Ayrshire > Volume 2

24 HISTORY OF AYRSHIRE
relations. These were the days when, in his tower by
the Doon, John Mure of Auchendrane sat plotting and
scheming how he might break the ascendancy of Cassillis
within the bailiary ; when Gilbert Kennedy of Bargany,
" the bold Bargany," was slain in conflict with the
forces of the Earl one winter day by the Brochloch
Burn, not far from Maybole ; when Sir Thomas Kennedy
of Culzean was assassinated by the Bargany factionaries
as he was riding past the chapel of St. Leonard, in the
outskirts of Ayr ; and when the lurid tragedy of Auchen-
drane slowly unfolded itself and ended its grim chapter
in the execution of the Mures, father and son, in
Edinburgh. Throughout it all the Earl held his own,
and finally emerged triumphant from a long and a
testing ordeal. That he was a man of action is evident
from the way he disposed of the brother of the Laird of
Stair, a cousin of Bargany, whom he captured near
Girvan, conveyed to Craigneil Castle, on the Stinchar,
granted an assize, and hanged the same evening from
the yett of the keep. He had a short time previously
joined with Bargany in a plot to take the Earl's life. The
Earl was rash enough to become Treasurer of Scotland,
a position that in those days invariably brought serious
loss to its holders. His term of office extended over no
more than a few weeks, and it involved him, it is said,
in a loss of about forty thousand merks.
The Earl's wife, Jean, widow of Lord Maitland of
Thirlstane, the Chancellor, " was much older than he
was, but was wealthy." He wedded her against the
advice of all his friends, and their domestic relations do
not appear to have been entirely unchequered. For he
so far forgot the proprieties on one occasion as to assault
her in the very Privy Council Chamber itself, and drag
her ignominiously forth from its sacred precincts. This
untoward and undignified proceeding was in the course
of a quarrel over a lease, and it involved him in
confinement in Blackness, November, 1604, and in the
condemnation of the King, and in his having to find
£5000 security to keep the peace towards his spouse.