Ayrshire > Volume 2

54 HISTORY OF AYRSHIRE
the Crown, and this step had been hotly resented by
Cunninghame, the lord of Kilmaurs. Steps had been
taken to bring about a condition of peace between the
rival factions. Lord Kilmaurs had been compelled to
find security for his followers keeping the peace ; an
influential Commission had pronounced a decreet
finding that the Earl of Eglinton had full and heritable
right to the Bailieship ; and in 1523, at the instance of
the Regent Albany, a wedding had been arranged
between representatives of the two houses in the hope
that it might tend towards their pacification. But the
sore rankled. Kerelaw had been burned, and its burning
had to be avenged. The Master of Glencairn mustered
his men and marched upon Eglinton. The Earl was
not prepared to receive them, and had to seek refuge in
the stronghold of Ardrossan, and they descended upon
the castle of Eglinton, on the banks of the Lugton, and
consigned it to the flames. It was a serious burning for
the Montgomeries that. In their strong room were
their charters, their deeds, papers that, carried their
history back to the times of the Norman Conquest, and
that, once gone, could never be replaced. Eglinton
and Ardrossan muniments were doubtless stored there
as well. But the fires that cracked and rove the
masonry, that brought the ceilings down and the roof
on top of them, and that searched every nook and cranny
of the castle, made short work of the records. It was
vain to search for them when the embers had grown
cold. The}' were gone, never to be replaced. There
were many more serious incidents in the feud than this,
but, from the historian's point of view, none more
disastrous. Contemporaneous with the feud with
Glencairn were other troubles of a similar character.
Thus, early in the sixteenth century, there was conflict
between John Mure of Caldwell and Sir John Maxwell
of Nether Pollock, and the life of the latter would have
been sacrificed to the vengeance of Mure but for the
timely intervention of the Earl of Eglinton. " With
great instance and supplication," he secured the release