Ayrshire > Volume 2

60 HISTORY OF AYRSHIRE
deserve his fatherly blessing. To this counsel the son
gave little regard, but that was to his pains ; and the
domestic enemy was so crafty indeed that he would
attempt nothing during the life of the father, for
many respects. But within short time thereafter,
as the noble Earl was passing a short way in pastime,
accompanied with a very few of his household servants,
and ill- horsed himself, Robertland, accompanied with
sixty armed men, came running furiously against him
upon horseback, and the Earl, fearing the thing that
followed, spurred his horse to have fled away. His
servants all fled another way from their master, and
he was left alone. The horsemen all ran on him, and
unmercifully killed him with shots of guns and strokes
of swords. The complaint of this odious murder
being made to the King, he caused the malefactors
to be charged to a trial. But they all fled beyond sea.
Robertland, who was the first that made the invasion,
passed to Denmark, where he remained at Court till
the King came to Queen Anne. And because none of
the rest could be apprehended, the King ordained
their houses to be rendered to the Earl's brother, to
be used at his arbitrament, either to be demolished
or otherwise ; and he swore the great oath that he
should never pardon any of them that had committed
that odious murder. Yet, how soon his Majesty was
arrived in Denmark, hir (Robertland's) pardon was
demanded of the Queen for the first petition, and the
same was obtained, and he was received in grace
there, in presence of them all. Thereafter he came
home in the Queen's company, and remains as one of
her Majesty's master stablers."
This is not the generally accepted account of this
odious deed. According to that, the Earl was killed
at the Annick ford, near Stewarton, when he was on his
way to Court, then being held at Stirling, under circum-
stances involving the direct complicity of the wife of
Montgomerie of Lainshaw, who is said to have been a