Historical memoir of the family of Eglinton and Winton

112 BRANCHES OF THE
These were numerous, but the genealogists would
seem long to have been quite at issue with each
other as to the precedency of the two elder of
these sons. All the Peerage writers, from Craw-
furd downwards, unhesitatingly decide in favour of
Sir Neil Montgomerie, the original founder of the
long existent and highly respectable branch of
Lainshaw, whilst others give it in favour of his
brother William, designed of Greenfield, and who
married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Robert
Francis of Stanecastle, an original De Morville vas-
sal, and which property has now long been incor-
porated with the domain of Eglinton. This is no
doubt a troublesome point to be got over on either
side ; but unquestionably the preponderance of cir-
cumstantial argument would seem largely to rest
in favour of Lainshaw, though the direct line of
that branch has likewise long since given way.
About the beginning of the seventeenth century,
however, a younger son of Sir Neil Montgomerie,
third of Lainshaw, appears to have married an
heiress of the lands of Brigend, adjoining the " Auld
Brig o' Doon;" and from this remoter branch, in
comparatively recent times, a scion would seem to
have sought refuge in the northern parts of the
United States of America; and now, behold, a de-
scendant returns, reim r igorated in a fresh soil, to
track back the current of his descent, through Lain-
shaw, up to the chief dignity of the renowned barons
of Eglinton and Eaglesham, even to their divergence
from the potent old Norman chiefs of Shrewsbury!