Ayrshire > Volume 2

270 HISTORY OF AYRSHIRE
When his lordship awoke and learned that the cause of
his wife's dishevelled and bloody figure was his own
conduct, he was so stung by remorse as- never afterwards
to take any species of drink except what was sanctioned
by her ladyship."
The correspondence of this period of the Earl's
mother, the Dowager Countess of Stair, with her son,
is an interesting admixture of politics, piety, and domestic
detail. The death of Queen Anne averted the threatened
peril of a Jacobite Administration and assured the
succession of the Elector of Hanover. The Queen's
death the Dowager Countess regards "as a surprising
show of Providence, which is certainly the ground of
high praise to God," and she expresses the hope that
" the nations may live under the due impression of the
greatness of their deliverance." From the demise of
the Sovereign her ladyship turns to the fear that the
Earl will " get but a bad market for his black cattle,"
but comforts herself with the reflection that " if all
other things be well, there will be the less matter of
that." In a second letter she returns to the Queen's
death as a proof that " the scales of the earth belong
unto the Lord, and that He governs the nations," and
counsels her son not to neglect to " ratify his baptismal
covenant by partaking of the Lord's Supper." A few
days later she returns to the black cattle, and expresses
a fear that it may be necessary to send them up to
England to sell them. The Earl's dogs interest her,
and his furniture at Castle Kennedy, and she commends
her son to " the conduct of the good providence of God."
This special commendation was evoked by the Earl's
appointment as British envoy to the French Court,
though at first without being invested with the rank
of Ambassador.
It was on January 23, 1715, that Lord Stair, leaving
his wife and daughter in Scotland to follow later, arrived
at the Court of France. Here he spent the five following
years, and very trying and complicated years the Earl
found them to be. At heart he appears to have disliked