Ayrshire > Volume 2

220 HISTORY OF AYRSHIRE
dated 1307. His son, Hugh, appears to have been a man
of some eminence. He was one of the Barons who were
appointed to meet James I. at Durham in 1423, and
John Campbell, a son of Hugh, was one of the hostages
for the ransom of the King the following year. This Sir
John, son and heir of George, was one of the Scottish
nobility who accompanied Margaret, daughter of James
II., to France, on the occasion of her marriage with the
Dauphin : he died about 1450. His widow bequeathed
funds to support a chapel, in 145 1. This little kirk
became Loudoun Kirk, and its remains, the sanctuary of
many members of the noble family so long identified
with the district, may be seen to this day. Sir John died
childless, and he was succeeded by his brother, Sir
George, who received a charter conferring on him the
hereditary Sheriffship of Ayr. F 7 :!
These are but scanty memories of the olden days
when as yet this family was in its comparative youth,
but they are memories nevertheless of those who played
their part in the stormy history of a changeful period
in Scotland. The Campbells played their part, and no
inconspicuous part either, in the evolution of the county.
They were interwoven by marriage with the Kennedys
of Carrick, with the Cuninghames, with the Wallaces,
and with the family of Auchinleck, and they shared
with these and with other notable families of the olden
time in the troubles and trials of the period.
It has already been told in the story of the Kennedys,
how, in the autumn of 1527, when Gilbert, the second
Earl of Cassillis, was at Prestwick, possibly holding a
Court, he was set upon by a strong party of Kyle
feudalists, led by Sir Hugh Campbell, the Sheriff of Ayr,
and assassinated ; and tradition, if not authentic history,
has handed on the tale of the revenge perpetrated upon
the Campbells by the Carrick men, when they fired the
Campbell keep of Achruglen and roasted the lady of
Loudoun and her children in the pyre. The law
reciprocated more swiftly in this case of the Earl's
slaughter than in these days it was wont to do. In the