[A composite volume : containing The ballads and songs of Ayrshire ...

Reformation, the Montgomeries of Eglintoun took a leading part. A
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THE NOBLE FAMILY OF MONTGOMERIE.
represented by the present Earl of Eglintoun.
The family, down to our
own day, has all along sustained unsullied the chivalrous character bequeathed
to them by their
forefathers, the heroes of Hastings and Otterbourne.
Hugh, the first Earl of Eglintoun, was in especial favour with
James IV., with whom he fought at Flodden Field, and was amongst the
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few nobility who escaped from it. In the civil wars which followed the
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deadly feud existed between the Eglintoun family and that of Glencairn,
which commenced, according to Chalmers, the author of Caledonia, about
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1498, and continued till after the Union of the Crowns in 1602. The |
feud referred to the office of King's Bailie in CuningJiame—which was I
originally held by the Kilmaurs family—but which had been conferred by
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royal charter on Alexander, first Baron Montgomerie. On the renewal i
of this charter to his grandson, Hugh, in 1498, the feud is supposed by i
Chalmers to have first manifested itself in the hostility of Cuthbert, Lord \
Kilmaurs. This is countenanced by the fact that, according to the Great \
Seal Register, he was bound over, in February of the following year, I
for himself and followers, to keep the peace. There is reason, however,
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for believing that the feud had commenced at an earlier period—Keir- \
law Castle, in the parish of Stevenston, then possessed by the Cuning- [
hames, having been sacked and partially destroyed by the Montgomeries <
in 1488. In 1505, John, Master of Montgomei'ie, was summoned in Par- I
liament for having been participant in attacking and wounding William |
Cunlnghame of Craigends, the King's coroner for Renfrewshire, a relative
of Lord Kilmaurs. The differences of the two famiKes were at length
submitted, in 1500, to arbiters mutually chosen, who gave a decision in
favour of the Earl of Eglintoun, who was declared to have a full and
heritable right to the office of Bailie of Cuninghame. This decisfon,
however, did not terminate the misunderstanding. In 1517, a remission
was granted to the Master of Glencairn, and twenty-seven followers,
for the slaughter of Matthew Montgomerie, Archibald Caldwell,
and John Smith, and for wounding the son and heir of the Earl of Eglintoun.
In 1528, Eglintoun Castle was attacked and burned by the same
Master of Glencairn and his followers, in retaliation, it is supposed, for the
sacking of Keirlaw forty years previously. No deed of remarkable vio-
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