History and traditions of the land of the Lindsays in Angus and Mearns

156 LAND OF THE LINDSAYS.
gavies, and other popish friends, bore so conspicuous a part in
the Spanish faction of 1588, that he engaged to assist the King
of Spain to make himself master of Scotland, for which, with the
Earls of Huntly, Errol, and Bothwell, he was tried, and being
found guilty of conspiracy, was laid in prison ; but a general
amnesty being granted to all state prisoners on the marriage of
the King with Anne of Denmark, Crawford was set at liberty
with the rest, and died soon after. And it is worthy of notice,
that he is the only one of his long and noble line of ancestors
of whom any trace exists about the old castle of Finhaven.*
Little was to be hoped from Earl David's successor, since
the welfare neither of his body nor his soul was matter of any
concern to his father ; for while he was attending College at St.
Andrew's, his "pedagogue" informs the amiable Lord Men-
muir that it is " three years since the Master gat any clothing,
saif one stand (suit) at the King's beand in our town. I have
supplyit thir defects as my poverty and credit could serve, — there
is no hope of redress, but either to steal of the town, or sell our
insight (furniture), or get some extraordinar help, gif it were
possible. Haifing therefore used your Lordship's mediation,
[I] thought guid to crave your counsel in this straitness — as it
were betwix shame and despair. The Master, beand now become
ane man in stature and knowledge, takes this heavily, but
patiently, because he is, with this strait handling, in small ac-
compts with his marrows, — yet, praisit be God ! above all his
equals in learning. We have usit," he adds, " since your Lord-
ship's beand in St. Andrew's, all possible moyen, in all reverence
(as we ought) and humility," in dealing with the Earl, " but
little or nothing mendit."f
Left an orphan by his mother, and so little cared for by his
father, had this Earl been other than reckless, it might well have
been deemed a marvel ; and, thus, under the guise of extirpating
crime, while, in reality, he had the resentment of private animo-
sity and the gratification of a vicious appetite only in view, he
joined a band of unprincipled clansmen, who harried the lands
and slew the nearest of their kin. It was he who murdered his
* This i9 a broken stone slab which was picked from the ruins of the castle, and built into
the wall of an adjoining house. It bears a shield, charged with the initials and date— "E. D.
]j, 1593," with the ring, or corunala, of the coronet overtopping the whole.
1 Lives, vol. ii. p. 50.