Genealogical account of the family of Edmonstone of Duntreath

GENEALOGICAL ACCOUNT OF
son Lord Livingston, to Sir William Livingston of Kilsyth, upon the
payment of 55,000 merks, A.D. 1620. Sir James having suffered much for
his attachment to the Royal cause, having been moreover fined by Cromwell
to the amount of £1500, and his houses destroyed, was immediately, on
the restoration of Charles II., created Baron of Campsie and Viscount of
Kilsyth. His eldest son, who succeeded him, died unmarried, but William,
third Viscount, having engaged in the rebellion of 1715, was attainted, and his
estate, valued at £864 per annum, forfeited to the Crown. He married first,
Jean, daughter of William Lord Cochrane, and widow of the celebrated
Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee, by whom he had one son, who
both came to their end in the following remarkable manner. It would seem
that, having been actively engaged in opposition to the Revolution Settle-
ment of 1688, after the battle of Killiekrankie, he retired to Holland, where
the catastrophe occurred which is thus related in a letter of John Hay of
Carubber to the Earl of Errol, dated Edinburgh, 30th October 1695 : —
' By the post yesterday I had a letter from young Blair out of Utrecht,
with a particular but sad accident of the Viscountess of Dundee and her
son. He writes that he had dined with her and Kilsyth her husband, and
after dinner, just as he had left them, the Lady and Kilsyth, and
a gentleman with them, went into the room where the young child and
Mrs. Melville, the Lady's woman, were. The house was covered with turf,
the ordinary fuel for fire in that place, and it is thought by the weight of
it the roof fell and crushed my Lady and her son and Mrs. Melville to
death. Kilsyth himself was three-quarters of an hour beneath the rubbish,
yet both he and the other gentleman are free of hurt. The Lady and her
son are embalmed to be brought home. The gentlewoman was buried
in that place on the 18th instant, old style, after dinner.' 1
In 1795, just a hundred years after, the vault was accidentally opened,
and the bodies were discovered in a, perfect state of preservation, which
occasioned attention for a time till the vault was again closed. William
Livingston, who succeeded subsequently to the peerage on the death of his
brother, married to his second wife, Barbara, daughter of M'Dougal of
Makerston, by whom he had a daughter who died young. Lord Kilsyth died
at Rome, under attainder, in 1733, and with him the family became extinct.
1 Note 15, Appendix. The spelling of this letter is modernized.