Ayrshire > Volume 2

HISTORY OF AYRSHIRE
CHAPTER I
THE KENNEDYS OF CASSILLIS AND CULZEAN
The genesis of the Kennedys is, in the most literal
sense, wrapt in the mists of antiquity. There is little
reason to doubt that their progenitors were to be found
in Carrick, and in other parts of ancient Galloway, ere
yet the northern migration of the Norman Earls and
Barons had begun, and it is by no means a wholly
unwarrantable supposition that they were of that
ancient race, the Picts, part of the great Celtic family
who were already established in Scotland when the
Roman soldiers were in occupation of the country
southward of the Caledonian line, who remained in
actual possession of the land while the legionaries were
but strangers in it, and who resumed government after
their own fashion when the needs of the world-empire of
the period recalled its soldiers from these western
shores in the vain hope that they might be able to
preserve the heart of the citadel. This, we say, is
not by any means an unreasonable or a groundless
supposition.
There were Earls in Carrick before those of Cassillis.
Fergus, the Prince or Lord of Galloway, who died in
1161, had two sons, Uchtred and Gilbert. When
William the Lion invaded Northumberland in 1174,
they both followed in his train. Galloway broke into
rebellion as the result of the complications that ensued
on the monarch being taken prisoner, many loyal subjects
were murdered, the King's officers were expelled, and
Gilbert slew his brother, who had adhered to the King,