Ayrshire > Volume 2

THE MONTGOMERIES OF EGLINTON 119
the rank of Major-General in 1809, and was employed
on active service in Sicily in 1812 and 1813. For a time
he represented the King at the Court of Palermo.
Ill-health compelled him to leave Italy, and he died at
Alicante, 1814, to the great grief of his aged father, and
was buried in the Convent Chapel at Gibraltar. The
epitaph on his grave is believed to have been written by
Canning. A portion of it is as follows : —
Of Caledonia's land the grace,
Chief scion of an ancient race,
Of Eglinton the hope and boast,
Belov'd, admir'd ,and early lost ;
From life and all its blessings torn,
And here by weeping strangers borne,
Montgomerie, model for the brave,
Was destined for this foreign grave ;
Sternly refused the wish'd-for blow,
By cruel death ! insidious foe !
He fell by slow disease and pain,
Oh ! why not on the battle plain ?
Why ! why ! denied his ardent claim
To die the soldier's death of fame ?
Mourners he hushed, he shared the fate
Of many a gallant chief and great.
But, soldier ' thou may'st shed a tear,
Thy leader and thy friend lies here.
If thus a soldier's tear may seek
The war-worn furrow in his cheek ;
And strangers feel the mournful gloom
That wraps Montgomerie' s timeless tomb.
By the marriage, 1803, of Lord Montgomerie with
Lady Mary Montgomerie, only surviving daughter of
Archibald, eleventh Earl of Eglinton, and heiress of the
large estates acquired by her grandfather, the male and
female lines of the family were united. Lady Mary,
according to her cousin-germain, the Lord Chief Baron
Macdonald, was " most properly of opinion that the
marriage should not take place till she should have
completed her sixteenth year." Of this marriage there
were four sons. The first and second survived but a
few hours. The third, Hugh Lord Montgomerie, born