property. The historian Eric Richards writes that the first half of the nineteenth century saw the height of the House of Sutherland's social and economic influence, with its wealth being derived from rents, various stocks, and dividends from transportation firms. Marriage While accompanying Queen Victoria to Taymouth Castle in 1842, Lady Elizabeth met George Douglas Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, the eldest son of the 7th Duke of Argyll. They married at the Leveson-Gower estate Trentham Hall on 31 July 1844. The Archbishop of York, Edward Venables-Vernon-Harcourt, presided over the wedding. The Argyll estate was in debt, so Elizabeth's wealth was much needed. Their union resulted in the further joining of two of Scotland's largest landowning families. The young couple was given Rosneath by his father at the time of their marriage. Deeply religious, Elizabeth had been raised in the Anglican faith but converted to the Church of Scotland upon her marriage, taking her first communion in the faith later that year. Like many of her predecessors, Elizabeth was a strong supporter of the Scottish Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Argyll and The Isles. The couple possessed similar interest in liberal politics. Elizabeth was dignified and cultured, and Lorne found in his new wife "more than all that had been told me by her numerous friends... On some subjects, excepting philosophy and the natural sciences, she was more widely read than I was at the time." Duchess of Argyll Lorne succeeded his father as 8th Duke of Argyll on 25 April 1847, whereupon Elizabeth became Duchess of Argyll. The family's primary estates included Argyll Lodge in London, the family seat of Inveraray Castle in Argyllshire, and Rosneath. Their first child, John, was born within a year of their marriage. They would have an additional four sons and seven daughters. The Argyll household was sober, proper, and driven by routine with prescribed times for prayer, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The children were not expected to show emotion such as crying, except for "real causes" like the death of a family pet. The Scottish scholar John Stuart Blackie enjoyed the solemnity of the couple's lifestyle and visited them often; he dedicated his 1876 work Language and Literature of the Scottish Highlands to Elizabeth. The historian Anne Jordan writes that the Duchess was "old before her time," having given birth to twelve children. She suffered from ill health, in part due to an