Ayrshire > Volume 1

138 HISTORY OF AYRSHIRE
the Commendatorship of the Abbey of Kilwinning, in
some measure a partial counterpoise for the loss of the
Bailieship of the division. There may have been
individual matters of faith, or of policy, at stake ;
whether or not, the general state of the times was inimical
to the spirit of amity between clans with a record of
feudal hatred so long and so engrained as that of the
rival lords of North Ayrshire. The embers were
smouldering all the time, and it only required a touch of
the torch to rekindle the conflagration in all its fury.
And the touch of the torch was not lacking.
It was the Spring of 1586, and Hugh, the fourth
Earl of Eglinton, then in the early prime of life, set
forth to ride to Stirling, where the Court was sitting at
the time. On his way, and within easy ride of the castle
on the banks of the Lugton, was the house of Lainshaw,
close by the ancient town of Stewarton. The baron who
dwelt there, a scion of the house of Eglinton, was wedded
to Margaret Cunninghame, a daughter of the rival
faction, and who, according to the story that has been
handed down, had, nothwithstanding her alliance,
retained intact and unimpaired her family hatred for
the Montgomeries. The story of what befel, and its
consequences, is thus told in a manuscript history of
the Eglinton family : —
" The principal perpetrators of this foul deed
were John Cunninghame, brother of the Earl of
Glencairn, David Cunninghame of Robertland, Alexander
Cunninghame of Corsehill, Alexander Cunninghame of
Aiket, and John Cunninghame of Clonbeith. The good
Earl, apprehending no danger from any quarter, set out
on the 15th April, 1586, from his own house of Eglinton,
towards Stirling, where the Court then remained, in a
quiet and peaceable manner, having none in his retinue
but his own domestics, and called at the Lainshaw,
where he stayed so long as to dine. How the wicked
crew, his murderers, got notice of his being there I cannot
positively say. It is reported, but I cannot aver it lor a
truth, that the Lady Langshaw, Margaret Cunninghame,