Historical tales and legends of Ayrshire

Front matter

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF olin

Preface

The County of Ayr is rich in Story and Tradition. And no wonder. Before the days of the Romans it was inhabited ; and from the time that these early progenitors in the march of civilization left these shores never to return, a succession of races have either dwelt on its plains or in its towns, and by its river mouths, or have left unmistakable traces of their presence, Pict, and Scot, and Briton ; Danish rover and Scandinavian Viking; English invader from beyond the Tweed, coming and going at intervals

6 PREFACE,

down to tlie days when Oliver Cromwell was in the Fort of Ayr, and stabled his steeds under the shadow of St. John's — all have been here in turn. The Roman has left his roads and his camps, the Pict his dykes, the Celtic lake-dweller his crannogs, the Briton his tumuli, to tell the tale of a hardly recoverable past.

Great national movements have inwrought themselves with the history of the Shire. On the streets of the county town and in the country surrounding, Sir William Wallace first seriously measured strength with the invader. Robert the Bruce was Earl of Carrick. He stormed Turnberry, the home of his youth, and he wrought wondrously among the hills of Dailly, on the uplands of Cumnock and of Dalmellington, and by the base of Loudoun hill. And in a less degree, down to the days of the Revolution, Ayrshire men were prominent in the wars and in

PREFACE.

the counsels of the period. It was to Ayrshire the Lollards came, with the leaven of a new faith. And the Reformation found many of its most ardent promoters among the gentry, as well as among the peasantry, of Kyle, Cuninghame, and Carrick.

In the centuries when feudal strife was rampant the great families of Kennedy, of Cuninghame, of Craufurd, of Montgomerie, of Campbell, of Boyd, maintained ceaseless activity in their warrings with one another. Their horsemen scoured the countryside; their yeomen went down in the encounter; their castles blazed intermittently from the borders of Renfrew in the north, to the waters of Stinchar in Southern Carrick, and from the moorlands adjacent to the march of Lanark to the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Their intrigues, their plots, their raids, their wiles, their machinations — are they not written on the creation of the existing social life of Ayrshire ?

PREFACE.

My main purpose has been to endeavour to present

a series of historical pictures of the national and

feudal history of the Shire. It will remain with the reader to say how far I have succeeded. I

have not thought fit to give chapter and verse for all the historical facts recorded, but the reader may rest assured that these have been amply and carefully verified.

The chapters dealing with the social conditions are founded on the data of the periods treated ; and the traditions recorded are those which, a hundred years ago and more, were universally accepted in the districts where they had their birth.

CO]SrTE:N^TS.

PAGE

THE FEUD OF GLENCAIRN AND

EGLINTON, - 13

THE ROASTING OF THE COMMENDATOR OF CROSSRAGUEL IN THE BLACK VAULT OF DUNURE, 30

KING HAGO'S BATTLE WITH THE SCOTS

AT LARGS, - 45

THE PRE-HISTORIC SIRES OF AYRSHIRE, (32

THE TETHERING OF THE SOW ON' THE

LANDS OF KERSE, 72

10 CONTENTS.

PAGE

THE BURNING OF THE AYR AND THE

DAIRY WITCHES, 93

THE STORY OF THE TOWER OF ST. JOHN'S

IN AYR, - 123

HOW THE LAIRD OF CHANGUE THRASHED

THE DEIL, 140

KINO ROBERT THE BRUCE— HIS UPS AND

DOWNS IN AYRSHIRE, 147

THE ROVER'S DOOM ON THE CARRICK

KING ALPIN SLAIN IN THE GLEN OF

DUNASKIN, - ... 177

CONTENTS. II

PAOE

THE TRIAL OF THE FEUDALISTS AT AYR

JOHNNY FAA AND THE EARL OF

CASSILLIS' LADY, 201

THE STORY OF KYLE AND CARRICK FOUR

HUNDRED YEARS AGO, - 216

HOW A SHEEP'S HEAD BEGAT STRIFE BETWEEN AUCHINLECK AND OCHIL- TREE, - - 232

THE KIRK OF AYR RULING THE PEOPLE, 247

A DAUGHTER OF THE HOUSE OF DUN- DONALD, - 261

THE LADY OF HESSILHEAD OUTRAGED, AND GABRIEL MONTGOMERIE OF THIRDPART SLAIN, - - - 273

12 CONTENTS.

PAGE

A FOUL FIEND RECLAIMS A GUNINGHAME

DRUNKARD, - - - - 287

SIR ROBERT BOYD OF DEAN CASTLE AND HIS LAST COMBAT WITH STEWART OF DARNLE7, - - 295

THE BLOOD TEST; OR, MURDER ON THE

CARRICK SHORE REVEALED, 306

THE EARL OF EGLINTON'S ENCOUNTER

NEAR ARDROSSAN, - 324.

''THE TERROR OF THE WHIGS" EXORCISES

THE BEANSCROFT DEIL,. - 332

HISTORICAL TALES

AND

LEGENDS

OF

AYRSHIRE.

THE FEUD

OF

GLENCAIRN AND EOLINTON,

The district of Cuniiigname was long tlie chosen battle ground of the rival families of Glencairn and Eglinton. Both were of high renown, both eminent in the service of their country, both produced men who gave their lives to the national cause, and both, at crises in the history of Scotland, came nobly to her aid. But for many long years in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there ran through their own personal history a deadly and a bitter and a relentless feud — a feud which sent the flames curling from the roof-tree of Eglinton Castle itself, which fired many a homestead and hall besides, and in which scores, if not hundreds, of brave men went down before the exigencies cf family rivalry and pride.

The Montgomeries of Eglinton held court at their castle on the banks of the Lugton. The castellated mansion of to-day, sitting quietly in the midst of a beautiful and extensive park, is built upon the spot occupied by at least two of its predecessors — that which was fired by the followers of the Earl of Glencairn in 1528, and to which Sir Hugh de Eglinton bore the pennon of Henry Hotspur from the field of Otterburn, and that which was demolished in the closing years of the eighteenth century to make room for the noble building which now dominates a scene of great beauty and refined taste, but which in the days of three or four centuries agone was too frequently a veritable Aceldama. The Cuninghames hailed from the parish of Kilmaurs, to which in the latter half of the fifteenth century, Sir William had brought home the co-heiress of many fair lands in Renfrew, Dumbarton, and Midlothian, as well as Glencairn in Dumfries, from which the title to the Earldom was acquired. With growing power came a corresponding growth of rivalry, until the jealousy and mistrust culminated in the series of tragedies which make memorable the story of northern Ayrshire throughout the long years in which they transpired. Both houses were possessed of numerous vassals and retainers, who espoused the rival causes with the intensity invariably begotten of the feud, and no Gorsican vendetta was ever more inexorable in its decrees than were the Cuninghames and the Montgomeries in their work of extirpation. The feud passed on from man to man and from generation to generation, and it rolled, practically unchecked, until the power of the Scottish Crown was sufficiently consolidated to check the outrages of the rude lords who were a law unto themselves.

To follow the feud in all its devious windings would be an impossibility within anything like compact limits. Let us therefore rather select one or two of its outstanding incidents and endeavour to recall the actors to the scenes in which they played their part. And suffice it to say by way of explanation that it was because the hereditary Bailieship of Cunninghame was transferred from the Glencairn family to that of Eglinton that the strife which had long been intermittent or smouldering, broke out into active and persistent hostility.

Kerelaw Castle is a picturesque ruin in the parish of Stevenston, massive in its decay, ivy mantled, stoutly standing up against the inroads of Time and of the elementary warfare which rages around its walls. As long ago as 1488 it stood in all its pride and glory. It was a stronghold of the Cuninghames, and behind its defences its lord could afford to look out with some complacency upon the broad lands and the strengths of the Montgomeries. . Eglinton Castle was but a few miles distant in the one direction, and in the other, within easy ken, was the keep of Ardrossan, with its heavy battlements and its solid masonry. Kerelaw, strongly held, might have resisted a siege ; and had its walls been tenanted by the men of Glencairn when the retainers of Eglinton came down upon it, it might have laughed their efforts to scorn. But they chose their own time for coming ; and descending upon it when it was at their mercy, they set fire to it and went their way. Up into the blue sky rose the smoke of the burning pile ; and when the night came the clouds were reddened with its glare. The fire was slow to take hold, for the floors were oaken and so were the beams and the furniture. But the quaint old wainscotting caught up the conflagration and hastened on the doom of the castle. The fire spread gradually but surely. From basement to tuiTet it crept, peering out of the windows, darting from the loopholes, and accompanied as it rose with the crashing of masonry and the falling in of floors, until finally the flames dominated the keep and proclaimed themselves masters of Kerelaw. The Cuninghames could see the glare and the smoke from more than one of their strongholds ; and we can well imagine with what feelings they beheld the destructive handiwork of their foes, and how they resolved on retaliation. The conflagration died away and the walls cooled ; but there was no dying away of the wrath in the breast of Glencairn, and no cooling of the ardour for revenge within the vassals of the house of Cuninghame. The Montgomeries had had their day ; that of the Cuninghames was in the future. Kerelaw was the first keep to blaze ; Eglinton Castle was doomed.

But it was not to be fired just yet. The Cuuinghames nursed their wrath as the days lengthened out into months, and these again into years. Individual members of both houses were slain by the wayside. Attempt upon attempt was made to wreak vengeance upon the leaders in the feud, the heads of the difierent families who allied themselves with the rival fortunes of the opposing chiefs. William Cuninghame of Craigens was the first of note to feel the heavy hand. He was the King's coroner for the shire of Renfrew, a relative of the lord of Kilmaurs; and in 1505 he was waylaid and attacked by the Master of Montgomerie. Cuninghame resisted as stoutly as he was attacked, and succeeded in effecting his escape, though not until he was grievously wounded. He made complaint to the Scottish Parliament of the outrage ; but the Master of Montgomerie did not obey the summons, and the affair was forgotten by the State. But not by the Cuninghames. Finding they could not obtain redress save at their own hand, they mustered their followers in January of 1507, and came upon Lord Montgomerie. The latter was not unprepared to receive them, and a hot conflict ensued. Hand to hand was the issue contested, until Lord Montgomerie was wounded, and lives were lost on both sides.

Two years later a temporary peace was patched up, and there was cessation awhile, for the national afiuirs demanded the energy and the daring of every patriot within the Scottish realm. But when Flodden had been fought and lost ; when Glencairn had recovered from the temporary eclipse of his fortunes which he suffered for having been concerned in the abortive attempt of Arran, who aspired to the Regency, to depose Albany ; and when the Earl of Eglinton and Lord Montgomerie had welcomed the youthful monarch after his escape from Falkland to Stirling in the guise of a yeoman, there was time enough to attend to their own concerns in the west. In the interim, at the period when the country's cause called both Eglinton and the lord of Kilmaurs from local to national strife, Glencairn had still time left to slay three of the followers of the Montgomeries, and to wound the son and heir to the Earl himself; but so little thought of was the affair in the face of the graver events of the period, that no penal consequences of any kind whatever are known to have followed. A' second peace was agreed upon on the instigation of Albany ; but that neither side had any intent to abide by its terms was speedily made manifest. The Earl was blessed with a long memory. For nine years he remembered the attempt on the life of his son and the death of his followers, one of whom, Matthew Montgomerie, was a scion of the house, nor did he cry quits for that event until he and his had taken the life of Edward Cuninghame of Auchenharvie. He was proceeded against according to law ; but not only did he escape the consequences of his deed, save by the imposition of a nominal sum for non-appearance, but he followed up the slaughter of the laird of Auchenharvie by that of another Cuninghame, Archibald of Waterstown, whom his dependents slew in pursuance of the blood feud.

Then came the revenge of the Cuninghames. In his abode in the adjacent shire of Renfrew the Master of Glencairn heard tell how the Montgomeries had slain the Laird of Waterstown. Old memories flashed upon him. He called to mind the burning of Kerelaw, and all the misdeeds of the enemy which he had done since then. He remembered how

Eglinton had dispossessed the Cuninghames of the Bailieship of the division, which was their's by right, and how their bands had roamed hither and thither, making it all but impossible for the most remote connection of the family of Glencairn to be abroad within sight of one of the castles of the Montgomeries. He had a long score to settle. Hitherto, though the fortunes of the feud had wavered, now inclining to the one side and now to the other, they had on the whole befriended the foe ; but the Fates that had frowned on him might also — must also — be compelled to smile on his enterprise. He planned retribution. Over all his lands in Renfrew he sent his couriers, and he called in his dependents from his estates in North Ayrshire as well. They came gladly. The revenge prompted in the mind of the master was not confined to himself. Every man on his domains had' heard tell the story of the unlimited treachery of the Montgomeries ; and as the tales spread from hamlet to hamlet, from castle to castle, from mouth to mouth, they were magnified in the telling, until it seemed a solemn duty to each Guniughame, and to each individual who followed in the train and fought under the banner of Glencairn, to wipe out in foray, in blood, and in retributory conflagration, the long series of misdeeds of the hated Eglinton. The Master found himself at the head of a large body of men, trained to arms, fit for troublous times, and for desperate adventure. They were as eager as he to march into the heart of the enemy's country, and they set forth on their expedition into Ayrshire, resolved to strike at the very centre of the enemy's strength. Their destination was the Castle of Eglinton. Their preparations had been made as far as possible in secret. No warning was sent before them, else the Earl might have been ready to give them greeting in force.

No sooner had they entered the lands of the Montgomeries than the Master of Glencairn encouraged his followers to slaughter and to depredation. Eglinton estate stretched near and far ; it had many fine homesteads, beeves fed on many a field, and the corn was ripe in the fields for the harvest. The farm houses sat peacefully in the autumn sun, their inmates all unconscious of what awaited them. The Cuninghames broke upon the scene with the fury of a winter's torrent, and as they passed on from point to point, and farm to farm, and from corn field to corn field, they left in their track the traces of rapine and of ravage. Before them waved the golden corn, or stood up cut by the patient reaper, in the fields. Before them grazed the cattle on tlie holms and in the meadows, or lay placidly ruminating under the grateful shelter of the autumn- tin ted trees. Before them were the houses of the peasantry, their dwellers either innocent of the coming storm, or, warned by the columns of smoke that rose up into the blue, or the glare that reddened the night sky, fleeing for their lives into places of refuge and of security. Before them rose up the Castle of Eglinton, with its stout, heavy walls looking down on the placid waters of the Lugton, running free from its birthplace in the beautiful little Loch Libo in Renfrewshire. Behind them what a scene ! The corn fired in the fields, the stafi" of life destroyed on its stem ; the cattle slaughtered on the grass, and the sheep on the braes ; the farm houses afire or smouldering in their ruins ; and many a peasant slaughtered beside his once happy home !

The Earl of Eglinton heard the news. He was in his house by the Lugton. Down by the coast was the Castle of Ardrossan, looking out across the Firth of Clyde to the Cumbraes, to the long stretch of the yellow sands of the Ayrshire coast, to the rugged mountain tops of Arran, and the peaks serrated and riven and jagged by the omnipotent forces of Nature in her earlier and her wilder forms, to the conical summit of Ailsa, and to the gateway by which the waves of the Atlantic roll up to the higher shores of Ayrshire. The chief of the Montgomeries gathered his retainers.

as many as he could muster, around him. He called his wife and family to make haste and tarry not, and without draw of bridle or breathing space he hurried across the few intervening miles, across the flat, level country, to that stronghold by the sea. There was no time to lose. From the turrets of Eglinton he could trace the coming, the avenging Cuninghames. The rising smoke told him where they were and what they were doing, and he knew that their destination was his abode. As he galloped oS he cast one longing, lingering look at the all-unconscious, slumbering keep wherein he dwelt, and he knew that when next he saw it, if ever he saw it again, it would be defaced, blackened, charred, and in ashes.

Nearer and nearer came the Master of Glencairn and his men, spreading destruction in their pathway. They were eager to be at the heart of the citadel, inflamed in their passions, and all but satiated with their revenge. Ah, but there was still a greater revenge in store for them ! Along the way they came where Lugton meanders, and their horse hoofs woke the echoes not unaccustomed to the elatterino- of irate horsemen, or the tread of men prepared for the battle. And there, before them at last, was the Castle of Eglinton, the ancestral home of the Montgomeries. They drew rein at its gates. N'o warder challenged them, no bowmen appeared on its walls, no spearsmen defended its battlements. All was silent and deserted. The birds had flown. The gates were driven in, the entrance was forced, and the Cuninghames ran riot over the castle. Materials were hastily gathered together with which to ignite the conflagration. The light was applied to them, the flames began to curl and to flicker, and to catch hold and to ascend. The woodwork was ablaze. It was indeed a goodly sio-ht for Glencairn and his men, and one that was well worth watching. As the smoke filled the castle they retired to the park, amid whose trees it stood, and watched the play of the conflagration. Here was a glorious revenge for the burning of Kerelaw. Kerelaw never made a blaze like that. The wind fanned the fire ; but it needed no fanning. It caught hold wherever there was footing for its scorching couriers. They licked the walls, they crackled on the oaken floors, they caught on the tapestry, on the paintings, on the ornaments, on the furniture. They plunged into recesses where valuables were hidden, and cleared them out as if they had been swept by the besom of destruction. They burst through the windows, and ci-ept up the stairs. They spread from floor to ceiling, and from ceiling to floor. They ransacked the muniment room ; and the records of the family of Eglinton back to the very days of the Norman Conquest, and before them, and the Charter to the lands of Montgomerie, given under the Great Seal, were changed into tinder. Crash went the floors, down fell the intermediate walls, and high above the housetops rose the infernal furnace. It roared in the air. Its heat made Glencairn and his watching followers stand back. And when the darkening came on, the castle glared in its own embers, its walls growing black upon the night, and within them a huddled, charred mass of debris. That was the Cuninghame.s' vengeance. Was it not worth their while ? Did it not obliterate many a savage memory, and kindle a sense of wrong done to them rectified ?

And when the fire had done its work the Master of Glencairn retraced his footsteps ; and, plundering, ravaging, burning as he went, he returned into Renfrewshire.

From his Castle of Ardrossan the Earl of Eglinton saw the smoke ascend into the sky. It was his turn to vow vengeance, and vow it verily he did. He took an oath to exact satisfaction against Glencairn, against the Cuninghames, for the day's doings. He promised himself that he would leave no stone unturned ; that life would be sacrificed for life, and home for home. If his roof-tree had blazed, so would those of the enemy. If his retainers had fallen, so would those of Glencairn. And his spirit he infused into the retainers, who, by his side, watched with him the tokens of the revenge of Glencairn.

But the revenge was not to be theirs ; for the Earl died, and with him all that generation. Fifty years sped away — fifty years of rancour and of alternating fortunes in the rivalry of the feudalists, and it was not until the April of 1.586 that an act of savagery on the part of the Cuninghames awoke to the full the slumbering fury in the breasts of the Montgomeries. It was another Glencairn, too, by this time, and other Cuninghames, but the blood feud was the same, passing on, handed down, irrespective of the flight of time and the changes of the actors in the tragedy.

It was in the spring-time of the year that the young Earl of Eglinton set out on a journey to Stirling, where the Scottish Court was sitting. He apprehended no danger. The feud, he knew, still ran; but not for many years — not, indeed, during his lifetime — had it broken out in anything like a virulent form. Scotland was gradually settling down to a condition of comparative rest and quiet, and the embers of the burning castles and farm-houses had grown cold long ere Earl Hugh had entered the scene he was destined to leave that April day that saw him on his way to meet his Sovereign. He was not backed by his men. None were with him save his immediate attendants, and when he set forth it was in the confident assurance that he would reach the heights of the City of the Rock, and see the gleaming Forth as it flowed along to the sea. April month ; the vernal influences were upon nature; but, though they coaxed the buds to open and to unfold, they could not coax the malignity and the memory from the revengeful Cuninghames. The Earl came to the house of Langshaw, and there he dined. The Lady of Langshaw was a Cuninghame. So was one of her maids. They knew beforehand that the Earl was coming, and they had consulted with David Cuninghame of Robertland, Alexander Cuninghame of Corsehill, Alexander Cuninghame of Aiket, and John Cuninghame of Clonbeith — a quartette of feudalists sworn by the ties of relationship, and by the remembrance of the past, to pay back upon the Montgomeries the deeds which had eventuated half a century agone.

These concealed themselves in proximity to Langshaw, and waited the signal agreed upon between them and their fellow, or sister-conspirators within. To assure them that the Earl was really there, the Lady or her maid was to display a tablecloth from one of the upper windows. They were to accomplish the rest. As soon as they saw the tablecloth flutter, they took their measures accordingly. Gathering around them a band of thirty followers, they rode towards a bridge spanning the Annick burn, in the parish of Stewarton, and there they concealed themselves. The Earl suspected nothing. No kindly monitor warned him that impending fate awaited him by the moorland burn. He bade his host and hostess good-bye, and rode off. It is not easy to comprehend the condition of the lady's mind when Lord Eglinton shook her by the hand and said farewell. She knew it was a long farewell that he spoke, and that ere the evening sun had set his soul should have gone out into the darkness of the future and the unknown. The party travelled easily, and reached the bridge without incident. Unhappily, danger unforeseen does not mean danger non-existent, and this the Earl found to his, cost, for, as he arrived at the spot selected by the conspirators, he was suddenly brought face to face with a company of armed and desperate men. They were behind him, before him, and on either side. The young chief of the Montgomeries did not need to be told that there was danger. He saw it. It encircled him. He would have given his horse the spur, but there was no exit by which he could hope to ride into safety ; so, perforce, he had to draw his sword and defend himself. His servants were unable to render him assistance, and those who could do so saved themselves by flight. The Cuninghames pressed in upon the Earl, striking at him with their swords and endeavouring to unhorse him. He grimly contested for his life — one man against a score. The odds was too powerful. He was wounded and bleeding, and as he reeled in his saddle John Cuninghame of Clonbeith drew his pistol and shot him dead. It was a cruel murder. Having accomplished their purpose, the conspirators and their retainers fled the scene. They had done the deed ; they had struck a deadly blow at the House of Montgomerie ; and, though they knew that the men of Eglinton would ere long be in the saddle and scouring the country on their mission of vengeance, they were gratified at having wiped out rnauy a bitter memory in the life-blood of the young chief from the banks of the Lugton.

When they bore Earl Hugh lifeless home, dire was the rage that filled the halls of the Montgomeries. The tidings spread like wild-fire. No messenger bearing the fiery cross ever sped faster across the straths and hills of the Highlands to call the clansmen to the battle. The broad lands which looked inwards upon Eglinton rang with the story and with the names of the murderers, and there were hurried consultations and ominous meetings, which boded no good to the Cuninghames. These resulted in a gathering of the heads of the various branches of the house and in the exchange of oaths and of resolutions to do by the foe as the foe had done by them. A life for a life was not the order of the day. The war must be pushed to closer quarters than that. Relentlessly, pitilessly, and with the tenacity of the sleuthhound, they must hunt down, not one Cuninghame, but many. Every man who had taken part in the trao-ic scene by Annick's bridge must be slain ; and the false lady who had fluttered the signal in response to which the

Cuninghames had awaited the coming of the Earl, must be denied the mercy usually accorded, even by the angriest of angry men, to women. She was the traitress. But for her the Laird of Montgomerie had not been slain. She was the Jael who had indirectly, if not directly, handled the hammer which had driven the nail into the temple of the young chief. And there was recalled many a deed done by the Cuninghames for which no atonement had yet been made. The long roll of their red-handed transactions was gone over, and with stern-set faces the Montgomeries addressed themselves to their task. The Cuninghames heard the tidings and sprang to arms. The Earl of Glencairn denied all knowledge or intent of the murder. He knew nothing of it, and as proof that he spoke in all sincerity he permitted the law to take its own course against his friends. But the law in those days and among the western lairds moved slowly, and its mills did not even grind small when they did grind. Its processes were too sluggish for the Montgomeries, and they preferred to redress their wrongs by the old rough-and-ready methods of their forefathers.