenty-five years old. He had beeon of service since he was ten and so saw in fifteen years a dream come to be that he never realized he had. Secretly, though wondering long at it, becoming a knight was not something he vyed for. He as a footmen, and good at it. His skills triumphed even those of his brother, and he was extolled for it. His virtues were honorable in spades but war does not give a man fifteen years to think so much as in all that time he acted so that he might live all fifteen years from that moment till this. His brother knelt one man over. The person between them was no matter as each brother still saw his companion smile in the glint of the king's sword. In 1314, two brothers who were little more than yeomen's children became Knights of Scotland as it suited The Bruce to have it so.

"Now a knight, but nay less what I was before. Only now there was a mantle for m'arms, a sword in my hands. The horse I had purchased with near two year's worth of ages was made as spry as you ever could see, n' m'brother and I were each given one from the stables of the King's own Marshall. Roric was proud of his horse as was I, and what did we do? Why, we road them out to the fine cities in the South and even down to the first villages over the border to England. We paid coin for drink, food, and women. Roric was insatiable, where as I had but three, m'thinks. If it offends yer eyes, my wife, forgive me. A simple man yes, but nay a gelding was I..so. Well, Roric was tossed hence out of a home for bedding a man's virgin betrothed, so twas time to go home. We presented our horses to our father, gave my mother and sisters new cloak and dress each. We helped sow the crop, and in that time we remedied m'brother's ways for a time by giving him a wife. Mary Rebecca was a woman for whom a bell tolls to remember her in honor. Mary Rebecca, like m'brother, is gone now...but this is when they lived."


-.-.-.-.-


In Dumfries, there was a hamlet where a small joining of houses were built, and in them resided the family of another farmer. Having made his fortune as a second born son, and all his own had come to live with him, they built a house upon a plot of land to reside there. Mary Rebecca was the third child of the father, himself a second child, and her mother, a fourth and youngest. Her father had four elder sons and three daughters, of which of these girls she was the last. In this her prospects for marriage relied souly on a man who could afford her without the addition of so grand a dowery, nor could she wed before her other sisters lest it give the family a sense of shame.

Kendrew walked beside the hamlet often with his father, the senior. The two farmer fathers would take drinks with their eldest men in tow, and it was in the hopes of arranging a match for his steady, good first son that the second was given a bride by happenstance. He had no desire to marry among the hamlet women but would look them over for the respect of his father and insistance of his mother. In doing so, he noticed many qualities in Mary Rebecca that were similiar to that of his own brother. The youngest, and the fairest, she had no shortage of suitors but was unmarriagable due to being "unruly" when in truth she merely expressed her unhappiness. She bore a similiarity to Roric by way of her incredible mind, and in seeing how the two could talk, jest, and the effect to make him mild and calm, he insisted his brother have the right to wed before him. His brother was twenty four, the bride fifteen, and for a time they were happy.

War does things. No matter how good, kind, or witty his bride was as the years wore on Roric had an appetite for the untainable that he could not quench. "I married her because it pleased me to do so, in pleasin' our father. I love her, yet not as I ought. So brother, what is worse. To live in the way a husband ought with her and lie, or be dishonest in vow but honest in m'self?" They argued often over the matter, but in a way did love one another. Mary bore him two children. Roric loved them, and Kendrew, too, took joy in the life they brought. It was because of these two gifts and her steadfast patience and friendship that they led a life, Roric and Mary, unusual but with no less respect.

"M'brother was a rake. Still, we loved him no less for it. He was a good man in that he cared for his children, reared them, and them along with Mary wanted for nothing. He gave her a fine home in which to reside and two servants to help her with the chores. This is rare for farm folk, but he claimed she was worth each coin spent."


His sister Lara would marry well and end up going to reside for some years in the land of Normandy. As best he could, Kendrew would travel towards every year and half to sojourn with them a number of months. He would, when given leave to do so, go home, too, and sit often with Mary Rebecca while the children played. If ever a man lived that loved every member of his family it was him. There was a place in his heart that wished for the things his brother recieved with ease but thought that a man who sowed more war will than crops ought not, or would not, wed. So the first born son would inherit the home he was born in, the farmland around it, and when the time was right would return home to live his days in ease.

"It was not tha' I did not wish to marry, no, only that it did not seem to be within m'reach so it wasn't to be dwelled on. I had m'share of dalliances with painted women, but the need did not rise up often. Liliana, in that time I did not marry for she whom I would have married were it possible was already so. Once, before Bannockburn became the field of battle, it was where a some men took their rest. Some clanswomen and travelers came down to offer us food, drink, and such things. Roric looked up from his whetting stone work and noticed two fine women, with intent to stare longer than he should. He asked of one and I of the other, but for once I spoke loudest! "The one with the gold in her hair.." but he tells me she is married, sae I say, "Does she have a sister? God is good, m'brother..." and for once a wish o' mine at that age did come to pass, for the sister was not married. Little good it would prove to do me. Och, women fuddle m'tongue. They always have. She was good, n'virtuous, n' never have met such in a woman who was o' the older ways. M'mother would have fainted to know tha' but did in time, come to love her when I took her hence to meet her as she traveled by our way with her people. Her name was Moyra nic Aberdeen, n' she went on to marry and and lose her life in childbirth. I had known her for many years, and Beathag does nay remember. Now I know why, and it is cruel wot was done. But she was good to me, too, but it was Moira. I loved her, Liliana. A part of me that is young always will. She bore me no ill will any of m'days."


-.-.-.-.-


In his lifetime, beyond the ken of his heartspace, he has only ever loved two women. Liliana Campbell is the dream he never thought to know come to life, and it was Moyra who told him it was possible. Life did not mate them, but it bonded them as fast friends. He traveled often to her, spoke well of her husband, and as if she were his own sister made sure that the daughter she had already had enough to begin her dowry. He knew that she was the daughter of both Scotts and Dragonship folk, and marveled at the knowledge she humbly spoke of. The harp her sister played was admittedly better than her own, and closer to the talent of their mother, but he still loved her best for the lullabies she played. Her death effected him deeply and closed off even further the possiblity he would ever marry for many years.