Ayrshire > Volume 1

CHAPTER VII
THE AYRSHIRE VENDETTA
It could serve no good purpose to examine into the
morale of the series of blood feuds that were characteristic
of the Ayrshire of the sixteenth century. They had
begun earlier, and they extended into the opening
years of the seventeenth century, but it was the sixteenth
century — the period of the first Reformation — that was
essentially the era of the vendetta. It was one of the
products of the times, due to the disturbed condition of
the country, the lack of control at the instance of the
Crown, and the power wielded by the great nobles. The
Reformation, though not on the religious side, had a
share in accentuating it, if not in its origin ; for first the
prospective, and then the actual overthrow of the Church
of Rome in Scotland, with the consequent transference
of rich lands and heritages to the nobility, begat a series
of interested jealousies that, as the times went, could
only have resulted in those appeals to force that were so
much more effective at headquarters than anything
merely after the manner of moral suasion could have
been. The blood feud cannot possibly be defended on
the social or moral code of the twentieth century, but it
was the custom of the country ; it was a recognition of
the fact that, whether might was right or not, it was the
only thing that could practically avail. The Crown
was not strong enough to put the rival feudalists
down, and so it stood aside in large measure, and let the
rivals fight it out.