Ayrshire > Volume 2

CHAPTER II
THE MONTGOMERIES OF EGLINTON
To get to the origin of the Montgomeries one requires
to go a long way back — further back than the days of
the eleventh century, when William Duke of Normandy
appeared at Pevensey to claim the throne of England as
next of kin to Edward the Confessor, appealing to the
promise of the great Confessor himself, and broke the
might of the Saxon monarchy at the battle of Senlac,
near Hastings. Among the Norman nobles who
accompanied him was Roger de Montgomerie, afterwards
Earl of Shrewsbury.
There was, between iooo and 1050, a Roger de
Montgomerie, who preceded him. The family even
then, there is little reason to doubt, was old, but this
Roger is the first who comes within the range of authentic
history. In addition to the Earl of Shrewsbury he had
four other sons. Two of them, William and Hugh,
made war on their neighbours in Normandy, and caused
much bloodshed. The third was accidentally poisoned,
1063, by his sister-in-law Mabel, the countess of his
brother Roger ; he died in the flower of his age, and
distinguished for his chivalrous gallantry. To his
paternal estates Roger had added, by his marriage, the
earldoms of Belesme and Alencon. and was one of the
wealthiest and most influential of all the Norman
nobility. He entered with great zeal into the expedition
■of the Conqueror, to whom he was allied by marriage,
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