Genealogical memoirs of the family of Robert Burns and of the Scottish house of Burnes

34 GENEALOGICAL MEMOIRS OF
noble Keiths Marischal, and had the honour of sharing their
fate. I mention this because it threw rny father on the
world at large. They followed boldly where their leaders led,
and welcomed ruin and shook hands with infamy, for what
they believed to be the cause of their God and their king."
In a letter to Lady Winifred Maxwell Constable, in December
1789, the poet remarks : " Though my fathers had not illustri-
ous honours and vast properties to hazard in the contest;
though they left their humble cottages only to add so many
units more to the unnoted crowd that followed then leaders,
yet what they could they did, and what they had they lost.
With unshaken firmness, and unconcealed political attach-
ments, they shook hands with ruin for what they esteemed
the cause of their king and country." In his poetical address
to William Tytler, he refers to the subject thus:
" My fathers that name have rever'd on a throne,
My fathers have fallen to right it ;
Those fathers would spurn their degenerate son,
That name should he scoffingly slight it."
It is matter of history that the poet's grandfather and
granduncle rented farms on the estate of the Earl Marischal,
the former at Clochnahill, in the parish of Dunnottar, the
latter at Elf hill, in the parish of Fetteresso. It is also certain
that the Marischal family were undeviating adherents of the
exiled house. George, tenth Earl Marischal, landlord of the
brothers Burnes, proclaimed at Aberdeen, on the 28th Sep-
tember 1715, at the head of his retainers, the Chevalier St
George as King of Great Britain. He commanded two squad-
rons of cavalry at the battle of Sheriffmuir, and iu December
thereafter again proclaimed the Chevalier at the gate of his
house at Fetteresso. For his adherence to the Jacobite cause