Volume 6

864
Scoto-Saxon period (v) and has continued so to the present times. At
Cardross, on the west side of the river Leven, Robert I. built a castle, and
formed the adjacent lands into a park of considerable extent, which was
called the King's Park of Cardross (w). In this castle the illustrious
restorer of the Scottish monarchy occasionally resided, and in it he died
on the 7th of June 1329 (x). The remains of this great man were interred
near those of his consort, in the middle of the choir of the church of Dun-
fermline, where they have been found during recent times. Of the castle of
Cardross not a vestige remains, but the small eminence on which it stood
retains the name of the Castle-hill. Balloch castle, at the south end of Loch
Lomond, not far from the issue of the river Leven, was a seat of the Earls
of Lennox in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, and many of
their charters are dated at this castle (y), whereof nothing remains but the
fosse. The Earls of Lennox built a strong castle in a more secure and
defensible situation on the island of Inch-murrin, in Loch Lomond (z). This
castle was long the chief messuage of the earldom and of the dukedom of
Lennox (a). It is now in ruins. At Catter (6) on the Endrick, the Earls of
Lennox had another castle, which stood near to the Moot-hill of Catter, a
large artificial mound of earth where justice was administered in former
times, and whereon stood the Earl's Gallows, the necessary associate of the
(v) In 1238 Maldowen Earl of Levenax obtained from Alexander II. a charter confirming to him
the earldom of Levenax, which, his father Earl Alwin held, excepting the castle of Dunbreton with
the lands and the port of Murrach, and the fishing on either side of the river Leven as far as the
Murrach extends. Chart. Lennox, i. 17. Murrach was the name of a place in the vicinity of the
castle and town of Dumbarton.
(w) Malcolm Earl of Lennox resigned to Robert I. the seigniorage of the carucate of land of
Cardross, for which he was compensated by a grant of the half of the lands of Lekie in Stirlingshire.
Regist. Mag. Sig. Rot., i. 90. Adam the son of Alan resigned to the same king a two-mark land
within the barony of Cardross, and obtained in compensation the lands of Moyden. Robertson's
Index, p. 15. John Reid obtained from David II. a charter of the lands which are called Pelanyflat,
within the King's Park of Cardross, and of the lands' of Dalgwarne in Dumbartonshire. Reg.
Mag. Sig., b. i. 21. The lands of Cardross belonged to the king in 1457. Sir L. Stewart's
Coll., 238.
(x) Fordun, 1. xiii. 14; Barbour's Bruce, iii. 161; and Hemingford, ii. 270, who was contemporary
with Robert Bruce.
(y) Chart. Lennox, passim.
(z) This castle was a seat and stronghold of the Earls of Lennox in 1393. Chart. Lennox, ii. 7, 24.
It was probably built during the succession war.
(a) Acta Parl., viii. 250.
(6) There was probably some stronghold at this place in early times, as the name appears to be
derived from the British Cader, signifying a fortress.