Ayrshire > Volume 2

THE KENNEDYS n
" constand in mynd, in thocht, word, and werk."
Nevertheless, he seems, according to Dunbar, to have
been a wild, boorish Celt — -
" Ersch Katherane, with thy polk breig and rilling."
In other words, an Irish cateran, with speckled bag, and
rough shoes made of undressed hides. This allusion to
the parson's footgear is interesting in so far as nearly
two hundred years before this there was a Kennedy
who was the Captain of the Clan " Muinntirr cas dubh "
(people of the black feet), so called because, unlike other
tribes, they wore the hairy side of their brogues outside.
Walter is referred to in Dunbar's " Lament of the
Makars," written between 1505 and 1508, as lying
verily at the point of death, but he seems to have
recovered, he was still parson of Douglas in 1510, and it
was not until 1518 that his son and namesake was
infefted as his father's heir.
After the six sons came two daughters, one of whom,
Katherine, married the grandson and heir to the first
Lord Montgomerie ; the other, Marion, who contracted
to marry first into the Wallace family and then into
the Boyds, but who does not seem to have fulfilled
either contract. The succession to the first Lord
Kennedy fell to John, the eldest son. This gentleman
appears to have had a weakness for falling into arrears
with his accounts, and to have spent a good deal of his
time getting off fines imposed for some breach of the
law or other. In 1497-98 he furnished a small ship for
the King's service, which was known as Lord Kennedy's
" pykkert." He died about 1508, having been twice
married ; first to a daughter of Lord Montgomerie, and
second to a daughter of the Earl of Enroll, by both of
whom he had issue.
David, the third Lord Kennedy, was the eldest of
nine children. His brother Alexander got a charter of
the lands of Girvanmains from his father, 1481, and
married Janet Stewart, Countess of Sutherland ; and
his son, Sir Hugh Kennedy of Girvanmains, was a
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