Circa 1654 John took an active part in the rising for King Charles II. He held the office of Member of Parliament (M.P.) for Argyllshire [Scotland] between 1669 and 1674. He succeeded to the title of 5th Baronet Campbell, of Glenorchy, Co. Perth before June 1677. He was created 1st Viscount of Breadalbane [Scotland] on 28 June 1677. He was created 1st Earl of Caithness [Scotland] on 28 June 1677, as he was owed over a million marks by George Sinclair, Earl of Caithness, and obtained the reversion of this title after the Earl's death "upon gross and false misrepresentations." He was created Lord St. Clair of Berriedale and Glenurchy [Scotland] on 28 June 1677. He resigned as Earl of Caithness, Viscount of Breadalbane and Lord St. Clair of Berriedale and Glenurchy in 1681 after it was held that George Sinclair, heir of the previous Earl of Caithness, was entitled to these titles. He was created 1st Earl Breadalbane and Holland [Scotland] on 13 August 1681, with a special remainder to allow him to appoint any of his sons of his first wife as his successor. He was created 1st Viscount of Tay and Paintland [Scotland] on 13 August 1681. He was created 1st Lord Glenurchy, Benederaloch, Ormelie and Weick [Scotland] on 13 August 1681. He was invested as a Privy Counsellor (P.C.) [Scotland] in 1685. He held the office of Lord of the Treasury [Scotland] between 1692 and 1696. After 10 June 1695 he was imprisoned for high treason after the massacre at Glencoe, but after he explained that he only supported the Stuart cause in the Highlands so he could betray them, he was released without a trial. He held the office of Representative Peer [Scotland] between 1713 and 1715. In 1715 he sent 500 men to join the Uprising, but escaped punishment for this.
Macaulay wrote that he "seems to united two different sets of vices ... Among the hills he had learned the barbarian pride and ferocity of a Highland chief. In the Council chamber he had contracted the deep taint of treachery and corruption ... Nobody who knew him could trust him... The depths of this man's knavery were unfathomable."
At the time of the revolution Breadalbane was, next to his kinsman, the Earl of Argyll, the most powerful of the highland nobles, while he was not regarded by the other clans with the same uncompromising hostility as Argyll. His greed was indeed notorious, and his double-faced cunning made him feared and distrusted by many of the chiefs, but his actions were not like those of the Argylls, regulated by lowland opinion, and he was not the recognised representative of lowland authority. He was not therefore regarded by the chiefs as an alien, and his remarkable talents had gained him a great ascendency throughout all the northern regions. According to the Master of Sinclair, he was ‘reckoned the best headpiece in Scotland’ (Memoirs, p. 260), and no one had a more thorough understanding both of the characters of the different chiefs and of the various springs by which to influence their conduct. He is described by Macky (Memorials, p. 199) as ‘of fair complexion, of the gravity of a Spaniard, cunning as a fox, wise as a serpent, and supple as an eel,’ and as knowing ‘neither honour nor religion but where they are mixed with interest.’
Source www.thepeerage.com from The Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford Univ. Press
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/metabook?id=dnb