Scottish Aristocrats

Title Deeds is a fascinating book. It charts the destruction of a family which lived in the actual castle that was the setting of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Author Liza Campbell, actually Lady Elizabeth Campbell, was born into a line of Scottish aristocrats dating to 1295. This is her autobiography, and it's a very sad story. Her philandering father boozed, crashed and wasted the family's considerable wealth. Worse was his emotional brutality towards his five children and their mother. It's impossible not to feel deep sympathy for Liza and her siblings as the story of her destructive father unfolds. The book opens with the death of her father, a man of great privilege and poor character. Her last words to him are: "I love you very much dad." His mean reply: "Oh, don't be so boring." Their huge home, Cawdor, is open to the public these days and appears in Scottish tourist books. Their clan, the Campbells, have a famous and controversial role in Scottish history, having sold the country to the English. Liza Campbell's draws parallels between the Campbell's history over the centuries and her upbringing at Cawdor. It's very effective. She weaves the Highland's bloody history into her family's, dispassionately and with psychological insight. Castles Of Scotland.