Montgomery manuscripts

The Montgomery Manuscripts.
n
friends advising him), he marryed about Alio. 1587, the Laird of Greenock's daughter^ with content
to the said earle and all his relations in kindred, and lived in peace and amity with all his neighbours,
till grossly injured by Maxwell, Laird of New Ark,3 6 near Greenock; which abuse his martial soul
could not brook. This occasioned divers of the 6th Laird's attempts against the said Maxwell,
who declined to give him gentlemanly satisfaction, but the bickering on both sides surceased on a
reconciliation (made by their friends) between them.
The said Laird having now acquired or conciliated an interest in the bonnes graces of his Prince,
as above said, it happened he had an affront put upon him by the earle of Glencairne's eldest son,
daughter of Adam Montgomery of Broadstone, and sister
to Hugh, Lord Viscount Ards in Ireland." — Scottish Jour-
nal of Topography, Antiquities, &fc, vol. i., p. 308.
3S Greenock's daughter. — This laird is called James Shaw
in the first viscount's Funeral Entry, and John Shaw by
Crawford, in his Description of the Shire of Renfrew, 18 18,
p. 1 25. His family had possessed the lordship or manor of
Wester Greenock from the time of King Robert III. He
married his cousin Jean, daughter of John Cunningham of
Glengamock, by whom he had a family of five sons and
six daughters. The eldest of the latter, named Elizabeth,
married Hugh, sixth laird of Braidstane, as mentioned in
the text ; the second, Isabel, married John Lindsay, of
the Dunrod family ; the third, Marian, married Camp-
bell of Dovecoathall ; the fourth, Christian, married Pat-
rick Montgomery of Blackhouse, in Largs, and Creboy,
in the parish of Donaghadee ; the fifth, Geeles, married
James Crawford of Flattertown ; and the sixth (whose
Christian name we cannot discover) married Andrew
Nevin, second laird of Monkrodding, in the parish of Kil-
winning. Crawford has no mention of John Shaw's
daughter married to Nevin ; in the enumeration of the sons
in Greenock's family, he has omitted John, who came
with sir Hugh Montgomery to the Ards, and erroneously
states that Robert Shaw was founder of the family of this
surname in the County of Down. The old castle of the
Shaws, or as much of it as could be made available, was
incorporated with the handsome family residence of the
Shaw-Stewarts, which occupies the original site, on an
elevated terrace, at a little distance west of Greenock. This
structure may be described as both old and new, the old
portions being easily distinguished by their narrow win-
dows and peaked gables, and the modem additions by their
superior arrangements for domestic comfort. Over an en-
trance to the house is the date 1637. This castle con-
tinued to be the residence of the Shaws, and more recently
of their representatives, the Shaw-Stewarts, until the year
I754> when the family removed to Ardgowan, which is
still their favourite abode. Macdonald, Days at the Coast,
pp. 91, 92. " On the death of Sir John Shaw, the last of
the name, in 1752, Mr. Shaw-Stewart, afterwards Sir John
Shaw-Stewart, eldest son of Sir Michael Stewart of
Blackhall, succeeded to these estates in right of his mother
and grandmother, then deceased; the latter, wife of Sir
John Houston of Houston, being the daughter and heiress
of entail of Sir John Shaw, the father of the baronet of
that name above mentioned, and sister of the last Sir
John. Sir John Shaw Stewart died in 1812, and was
succeeded by his nephew, Sir Michael Stewart, at. that
time Mr. Nicolson, of Carnock. On his death in 1825,
he was succeeded in the possession of his estate by his
eldest son, the late Sir Michael Shaw-Stewart ; and at his
death, on the 19th of Dec, 1836, he was succeeded by his
eldest son, the present Sir Michael Robert Shaw Stewart,
a minor." — Neiu Slat. Account of Renfrewshire, p. 412.
36 Laird of Newark. — This was Patrick Maxwell, laird
of Newark at the time referred to in the text, an active
partisan of the Cunninghams in the great feud between
them and the Montgomerys. The quarrel here noticed
between the lairds of Braidstane and Newark had, no doubt,
arisen from this unhappy source. Maxwell's mother was
a Cunningham, of the family of Craigens, and, in 1584,
Patrick Maxwell of Stainlie, a near connexion of the Max-
wells of Newark, was slain in a conflict with the Mont-
gomerys of Skelmorlie . In another fight, which occurred
only three months afterwards, Robert Montgomery, laird
of Skelmorlie, and his eldest son, were slain by the Max-
wells. Montgomery's second son, Robert, thus suddenly
became, as Maxwell of Newark expressed it, "Young laird
and old laird of Skelmorlie in one day." Patterson,
Account of the Parishes and Families of Ayrshire, vol. ii. p.
310. It was in preparation, no doubt, for some of the con-
flicts above mentioned, that Patrick Maxwell penned the
following letter to his kinsman, the laird of Nether Pollok,
on the 27th of January, 1585 : —
" Rycht Honorable, — Eftirharthecommendatioune : I am informit
of swm interpryse of my enemeis a-gins me, and at the Raid of
Stirling mony of our hagbitis was taine fra ws : Quhair for I pray
zow, sir, to lat me haif the lame (loan) of ane cwpple of hagbitis,
and ze sell haif thame againe within twentie days. As also, gif ony
occasiowne fortownis that I maun chairge freindis, I haif no dowt,
upon my nixt adverteisment, bot that ze will be reddie in defence of
my lyif and honestie : As ze sell find me reddie to requyt zour guid-
will quhen occasiowne serwis, as knowis God, qwha mot preserwe
zou eternallie. — From Newark ; the xxvii. day of Januar, 1585.
" Zour lowyng freind at power,
" P. Maxwell, of Neverk.
"To the rycht honorabill and my special frend, the Laird of
Nether Pollok, Knycht."— Fraser, Memorials, vol. i., p. 180.
The old castle of the Maxwells of Newark stands on the
banks of the Clyde, in the immediate vicinity of Port
Glasgow, and consists of a "keep," built about the year
1400, with several additions of a later period. Some of
the walls still exhibit armorial bearings, and over several
of the elegantly carved windows are still to be seen the
letters P. M., the initials of almost all the lords of the
Castle, for each in succession bore the Christian name
of Patrick. In a comer of the court, over an old doorway,
is the following inscription, originally intended as a pious
consecration of the building: — The Blessingis of God be
herein. Only the two figures 97 remain of the date accom-
panying this inscription. It was probably 1497. Above one