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THE district of
Menteith, situated partly in Perthshire, partly in the county of
Stirling, is celebrated for the beauty of its scenery and its
traditionary and historical associations. It has been depicted by
Sir Walter Scott both in prose and verse—in the ‘Lady of the
Lake’ and in ‘Rob Roy,’ and the ‘Legend of Montrose,’
and is probably more familiar to Englishmen, Americans, and
Continental visitors than any other part of Scotland. The earldom
of Menteith, which takes its name from the district, is one of the
most ancient of the Scottish titles of nobility, and dates from
the beginning of the twelfth century, while the oldest English
earldom—that of Huntingdon—is three hundred years, and the
oldest barony—De Ros—is a hundred and fifty years, later. This
famous earldom has been borne successively by three of the most
distinguished families of Scotland—the Red Comyns, the royal
Stewarts, and the gallant Grahams—and is associated with a great
part of the most important and interesting events in the history
of the country.
Of the original
line of the Earls of Menteith only three are known—Gilchrist,
Murdoch, and Maurice. On the death of Earl Maurice, about the year
1226, his title and estates descended to his daughter,
Isabella, the wife of Walter Comyn, second son of the first Earl
of Buchan. Comyn, who became Earl of Menteith in right of his
wife, was one of the most powerful nobles in the kingdom, the
leader of the national party, and one of the regents of the
kingdom during the minority of Alexander III. He is described by
Pordun as a man prudent in counsel, valiant in battle, whose
foresight had been obtained by long experience. He founded the
Priory of Inchmahome, on the island of that name in the Lake of
Menteith, in 1238, which for upwards of three centuries flourished
as a religious house, and afforded a place of refuge to the infant
Queen Mary after the battle of Pinkie. He was the builder of the
famous castle of Hermitage in Liddesdale, the stronghold in
succession of the Soulis family, the Douglases, Hepburns, and
Scotts. He also erected the castle of Dalswinton, in Galloway,
long one of the chief residences of the Comyns. His sagacity and
influence were conspicuously shown at the accession of Alexander
IlI. to the throne in the eighth year of his age. The leaders of
the English party endeavoured to postpone the coronation of the
youthful monarch, on the plea that the day fixed for the ceremony
was unlucky, and that it was unprecedented to crown the king
before he became a knight. But the Earl of Menteith, ‘a man of
foresight and shrewdness in counsel,’ says the old chronicler,
‘urged the danger of delay, as the English King Henry was
intriguing at Rome to procure from the Pope an interdict against
the coronation of the young prince, alleging that Alexander, being
his liegeman, should not be anointed or crowned without his
permission.’ ‘He had seen a king consecrated,’ the Earl
said, 'who was not yet a knight, and had many a time heard of
kings being consecrated who were not knights; further, that a
country without a king was beyond doubt like a ship amid the waves
of the sea without a crew or steersman. So he moved that this boy
be raised to the throne as quickly as possible, seeing it is
always hurtful to put off what may be done at once.’ The prompt
and wise counsel of this great noble silenced the objections of
the English partisans, and induced the barons and bishops to
proceed at once with the coronation of the young king. ‘The bold
baron of Menteith,’ says Chalmers in his ‘Caledonia,’ ‘deserves
lasting praise for having thus exploded a scruple which might have
involved an irascible nation in civil war.’
By a dexterous
stratagem Alan Durward, the High Justiciary and the leader of the
English party, obtained possession of the King’s person and the
castle of Edinburgh in 1255, and with the assistance of
King Henry, Alexander’s father-in-law, the regents were
supplanted by others who were favourable to the English interests
and supremacy. But the national party refused to acknowledge the
new regents, who, in consequence of their oppressive treatment of
the Bishop of St. Andrews, were excommunicated by the Pope. The
Earl of Menteith availed himself of the favourable opportunity to
overthrow this unpatriotic faction, and suddenly seized the young
king while he was holding a court at Kinross, rescuing him, as he
said, from the hands of excommunicated traitors; and Alan Durward
and the barons who supported him immediately fled to England.
Soon after the new
government was established, the national party lost their leader.
He died suddenly, without male issue, in 1258, and it was believed
that he had been poisoned by his wife, in order that she might be
free to marry an English knight, named John Russell. There was no
satisfactory evidence adduced to prove her guilt, but her marriage
to Russell, which took place shortly after, gave colour to the
charge. She was in consequence deprived of her earldom, and
imprisoned, along with her new husband, and was ultimately
expelled the kingdom in disgrace. The Countess appealed to the
Pope (Urban IV.) against the injustice which she alleged had been
done to her, but the Scottish King and his nobles indignantly
repelled the interference of the Roman Pontiff with the affairs of
the kingdom. Isabella, daughter of the Countess by Walter Comyn,
married her cousin, William Comyn; and after long contention a
compromise was effected in the year 1285, and the vast domains of
the earldom were divided between the Lady Isabella and the husband
of her mother’s youngest sister, WALTER STEWART, a son of the
High Steward of Scotland, who obtained the title. The new Earl of
Menteith, surnamed Bailloch, or ‘the Freckled,’ was a famous
warrior. He joined the disastrous expedition under St. Louis of
France, called the Third Crusade, for the recovery of the Holy
Sepulchre, and fought with great distinction at the battle of
Largs in 1263, at which his elder brother defeated the
Norwegians under King Haco. He took a prominent part in the
proceedings connected with the contest for the Scottish crown
after the death of the ‘Maiden of Norway,’ and was one of the
commissioners nominated by Robert Bruce in his competition with
John Baliol. The Earl left two sons, who dropped their paternal
surname of Stewart, and assumed that of Menteith. The younger of
the two, Sir John Menteith of Ruskie, is the ‘false Menteith’
who is branded by Scottish tradition and history as the betrayer
of the patriot Wallace. Lord Hailes, who sometimes carried his
scepticism respecting the statements of the old Scottish
historians a great deal too far, discredits the story, which he
asserts rests only on tradition and the allegations of Blind
Harry. Sheriff Mark Napier, a descendant of Sir John Menteith, has
made an elaborate defence of his ancestor from the charge of
betraying Wallace; and Mr. Burton designates it as a part of the
romance of Wallace’s career that he was betrayed by a
fellow-countryman and an old companion in arms. ‘Menteith,’ he
adds, ‘held the responsible post of Governor of Dumbarton
Castle, and it seems likely that he only performed a duty, whether
an agreeable one or not.’
There is conclusive
evidence, however, afforded by documents recently discovered that
the charge brought against Menteith is not without foundation. Mr.
Fraser, who has discussed this question very fully and impartially
in the ‘Red Book of Menteith,’ and has carefully examined all
the documents bearing on the subject, is of opinion that the
accusation that Menteith basely betrayed Wallace as his friend
rests upon evidence too insufficient to sustain such a charge. But
the documents which Mr. Fraser has examined show that Sir John
Menteith fought on the patriotic side at the battle of Dunbar in
1296, where he was taken prisoner along with his elder brother;
that he afterwards made his peace with Edward I., and supported
the claims of that monarch; that he again returned to the
patriotic party; that he once more submitted to the English king,
and obtained from him the sheriffdom of Dumbarton and the custody
of the castle to which Wallace was conveyed after his capture, and
that he obtained a share of the reward which Edward had promised
to the persons who should be instrumental in delivering the
Scottish patriot into the hands of his enemies. It is impossible
to speak with certainty as to the extent of friendship that may
have existed between Wallace and the vacillating turncoat noble,
but there can be no doubt that they must have had ‘intercourse
and familiarity.’ In the ‘Relationes Arnaldi Blair,’ it is
mentioned that in August, 1298, Wallace, Governor of Scotland,
with John Graham and John de Men/el/h, and Alexander Scrymegour,
Constable of Dundee and Standard-bearer of Scotland, acted
together in an expedition into Galloway against the rebels who
adhered to the party of Scotland and the Comyns.
There is abundant
contemporary evidence to prove that Sir John Menteith was the
chief agent in the capture of Wallace. In the ‘Chronicle of
Lancaster,’ written in the thirteenth century, it is stated that
‘William Wallace was taken by a Scotsman, namely, Sir John
Menteith, and carried to London, where he was drawn, hanged, and
beheaded.’ In the account of the capture and execution of
Wallace contained in the Arundel manuscript, written about the
year 1320, it is stated that ‘William Wallace was seized in the
house of Ralph Rae by Sir John Menteith, and carried to London by
Sir John de Segrave, where he was judged.’ Fordun, who lived in
the reign of King Robert Bruce, when the memory of the exploits of
Wallace must have been quite fresh, says: ‘The noble William
Wallace was, by Sir John Menteith, at Glasgow, while suspecting no
evil, fraudulently betrayed and seized, delivered to the King of
England, dismembered at London, and his quarters hung up in the
towns of the most public places in England and Scotland, in
opprobium of the Scots.’ Wyntoun, whose ‘Metrical Chronicle’
was written in 1418, says—
‘Schyre Jhon of
Menteith in tha days
Tuk in Glasgow
William Walays;
And sent hym untill Ingland sune,
There was he quartayrd and undone.’
The English
chronicler, Langtoft, states that Menteith discovered the retreat
of Wallace through the treacherous information of Jack Short, his
servant, and that he came under cover of night and seized him in
bed. A passage in the ‘Scala Chronica,’ quoted by Leland,
says, ‘William Walleys was taken of the Counte of Menteith,
about Glasgow, and sent to King Edward, and after was hanged,
drawn, and quartered at London.’ But the most conclusive
evidence of all that Menteith took a prominent part in the
betrayal and capture of Wallace is afforded by the fact that while
very liberal rewards were given to all the persons concerned in
this infamous affair, by far the largest share fell to Menteith:
he received land to the value of one hundred pounds.
ALEXANDER MENTEITH,
sixth Earl of Menteith, elder brother of the ‘false Menteith,’
fought on the patriotic side in the War of Independence, and in
consequence lay for a considerable time in an English dungeon. His
son, ALAN MENTEITH, seventh earl, a staunch supporter of Robert
Bruce, was taken prisoner at the battle of Methven, in 1306, when
the fortunes of the patriot king were at the lowest ebb, was
deprived of his estates by Edward I., and died in an English
dungeon. He was succeeded by his brother, MURDOCH STEWART, who was
killed at the battle of Dupplin, 12th April, 1332. His niece, LADY
MARY, only daughter of Earl Alan, who appears to have been under
age at the time of her father’s death, now became Countess of
Menteith. She married Sir John Graham, who is supposed to have
been the younger son of Sir Patrick Graham of Kincardine, ancestor
of the Montrose family, and became Earl of Menteith apparently by
courtesy through his wife. He accompanied David II. in his
invasion of England in 1346. He was present at the battle of
Durham, and, when the archers were almost within bowshot,
earnestly urged the King to send a body of cavalry to charge them
in flank. His advice was unhappily disregarded, and when the
archers were about to direct their deadly volleys on the serried
ranks of the Scottish spearmen, the Earl exclaimed, ‘Give me but
a hundred horse and I engage to disperse them all; so shall we be
able to fight more securely.’ His appeal was, however, unheeded,
and hastily leaping upon his horse, and followed only by his own
retainers, he rushed upon the advancing bowmen. But his gallant
attack was not supported. His horse was killed under him, and
after bravely, but vainly, striving to arrest the advance of the
enemy, he was compelled to retire to the main body of the Scottish
army. After a stout battle, which lasted for three hours, the Earl
was taken prisoner, along with his sovereign, and was imprisoned
in the Tower of London. By the direct orders of King Edward, he
was tried and condemned as a traitor, on the plea that he had at
one time sworn fealty to the English King, and was drawn, hanged,
beheaded, and quartered.
LADY MARGARET
GRAHAM, only child of the heroic Sir John Graham, Earl of Menteith,
and Lady Mary his countess, inherited the earldom about the year
1360. She was four times married, twice before she had attained
the age of twenty years; and she received five dispensations from
the Roman Pontiff to enable her to enter into her successive
matrimonial alliances. Her first husband, to whom she was married
when she was fourteen, was Sir John Moray of Bothwell, son of Sir
Andrew Moray, who was regent of the kingdom during the minority of
David II. He died about the close of the year 1351 without issue.
The hand of Lady Margaret was next sought in marriage by Thomas,
thirteenth Earl of Mar, the last male heir of the ancient race of
that house, to whom she was married in 1352; but she was soon
after divorced by him, Fordun says by the instigation of the devil
and on pretences that were utterly false.
‘The true reason
for this action,’ says Mr. Frazer, ‘is no doubt to be found in
the fact that the Earl of Mar, naturally desirous of having
children of his own to succeed to his old and historical earldom
of Mar, and finding himself disappointed in this after his union
with Lady Margaret Graham, as it is recorded that there were no
children of the marriage, separated himself from her, in the hope
that by a new matrimonial alliance he might have an heir. He
afterwards married Lady Margaret Stewart, Countess of Angus, who
was the eldest daughter and heiress of Thomas Stewart, second Earl
of Angus. But he was again disappointed, and he died without issue
in 1377.’
Lady Margaret, who
was still little more than twenty years of age, was induced to
take for her third husband, in 1359, John Drummond, of Concraig,
for the sake of healing the fierce feuds that raged between the
Menteiths and the Drummonds. He died, however, probably in 1360,
for his widow married again in 1361. Her fourth and last husband
was Sir Robert Stewart, third son of Robert Stewart, Earl of
Strathern, Hereditary High Steward, afterwards King Robert II. of
Scotland; and by this marriage she carried the earldom of Menteith
back to the race of her maternal ancestors, the Stewarts. ROBERT
STEWART was created Earl of Menteith on the 26th of March, 1371,
the day on which his father was crowned, and on the 30th of that
month the Lady Isabella, Countess of Fife, recognised the Earl as
her true and lawful heir-apparent in virtue of the entail made by
her father, Sir Duncan, Earl of Fife, in favour of Alan, Earl of
Menteith, grandfather of Earl Robert’s wife, and of the entail
made by Lady Isabella herself and her late husband, elder brother
of Sir Robert, in his favour. A meeting of Parliament, held at
Scone in April, 1373, ordained that, failing the eldest son of the
King and his heirs, the succession to the Crown should devolve on
the EARL OF FIFE AND MENTEITH, who was to take precedence of the
younger sons of the sovereign. He received numerous grants of land
from his father, with whom he seems to have been a favourite, and
he was appointed in 1382 to the office of High Chamberlain, left
vacant by the death of Sir John Lyon of Glammis.
In consequence of
the advanced age of his father, Robert II., and the physical
infirmity of his brother, the Earl of Carrick, afterwards Robert
III., the Estates deemed it necessary in 1388 to appoint the Earl
of Fife and Menteith Guardian of the Kingdom, and he was virtually
its ruler thenceforth to the end of his life. In the year 1398 he
was created Duke of Albany, at the same time that the King’s
eldest son, the Earl of Carrick and Athole, was made Duke of
Rothesay. Albany was crafty and ambitious, but he was possessed of
great administrative ability, and his pacific policy secured for
Scotland under his sway a happy exemption from those wars which
for many years had exhausted the resources of the country and
retarded all social improvement. His administration was
undoubtedly popular; the people regarded him as their friend, the
nobles were friendly to him, and his liberality to the Church
procured for him the grateful eulogies of the clergy. Wyntoun, the
Prior of St. Serf’s, in his ‘Metrical Chronicle,’ descants
in glowing terms on the Regent’s goodly person and lofty
stature; his strength, wisdom, chastity, sobriety, and affability;
his piety, hatred of Lollards and heretics, and liberality to the
Church. He has, however, in various ways received scant justice at
the hands of the later historians of Scotland, and has long lain
under the evil repute of having been accessory to the murder of
his nephew, the dissolute and ill-fated Duke of Rothesay. Sir
Walter Scott’s romance of the ‘Fair Maid of Perth’ has
contributed not a little to deepen the unfavourable impression
formed of Albany’s conduct in this matter. Lord Hailes, after
quoting the remission drawn up under the royal seal granted to
Robert, Duke of Albany, and Archibald, Earl of Douglas, for the
part they took in the apprehension of the prince, says—
‘From this
instrument the following circumstances may be collected
‘1. The death of
David, Prince of Scotland, occasioned a parliamentary inquiry.
‘2. His uncle,
Robert, Duke of Albany, and his brother-in-law, Archibald, Earl of
Douglas, were at least suspected of having confined him and put
him to death.
‘3. The result of
the inquiry was that the Duke of Albany and the Earl of Douglas
avowed that they had confined him, and justified their conduct
from the basis of public utility.
‘4. The King did
not hold it as expedient or necessary to publish these motives to
the world.
‘5. It appeared
that the "Prince of Scotland departed this life through
Divine Providence, and not otherwise." The reader will
determine as to the import of this phrase. If by it a natural
death was intended, the circumlocution seems strange and affected.
‘6. The Duke of
Albany and the Earl of Douglas obtained a remission in terms as
ample as if they had actually murdered the heir-apparent.’
Mr. Frazer, in his
‘Red Book of Menteith,’ has very carefully investigated the
charge against the Regent and Douglas, and has come to the
conclusion that the story of Rothesay’s death by starvation in a
dungeon in Falkland Palace, which was first told by Hector Bocce,
is not supported by any evidence of the slightest value. The
eminent genealogist puts great weight on the facts that the
charges were judicially investigated by Parliament, with the
result that the Duke and the Earl were completely vindicated from
the accusation made against them; and that the King himself,
Rothesay’s father, declared publicly and explicitly in
Parliament, that they were innocent from every charge of blame in
connection with the Prince’s death.
Albany died in
peace on the 3rd of September, 1419, in the eightieth year of his
age, having virtually governed Scotland for thirty-four years,
though his actual regency extended to only fourteen. He was
succeeded in his titles, estates, and office by his son Murdoch,
who was most unjustly and cruelly put to death, along with his
sons, and his aged father-in-law, the Earl of Lennox, and their
estates forfeited, by James I., on his return, in 1425, from his
long captivity in England. The unrelenting severity with which the
King wreaked his vengeance on the house of Albany excited deep and
general indignation.
The earldom of
Menteith, on the execution and forfeiture of Earl Murdoch, became
vested in the Crown, and a moiety of it was conferred in 1427 upon
MALISE GRAHAM, son of Sir Patrick Graham and Euphemia,
granddaughter of Robert Stewart, as some compensation for the loss
of the earldom palatine of Strathern, one of the oldest and most
illustrious of Scottish dignities, which he had inherited from his
mother, and which the King had appropriated on the plea that it
was a male fief. The other portion was reserved to the Crown, and
was afterwards known as the STEWARTRY OF MENTEITH. The second son
of Earl Malise, named ‘Sir John with the Bright Sword,’ upon
some displeasure having arisen against him at Court, retired with
a large number of his kindred and clan to the English Border,
during the reign of Henry IV., where they became the most
formidable of the freebooters resident in the Debateable Land. ‘They
were all stark moss-troopers and arrant thieves;’ says Sandford,
‘both to England and Scotland outlawed, yet sometimes connived
at because they gave intelligence forth of Scotland, and could
raise four hundred horse upon a raid of the English into Scotland.’
Sir Walter Scott describing—
‘Old
Albert Graeme,
The minstrel of that ancient name,’
says that—
‘His hardy kin,
Whoever lost, were sure to win.
They sought the beeves that made their broth
In Scotland and in England both.’
From ‘John with the Bright Sword’ descended
the Grahams of Gartmore, West Preston, Norton Conyers, Yorkshire,
and of Netherby, lately represented by Sir James Graham, the
distinguished statesman, whose tall and stalwart form and vigorous
intellect were worthy of his ancestry.
Earl Malise was succeeded in
1490 in the earldom of Menteith by his grandson, ALEXANDER
GRAHAM, whose father seems to have been Patrick Graham,
third son of Malise. Of him nothing deserving particular notice is
recorded. WILLIAM GRAHAM, eldest son
of Earl Alexander, succeeded his father in 1537. He lost his life
in a sanguinary fight with a party of marauding Highlanders—the Stewarts of Appin. On their retreat from
a raid into Stirling-shire, through the lands of the Earl, in 1543,
headed by the Tutor of Appin, surnamed ‘Donald of the
Hammer,’ the Stewarts happened to pass by the Lake of Menteith
at the time that preparations were making for a marriage feast at
the Earl’s castle, which stood on an island in the lake, while
the outhouses were on the shore. The hungry and not
over-scrupulous marauders ate up all the provisions, which
consisted mainly of poultry. As soon as intelligence of this
outrage reached the Earl, indignant at the affront offered him
even more than at the injury, he pursued after Donald and his men,
accompanied by his retainers and the wedding guests, and overtook
them, according to one account in the gorge of a pass near a rock
called Craigvad, according to another at Tobanareal, a spring on
the summit of the ridge which separates Menteith from
Strathgartney, between Loch Katrine and the Lake of Menteith. A
sanguinary engagement ensued, in which the Earl and nearly all his
followers were killed, and ‘Donald of the Hammer’ escaped
under cover of night with only a single attendant. From the cause
of this fight the Highlanders ever after gave the name of the ‘Grahams
of the Hens’ to the Menteith family.
JOHN GRAHAM, fourth
Earl of Menteith, succeeded his father in 1544, while still a
minor. He was one of the nobles who escorted the young Queen Mary
to France in 1550, and was probably selected to be one of her
guardians during the voyage in consequence of her having had a
temporary refuge in one of the islands on the Lake of Menteith in
the immediate vicinity of his residence. He received in 1554 from
the Queen-Dowager, Mary of Guise, a commission as justiciary over
both the earldom and the Stewartry of Menteith; but he afterwards
became dissatisfied with her policy and proceedings, and in 1558
he joined the Lords of the Congregation. He was one of the leaders
of their army at the siege of Leith in 1560; he sat in the
Parliament which ratified the Scottish Confession, and he
subsequently subscribed the first Book of Discipline. He died in
1560. The earldom remained for upwards of seven years after his
death in the hands of Queen Mary and James VI. on account of the
minority of his son—
WILLIAM GRAHAM,
fifth Earl. He was a zealous supporter of the Protestant cause,
took part in the proceedings connected with Queen Mary’s
resignation of her crown and the accession of her infant son to
the throne, and was present at the battle of Langside, in May,
1568. At the time of his death, in 1568, his son and heir—
JOHN GRAHAM, sixth
Earl, was a boy of seven or eight years of age. Little is known of
his personal history, as he was in minority during the greater
part of the nineteen years during which he was in possession of
the earldom.
WILLIAM GRAHAM,
seventh Earl, who, like his father, succeeded to the family title
and estates while in his boyhood, was the most distinguished of
all the earls of the house of Graham. Unlike his father and
grandfather, he was a staunch Royalist and a great favourite of
Charles I. He rose rapidly from comparative obscurity to be the
most influential nobleman in Scotland, and held the important
offices of President of the Privy Council, Justice-General, and an
Extraordinary Lord of Session. Charles placed great confidence in
the tact and capacity of the Earl of Menteith, and consulted him
freely on all the questions which then disturbed the northern part
of the kingdom. A considerable number of the letters which the
Earl received from the King have been brought to light and
published in the second volume of the ‘Red Book of Menteith,’
and serve to show both the state of the country at this time and
the feeling which his Majesty cherished towards his faithful
servant. The Earl was served heir-of-entail in 1630 to David, Earl
of Strathern, eldest son of Robert II. by his second wife, and in
the following year the King ratified by patent this service to the
Earl, and authorised his being styled Earl of Strathern and
Menteith. The other nobles, however, seem to have regarded the
favoured nobleman with great envy and jealousy, and one or two of
their number appear to have been actuated by apprehensions that
some of their own estates which had formed part of the ancient
earldom might be reclaimed. They, therefore, organised a cabal
against the Earl, of which Sir John Scott of Scotstarvet, Director
of Chancery, ‘a busy man in foul weather,’ was the guiding
spirit, and they contrived by false and insidious accusations to
excite the suspicion of the King against the potent and ambitious
nobleman. The validity of the marriage of Robert II. to Elizabeth
Mure, his first wife, from whom the royal Stewart family are
descended, had been long and keenly disputed; and if it had been
set aside, David, Earl of Strathern, the ancestor of the Menteith
family, would have been the eldest legitimate son of that
sovereign. In allusion to this claim the Earl of Menteith is
alleged (though he affirmed untruly) to have boasted that he had
‘the reddest blood in Scotland.’ The hostile intriguers, among
whom it is matter of regret that Drummond of Hawthornden, the
poet, was included, succeeded in persuading Charles that the Earl
of Menteith had uttered certain treasonable speeches, claiming to
have a better right to the throne than the King himself. Drummond
had previously stated to the king that ‘a more serious blow
could not be given to the Earl of Menteith himself than allowing
his descent and title to the earldom of Strathern;’ and so it
proved. The unfortunate nobleman was deprived by Charles not only
of the earldom of Strathern, but also of his hereditary title of
Menteith. To aggravate the injustice thus done to him, he was at
the same time stripped of all his offices. As some small
compensation for the grievous wrong inflicted on him, he was in
1632 created Earl of Airth, and he was subsequently allowed to
resume his family title of Menteith, but he passed the rest of his
days in poverty and obscurity.
To add to his
miseries, this ill-fated nobleman, like many a good man, was
sorely troubled with a bad wife, and he gave vent to his feelings
in a most amusing paper detailing his sufferings at the hands of
that ‘wicked woman’ and her ‘wise devices,’ which seemed
somehow always to run counter to those of her husband, whether the
affair in hand referred to the purchase of a house or the marriage
of a daughter. The money given as a portion to his second
daughter, who, during the Earl’s absence in London, was married
by ‘my prudent wife,’ as he styles her, to the eldest son of
the Earl of Galloway, amounted to twenty-seven thousand merks. ‘I
am sure,’ he said, ‘I might have married three of my daughters
to three barouns living besyd me with that portion I gave to
Galloway, any one of which would have been more useful to me than
the Earl of Galloway. They had children, but they all dyed; so
that money was as much lost to me as if I hade castin it in the
sea.’ So with regard to the house which he says his ‘wyse
wiffe’ induced him to buy much against his will, as he alleges.
‘This woeful wyse wife of mine,’ he says, ‘made
propositioune to me that she conceived it not honourabill for me
to pay rent for ane house as I did then for a little house I
dwelled in beside the churchyard, bot that I should rather buy ane
house heritabile; which foolish design of that wicked woman’s
I refuised, and taulde her that I knew not how long I should stay
at Edinburch, and would not give my money to buy ane house thair.
But she replyed that it would serve for ane house for my lands of
Kinpount, which foolish answer of that wicked woman’s
showed her vanitie, and the great desyre she had to stay still in
Edinbruch, for the like was never heard, that the house standeth
sevin mylls from the lands, Kinpount being sevin mylls from
Edinbruch. Alway ther being some things between the Earl of
Linlithgow and me, he did offer to dispoun to me his house. The
earl and I for the pryce of the house, yairds, and grass yairds,
at the price of 8,500 merks, did agrie, and he disponed them to
me. Presently after this I went up to London, and I was no shooner
gone hot my wyfe sette to worke all sorte of tradesmen, such as
quarriers, maissons, sklaitters, vrights, smiths, glasiers,
painters, and plaisterers, and I may say treulie that the money
which she bestowed upon the re-edifleing of that house and gardens
was twyse so much as I gave for the buying of them.’ To crown
all, in the end ‘that house took fyre accidentallie, and was
totallie burned, and so became of everything this unhappie woman
my wyfe lade her hand to.’ This curious paper, in which the poor
Earl sought to relieve his feelings, affords an amusing contrast
to the heavy and rather doleful document connected with his other
trials and sufferings.
LORD KILPONT, the
eldest son of this ill-assorted couple, was the young and gallant
nobleman whose exploits occupy a prominent place in the ‘Legend
of Montrose.’ Sir Walter has, however, considerably softened and
altered the catastrophe, for Lord Kilpont unfortunately did not
recover, but was struck dead on the spot by Stewart of Ardvoirlich.
Various accounts
have been given of the causes which led to this murder, but all
that is known with certainty is that, though his family had
certainly no great reason to support the royal cause, Kilpont,
who, like his father, had steadily refused to subscribe the
Covenant, or to take part with the Covenanters, joined the Marquis
of Montrose with a body of five hundred men, when he took up arms
for the King in 1644, and at the battle of Tippermuir commanded
the left wing of the Royal forces. A few days after, while the
army was lying in the fields, near the Kirk of Collace, the young
nobleman was assassinated by Stewart of Ardvoirlich, his intimate
friend, whose tent and bed he had shared on the previous night.
Wishart, the
chaplain and biographer of Montrose, states that Stewart had
resolved to abandon the Royal cause, and to assassinate Montrose,
and tried to induce Lord Kilpont to be ‘accessory to the
villainy. Therefore, taking him aside into a private place, he had
discovered unto him his intention, which the nobleman highly
detested, as was meet. Whereupon the murderer, fearing he would
discover him, assaulted him unawares, and stabbed him with many
wounds, who little suspected any harm from his friend and
creature. The treacherous assassin by killing a sentinel escaped,
none being able to pursue him, it being so dark that they could
not see the end of their pikes. Some say the traitor was hired by
the Covenanters to do this, others only that he was promised a
reward if he did it. Howsoever it was, this is most certain that
he is very high in their favour unto this very day, and that
Argyle immediately advanced him, though he was no soldier, to
great command in his army. Montrose was very much troubled with
the loss of that nobleman, his dear friend, one that had deserved
very well both from the King and himself; a man famous for arts
and arms and honesty; being a good philosopher, a good divine, a
good lawyer, a good soldier, a good subject, and a good man.’
Wishart’s account of this tragic incident is in part
corroborated by the Act of Parliament, passed in March, 1645,
confirming the pardon granted by the Privy Council to James
Stewart, for the slaughter of Kilpont. It stated what was no doubt
the murderer’s own story, which there is little doubt was framed
in such a way as was most likely to conciliate his new friends,
and obtain an amnesty for his foul deed. The Act sets forth that
James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, along with his son and four friends,
‘repenting of their errors in joyning with the saides rebbles,
and abhorring their cruelty, resolved with his saide freendes to
foirsake their wicked company, and impairted this resolution to
the said umquhile Lord Kilpont. Bot he, out of his malignant
dispositione opposed the same, and fell in struggling with the
said James, who for his owne relieffe was forced to kill him at
the Kirk of Collace, with two Irish rebells who resisted his
escape.’
A different version
of this sad story is given from tradition by the descendants of
Ardvoirlich, who object to the account given by Wishart on account
of his partiality, and his questionable authority when dealing
with the motives or conduct of those who differed from him.
According to the Stewarts, a quarrel had arisen between their
ancestor and Alister Macdonald, surnamed Colkitto, on account of
some excesses which the Irish troops under the command of the
latter had committed on the lands of Ardvoirlich, and he
challenged Colkitto to single combat. Before they met, however,
Montrose, by the advice, it is alleged, of Kilpont, put them both
under arrest, and compelled them to shake hands in his presence,
when it is said that Ardvoirlich, who was a very powerful man,
took such a hold of Macdonald’s hand as to make the blood start
from his fingers.
A few days after
the battle of Tippermuir an entertainment was given by Montrose to
his officers, in honour of the victory which he had gained.
Kilpont and his comrade Ardvoirlich were present, and on their
return to their own quarters Stewart began to blame the young lord
for the part he had taken in the quarrel with Colkitto. Kilpont of
course defended himself, till the argument came to high words,
when Stewart, who was a man of violent passions, and was probably
heated with wine, broke out in great fury, and with his dirk
struck his friend dead on the spot. He immediately fled, and,
under cover of a thick mist, escaped pursuit, leaving his eldest
son Henry, who had been mortally wounded at Tippermuir, on his
deathbed.
Stewart’s
followers immediately withdrew from Montrose, and no course
remained for him but to throw himself into the arms of the
opposite faction, by whom he was well received. His name is
frequently mentioned in Leslie’s campaigns, and on more than one
occasion he is referred to as having afforded protection to
several of his former friends, through his interest with Leslie,
when the cause became desperate.
[James
Stewart of Ardvoirlich was the prototype of Allan McAulay in the
‘Legend of Montrose,’ and the story which Sir Walter ascribes
to that moody and partially insane Highlander actually occurred in
the case of Ardvoirlich. His mother was sister of one of the
Drummonds, surnamed Drummond-Ernoch, who was royal forester in the
forest of Glenartney, in the reign of James VI. About the year
1588 he was murdered by a party of the MacGregors, known by the
title of MacEagh, or ‘Children of the Forest.’ They cut off
his head and carried it with them, wrapped up in the corner of one
of their plaids. They stopped at the house of Ardvoirlich, and
demanded refreshments, which the lady (her husband being absent)
was afraid, or unwilling, to refuse. She caused bread and cheese
to be placed before them, and went into the kitchen to order more
substantial refreshments to be made ready. On her return to the
room she saw on the table the bloody head of her brother, with its
mouth filled with bread and cheese. The poor lady, horrified at
the sight, shrieked aloud and fled into the woods, where,
notwithstanding strict search, she could not be found for some
weeks. She was at length discovered in a state of insanity, but,
after giving birth to a child of which she had been pregnant, she
gradually recovered her faculties. The boy—James Stewart—grew
up to manhood, uncommonly tall, strong, and active, but with a
moody, fierce, and irascible temper; and there is every reason to
believe that he was not free from a taint of insanity. He led a
hard life after his murder of Lord Kilpont, as the Grahams held
him at mortal feud. He had often to be in hiding, and even when he
died his friends were obliged to conceal his body for some time
till they could bury it safely in an old chapel.]
WILLIAM GRAHAM, the
son of Lord Kilpont, who succeeded his grandfather as Earl of
Airth and Menteith in 1661, died without issue in 1694. This last
representative of ‘a great old house’ lived and died in
impoverished circumstances. Having been obliged at one time to
retire to the sanctuary of Holyrood for protection against his
creditors, he applied to his kinsman, Malise Graham of Glaschoil,
on the shores of Loch Katrine, for such a supply of money as might
relieve him. Faithful to the call of his liege lord, Malise
instantly quitted his home, dressed like a plain Highlander of
those days, travelling alone and on foot. Arriving at the Earl’s
lodgings, he was knocking at the door, when a gentleman,
commiserating his apparent poverty, tendered him a small piece of
money. Malise was in the act of thankfully receiving it when the
Earl, coming to the door, perceived him and reproved him for doing
so. The Highlander, with the utmost nonchalance, took from his
bosom a purse, and handing it to his lordship, said in Gaelic, ‘Here,
my lord, see and clear your way with that. As for the gentleman
who had the generosity to hand me the halfpenny, I would have had
no objection to accept of every halfpenny he had.’ The story
adds that the Earl’s necessities having been thus, for the time,
relieved, he immediately returned with his faithful vassal to his
castle on the Lake of Menteith.
Some time before
his death the Earl disposed of his whole landed property to the
Marquis of Montrose and Graham of Gartmore, his nephew. The
beautiful Lake of Menteith, with its islands—Talla, on which the
ruins of the old castle of the family may still be seen, and
Inchmahome, the ‘Isle of Rest,’ where the infant Queen Mary
found refuge from the English invaders after the battle of Pinkie—together
with Aberfoyle and the district which Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Rob
Roy’ has rendered so famous, thus passed into the possession of
the chief of ‘the gallant Grahams,’ from whom the last Earls
of Menteith sprung, while their memory, even in their own country,
is now but ‘the shadow of a name.’ LADY MARY GRAHAM, the
sister of the last Earl of Menteith, was brought up at Fetteresso
by her grandmother, the Countess Marischal, and there married Sir
John Allardice, the head of an old Kincardineshire family. The
great-grandson of this lady left an only daughter, who, in 1777,
married Robert Barclay of Urie, a descendant of the author of the
well-known ‘Apology for the Quakers,’ and father of Captain
Barclay, the celebrated pedestrian. Lady Mary’s husband, when he
represented Kincardineshire in Parliament, always walked from Urie
to London. He was a very powerful man, and could walk fifty miles
a day, his usual refreshment on the road being a bottle of port
wine, which he poured into a bowl and drunk off at a draught. Lord
Monboddo, the well-known eccentric judge and philosopher, his
neighbour, on the other hand, always travelled on horseback, and
when he went to London he rode the whole way. George III. was much
interested in these performances, and said ‘I ought to be proud
of my Scottish subjects when my judges ride and my members of
Parliament walk to the metropolis.’
Captain Barclay
laid claim to the earldom of Menteith and Airth in right of his
mother, and it greatly perplexed him whether, if he succeeded in
gaining the earldom, he would have to give up his favourite
amusement of driving the ‘Defiance’ coach between Aberdeen and
Edinburgh. On this point he consulted his friend the Duke of Gordon. ‘Why,’ replied his
Grace, ‘there is not much difference between an earl and a
marquis; and as the Marquis of Waterford drives the Brighton ‘Defiance,’
I see no reason why you may not drive the Edinburgh ‘Defiance.’
At all events, if there be any objection to your being the
coachman, there can be none to your being guard.’
Mrs. Barclay Allardice, the
claimant of the Airth peerage, is lineally descended
from this aristocratic coach-driver. Her claim is
opposed by Mr. Graham of Gartmore, who contends that
the titles of Airth and Menteith cannot be
dissevered, and that as the latter is unquestionably
limited to heirs male, so must the former. Whatever
may be the decision of the House of Lords on this
subject, every Scotsman will cordially join in
hoping that we shall soon witness the restoration to
its rightful heir of one of the oldest and most
famous titles—
'... Of a race renowned
of old
Whose
war-cry oft has waked the
battle swell,
Since first distinguished in the
onset bold;
Wild-sounding when the Roman
rampart fell,
By Wallace’ side it rung the
Southron’s knell,’
and has been heard on many a battlefield since,
from Bannockhurn to Barossa.
The Red Book of Menteith
In two volumes by William Fraser (1880)
Volume 1 |
Volume 2 |
