Campbell, 1st Duke of Argyll in Edinburgh in 1678. Their first child, John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, was born at Ham House in 1680; their second son, Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll was born there a few years later. The glorious years for the Lauderdales began to wane in 1680 when the Duke had a stroke and his influence declined. On his death in 1682 he left the Ham and Petersham property to Elizabeth, thereby securing the estate for the Tollemache dynasty. However, Elizabeth also inherited her husband's debts including mortgages on his former properties in England and Scotland and her latter years were marred by a financial dispute with her brother-in-law, Charles, Earl of Lauderdale. Even the intervention of the newly crowned James II failed to reconcile them and the matter was finally settled in her favour in the Scottish courts in 1688. Although this may have suppressed Elizabeth's lavish lifestyle, she went on to make further alterations to the house at Ham, opening the Hall ceiling and creating the Round Gallery in about 1690. As she got older her movements became restricted by gout and she rarely went upstairs, living mainly in what had been the Duke's apartments, but her intellect remained and she liked to be kept informed about events at court and in politics. Elizabeth Maitland continued to live at Ham House until her death in 1698 at the age of 72. Architecture of the house Ham House is a brick building of three storeys and nine bays, with a hip roof and ashlar dressings, representing two distinctively different architectural styles and periods. Michael Wilson, referencing Ham in his work, The English Country House and its furnishings, considers the later 17th century as the finest period of English brick building. The first phase is the original main house facing north-east to the river Thames, built in 1610 in the early Jacobean English renaissance style on a traditional H-plan for Thomas Vavasour, Knight Marshal at the court of James I. Simon Jenkins, in his study, England's Thousand Best Houses, records that the original entrance had a tower over the porch and flanking, projecting turrets, which were removed in subsequent reconstruction, and suggests that Vavasour's original house may have been of an E-plan type. John Julius Norwich also notes the original configuration of the north front, which he considers "forbidding", and the "damson-coloured" brickwork. Bridget Cherry