Ayrshire > Volume 2

120 HISTORY OF AYRSHIRE
1811, died in 1817, and his grandfather erected to his
memory a marble monument in Eglinton Park which
hears this touching inscription : —
TO THE MEMORY OF HIS BELOVED GRANDSON,
HUGH,
WHO DIED THE I.3TH JULY, 1817,
AT THE AGE OF SIX YEARS AND A FEW MONTHS ;
A CHILD OF PROMISE.
ON THIS SPOT, ONCE HTS LITTLE GARDEN,
THIS STONE IS ERECTED
BY HIS AFFLICTED AND DISCONSOLATE
GRANDFATHER,
HUGH, EARL OF EGLINTON.
The fourth son, Archibald William, lived to be
thirteenth Earl of Eglinton. Lady Montgomerie
married, 1815, Sir Charles Mcntolieu Lamb of Beauport,
Bart., and died in 1848.
Archibald William, the thirteenth Earl of Eglinton,
was born at Palermo, in Sicily, on the 29th September,
1812. His father dying when he was two years old,
he was brought home and entrusted to the care of his
grandfather, who, as has been said, died in 1819. The
young Earl was educated at Eton.
The chief event in the earlier part of the Earl's life,
and with which his name is still largely associated, was
the famous Eglinton Tournament. His lordship cannot
have been otherwise than a close student of the glories
of the ancient chivalry. These, in their rude and
somewhat semi-barbaric splendour, appealed to him,
and he resolved to have them reproduced at home, amid
the quiet glades of Eglinton and the placid beauties of
the banks of the Lugton. To ensure the success of the
great revival, the Earl spared no pains. Enthusiastic
himself, he succeeded in enthusiasing others. The
armourers of London went to work on a department in
their industry to which the craft had long been strange,
Europe was ransacked to add to the glories of the scene,