The book Arran; - Cook Clan

86 THE BOOK OF ARRAN
is one of the most fertile districts in the island. The monks
of Saddell were white-clothed Cistercians, a reformed institution
of the Benedictines or black monks who were known
from Kilwinning on the east side. The effigy of an Abbot
of Saddell is one of the treasured relics of this outlying estate
of the monastery : ^ he must have had some close connection
with Shisken, was perhaps a native. There need be no
wonder that the eyes of the Hamiltons were cast upon this
convenient and desirable bit of property. And as in the case
of other noble families, they found the occasion provided by
the presence of a member of the clan in the bishopric of
Argyll and the Isles. Thus four years before the distributing
upheaval of the Reformation this Bishop James Hamilton,
with consent of the chapter, transferred to James Duke of
Chatelherault and Earl of Arran, the lands of Saddell monas-
tery in feu-farm for a yearly duty of 49 marks (£32, 13s. 4d.).^
Of this feu the Shisken proportion came to £27, 6s. 8d.
Apparently, however, there was some difficulty about Shisken,
for James MacDonald of Dunyveg, as we have seen
already, had or claimed to have 'rycht and kindness'^ to
these lands with others in Arran. In return for the surrender
of this claim the Duke infefted him in all the Kintyre
lands of the monastery, under the obligations to the bishop
specified in the original charter.* The Reformation thus
found the intriguing Duke already planted in the vale of
Shisken. That things were not going smoothly between him
and his Arran tenantry is suggested by the terms of a sig-
nificant bond between himself and a MacAlister, dated at
the Castle of Brodick, 25th November 1563. ' Angus
M'Rannald Moir M'AUister ' is leased in the ' fourtie schilling
aucht penny worth land of Kilpatrick and Drumgriner
» Vol. i. p. 233, etc.
' Hist. MSS., 'Hamilton Papers,* p. 222; Fourth Report, 'Argyll Papers/ p. 480.
' I.e. the right of a 'kindly tenant'
* De Rebus Alhanicis, pp. 83-9.