History of the earldoms of Strathern, Monteith, and Airth

STRATHERN, MONTEITH, AND AIRTH. H'T"
She married Sir Patrick Graham, a cadet of the Proceedings
IN THE House
Graham family, who, in her riffht, was desisr- or Lords.
•^ P ° 9th July, 1839.
nated " Earl of Strathern:" and of that mar-
Speecli of Mr.
riage there was at least one son, Malise Earl of Knight Bruce.
Strathern, who succeeded his mother m her
title and estates. When a minor, however, he
was sent to England, as one of the hostages for
the ransom of King James the First, who was
detained many years in this country. A ransom
was demanded when he was sent back to Scot-
land, after his father's death, and several of the
nobility of Scotland were kept in England as his
hostages. Among those was his cousin Malise
Earl of Strathern, the son of Sir Patrick Graham
by the Countess Euphemia.
" During his absence, partly, it is probable,
from the reasons I have alluded to, and partly
from the desire that the First James so strongly
felt, and so frequently acted on, of diminishing
the power of the great nobility, the Earldom of
Strathern, with all its territories, was by Par-
liament unjustly seized into the King's hands
and annexed to the Crown, while Earl Malise
was in England, a hostage for the King, and in
his minority. As some compensation, however,
for this act of injustice, certain lands and estates,
of much less value and consequence, and a new
Earldom, were granted to Malise, who, thus de-
prived of the hereditary Earldom of Strathern,
h 2