The book Arran; - Cook Clan

64 THE BOOK OF ARRAN
abroad, where he probably died not long after. His widow
married, as his second wife, the somewhat elderly first Lord
Hamilton, before April 1474, surviving his death in 1479.
After the Boyd forfeiture Arran thus reappears in the
royal accounts, but never separately from Bute, and in a
rather haphazard fashion, being leased as a whole to some
firmarius for a term of years : to Sir John Colquhoun of
Luss, John Lord Dalmeny, John Lord Kennedy, Lord
Montgomery, and, last of all, to Ninian Stewart of Bute and
Arran ;
while the record continues pretty much as before,
worsens perhaps slightly. We soon hear of more devasta-
tions by the Islesmen, ' wherefore,' naively runs the note in
1496, ' it is unknown.' For such reason in 1480 the farms
cannot be assessed to make any return. We have a falling
off in stated rent of fourpence in money, but though the
barley portion has been slightly increased, the number of
marts falls from 17 to 10. The cattle were likely to suffer
most at the hands of depredators. A composition is made
with the lessees for a fixed sum of £40 as the rent they were
actually to pay. For the last three years, up to the entrance
of the Hamiltons, the tenants have to be remitted
the whole of their rent and marts, in a sum amounting in
gross to £106, 13s. 4d. It was time for some local power,
more efficient as more threatening than distant royalty, to
take the island in hand.
It will have been observed that all the names thus con-
nected with the island come from the Clyde basin—Stewarts,
Montgomerys, Boyds, MacDohalds, etc., and now the Hamil-
tons of Lanarkshire. The steady rise of this family does
not fall within our survey, but belongs to another situation,
particularly Cadzow. It benefited by timely changes in
its political preferences. Walter Fitz-Gilbert became first
of Cadzow, and practically founder of the stock, by betraying
Bothwell Castle and the English refugees thither from Bannockburn
into the hands of Robert the Bruce : he had been