Grand Masters of Scotland - Onondaga and Oswego Masonic ...

modernise parts of Dean Castle and found a school in Kilmarnock. On the restoration of Charles II, Royal gratitude toward the
Boyds was shown in the elevation of the tenth Lord Boyd, William, to the Earldom of Kilmarnock in 1661 and in 1672 further rights
and privileges on the town of Kilmarnock. After an uneventful life for a member of his family, the 1st Earl of Kilmarnock died in 1692.
His son the 2nd Earl, also William, died shortly after in 1699. The 3rd Earl, again William, supported the Hanoverian Monarchy
against the first Jacobite rising in 1715. He was referred to in an old Jacobite song:
The auld Stuarts back again, The auld Stuarts back again; Let howlet whigs do what they can, The Stuarts will be back again. Wha
cares for a their creeshy duds, And a Kilmarnock sowen suds? Well wauk their hydes and fyle their fuds, And bring the Stuarts
back again.
When reviewing a muster at Irvine of 6,000 men raised to put down the Jacobite threat of 1715, the 3rd Earl was accompanied by
his ten year old son William who “appeared in arms with the Earl his father and graciously behaved himself to the admiration of all
the beholders.”
In 1717 the 3rd Earl died and was succeeded by young William, who was still only 13 years old. William was the 4th and last Earl of
Kilmarnock.
William lacked parental discipline and scorned learning although he showed promise in the classics, philosophy and mathematics.
He was disposed to “riding, fencing, dancing and music and was justly esteemed by men of taste a polite gentleman”. He did
however show interest in the prosperity and trade of Kilmarnock by opening coalmines in the area. He married Lady Anne
Livingstone, daughter and heiress of the Earl of Linlithgow and Callander. Her father was a strong Jacobite who had supported the
1715 uprising. However Boyd’s estates were dwindling, his business ventures were failing, and, short of money, he suffered the
catastrophic loss of his family home, Dean Castle, in an accidental fire in 1735. Possibly his lack of funds or possibly out of support
for his wife’s family (although she herself urged him not to), William made a last desperate gamble to regain some of the ground lost
by his family, by throwing in his lot with Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) and the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. A very
unusual step for any lowland Presbyterian, especially one whose family had shown keen support in the past for the Hanoverian
Government and had two sons, James and William, already with commissions within the Government army. His youngest son
Charles joined his father and the Stuart cause.
William Boyd served Prince Charles faithfully and with distinction, both as commander of a small regiment and as a member of his
privy council during the campaign, but it was an association which was ultimately to bring the Boyd house of cards crashing to earth
and with it the aspirations of a family who had helped shape events in Scotland for the past 400 years. In the rout that followed the
disastrous defeat of the Jacobite forces at Culloden, it is reported that William mistook kilted Scots Dragoons serving in the
Government army to be Highlanders on the Jacobite side, turned the wrong way and was captured. In a bizarre twist of fate, his son
James served in the Scots Fusiliers on the Government side at Culloden and as his father was brought, dishevelled and
bareheaded, into the Government camp, he was recognised by James, who broke rank and placed his own hat upon his father’s
head. This was the last time that father and son would meet. His youngest son Charles managed to escape from Culloden Moor
with the Prince and went into exile in France. After a brief imprisonment, where William wrote several letters of a calm and dignified
nature to his family (some of which are retained in the collections at Dean Castle today), he was put on trial for treason in
Westminster Hall on 28th June, 1746. His appearance at the trial was described by Horace Walpole:
Lord Kilmarnock is tall and slender with an extreme fine person; his behaviour a most just mixture between dignity and submission;
if in anything to be reprehended, a little affected, and his hair too exactly dressed for a man in his situation; but, when I say that, it is
not to find fault with him but to show how little fault there is to be found.
William Boyd, 4th Earl of Kilmarnock was declared guilty by his peers and executed in London at Tower Hill on the 18th of August
1746. The Boyd titles were confiscated, but James, William’s eldest son, was able to reclaim the Kilmarnock estate as he had fought
with the Government forces during the troubles. He had also inherited his father’s debt and the ruined shell of Dean Castle. James
sold off the Castle and estate soon after to a family friend, the Earl of Glencairn, and through his mother he succeeded to the title
Earl of Errol and took her family name ‘Hay’. The title of Lord Kilmarnock is still retained within that family, but it spelled the end for
the Boyds of Kilmarnock.
http://thepeerage.com/e361.htm
Boyd, William, fourth Earl of Kilmarnock 1704-1746, belonged to a family which derives its descent from Simon, third son of Alan,
lord high chancellor of Scotland, and brother of Walter, the first high steward of Scotland. Simon's grandson Robert was awarded a
grant of lands in Cunninghame by Alexander III, as a reward for his bravery at the battle of Largs, 1263. From the earliest times the
family was noted for its antagonism to the English, and it is recorded of Sir Robert Boyd that he was a staunch partisan of Sir
William Wallace, and subsequently of Bruce, from whom he received a grant of the lands of Kilmarnock, Bondington, and Hertschaw
(Hervey, Life of Bruce).
William, ninth lord Boyd, descendant of Robert, first lord Boyd [qv.], was created first earl of Kilmarnock by Charles II, by patent
bearing date 7 Aug. 1661.
The third earl was an ardent supporter of the house of Hanover. Rae, in his History of the Rebellion, says of him: It must not be
forgot that the Earl of Kilmarnock appeared here at the head of above 500 of his own men well appointed — and that which added
very much unto it was the early blossoms of the loyal principle and education of my Lord Boyd, who, though but eleven years of age,
appeared in arms with the Earl his father. This was in 1715, and the boy here mentioned succeeded his father as fourth earl of
Kilmarnock in 1717. He was born in 1704, his mother being the Lady Euphane, eldest daughter of the eleventh Lord Ross. His
character was generous, open, and affectionate, but he was pleasure-loving, vain, and inconstant. He was educated at Glasgow,
and during the earlier part of his life he continued, in accordance with his father's principles, to support the house of Hanover; and
we find that, on the death of George I, he sent an order calling on the authorities of Kilmarnock to hold the train bands in readiness
for proclaiming the Prince of Wales. It was not indeed until quite the close of the rebellion of '45 that he proved false to the opinions
which this act shows him to have held. Various reasons are assigned for his defection; by some it was attributed to the influence of
his wife, Lady Anne Livingstone, who was a catholic, and whose father, fifth earl of Linlithgow, had been attainted for treason
in 1715. Smollett, however, says: He engaged in the rebellion partly through the desperate situation of his fortune, and partly
through resentment to the government on his being deprived of a pension which he had for some time enjoyed. This opinion is
supported by Horace Walpole, who mentions that the pension was obtained by his father (Sir Robert Walpole) and stopped by Lord
Wilmington. In his confession to Mr. James Foster—a dissenting minister who attended him from the time sentence of death was
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