Ayrshire > Volume 2

THE MONTGOMERIES OF EGLINTON 63
husband, has diverted herself from his society and
company, thereby manifesting and uttering her
disloyal and false heart, to her great dishonour and
shame. For these reasons revokes the gifts which
he had made in favour of his undutiful Countess."
The Earl survived the revocation four years. He
died on 4th September, 1612, and with him ended the
direct male line of the Montgomeries, Earls of Eglinton.
It had previously been arranged that the third son
of the Countess of Winton, a daughter of the house of
Montgomerie, who was the nearest heir of Hugh, fifth
Earl of Eglinton, should be the successor to the Earldom.
Thus passed the Earldom to the house of Seton. Sir
Alexander Seton, the sixth Earl, accordingly took the
name of Montgomerie, and was infeft on the 30th of
October, 1612. His family and friends at once acknow-
ledged him as Earl, but King James challenged the
transference on the ground that it had been effected
without the royal sanction, and a controversy followed,
at the opening of which the Earl was insistent on his
rights, and in which, for a time, the King was obdurate
on the other side. By letters of 21st January, 1615,
addressed to the Secretary of State and the Lord
Advocate, the monarch demanded " a sufficient resig-
nation of the said stile and dignity, signed with his (the
Earl's) hand." By the 27th of February the required
demission was in the King's hand, but he does not seem
to have been willing to sanction Eglinton's use of the
family honours, and he accordingly instructed his
advisers " to advise before you give the infeftment out
of your hands if anything be to be added to the said
demission whereby to make it every way sufficient in
law" The same day King James issued another order
setting forth that he had no dislike of the gentleman,
whose family had by their service deserved all favours
from their Sovereign, " but that he and all others by
him might know that we, being the only author and
fountain of all dignity in our dominions, no means could