Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/370

 him that of Earl of Airth, with the precedency due to the earldom of Menteith, created in 1427, promising also to continue his favour (, Red Book of Menteith, ii. 49). The legal right of Menteith to prosecute his claim to Strathearn was never really impugned by his enemies, who sought, though it proved impracticable, to destroy every document which could aid in proving his connection with Robert II.

Menteith's enemies now spread reports that he had boasted of his blood, and thought his right to the crown as good as the king's. The queen was induced to speak to Charles, who was intending to go to Scotland for his coronation. Charles promised to settle the matter when there. Meanwhile he wrote to the Scottish council to investigate the truth of the report. Only hearsay evidence was produced, but Charles was impressed, and after reaching Holyrood fixed a day for the trial. It is doubtful if any trial took place. The earl absolutely denied that he could have used any such phrase, unless in jest, but submitted to the king's clemency. The king then ordered him to retire to his house at Airth, and he was ultimately condemned to deprivation of all his offices and pensions, and also of the gifts of money made to him by the king, none of which had hitherto been honoured. The Earl of Airth demitted all these in November 1633, and retired to his own house. Here his creditors set upon him, and threatened his estates. He wrote to the king that he was almost ruined, and Charles arranged with Traquair, the Scottish treasurer, and other members of council that relief should be afforded. But Traquair was a secret enemy, and delayed the promised relief. Airth had to sell or mortgage most of his estates, and part with his plate. At his death it was computed that the crown owed him 50,000l.

When the covenanting struggle began in 1637, the council was ordered by the king to relieve the earl from confinement to his own estates. As he declined to take part with the covenanters, he again grew in favour with Charles, who reappointed him a member of the privy council, and made both him and his eldest son, John, lord Kilpont, lieutenants of Stirlingshire for the raising of troops against the covenanters. In 1644 Kilpont was posted at the hill of Buchanty in Glenalmond, Perthshire, by the covenanters (to whom he appears temporarily to have submitted), for the purpose of resisting the Marquis of Montrose in his advance towards Perth. Instead of resisting, he joined Montrose, and took part in defeating the covenanters at Tippermuir. A few days later, however, he was assassinated in the camp by James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, one of his own followers. Airth lived through the period of the Commonwealth, and died in January 1661.

The earldom of Airth was inherited by his grandson, William, eighth earl of Menteith, son of John, lord Kilpont, by Lady Mary Keith, daughter of William, earl Marischal. The estates being heavily mortgaged, this earl went to London to seek payment of the debt due to his grandfather, without results. He was so impoverished that in 1681, anxious to attend the meeting of parliament, he begged his kinsman, James Graham, third marquis of Montrose, to borrow a robe for him. He ultimately made over his lands to Montrose, as he had no issue. The honours of the family were claimed by the descendants of the eldest sister of this earl, who married Sir William Graham of Gartmore. Their representative in the middle of the eighteenth century assumed the title of Earl of Menteith, though forbidden by the House of Lords to do so, and was afterwards known as the ‘Beggar Earl,’ having in his latter years been reduced to mendicancy. He was found dead in a field in 1783, and soon afterwards that branch of the family became extinct. The second daughter of John, lord Kilpont, married Sir John Allardice of Allardice, Kincardineshire, and their descendant and representative, Robert Barclay Allardice [q. v.], of Ury and Allardice, in 1834 and 1840, and his daughter, Mrs. Barclay Allardice, in 1870 claimed the peerage of Airth and Menteith, but without success.

[Fraser's Red Book of Menteith; Sir Harris Nicolas's Hist. of the Earldoms of Strathearn and Menteith; Airth's Peerage Minutes.] 

GRAHAM, WILLIAM (1737–1801), minister in the united secession church, was born 16 March 1737 at Carriden in Linlithgowshire, where his father was steward to the Earl of Hopetoun. He was educated at Borrowstounness grammar school, and was afterwards for three years with a writer to the signet at Edinburgh. Eventually he decided to enter the ministry, studied under Alexander Moncrieff at Abernethy, and when only eighteen was appointed to take charge of the philosophical class in the seminary of the secession church. In 1758 he was licensed to preach. In 1759 he became first seceding minister at Whitehaven. He was minister of the Close meeting-house at Newcastle from 1770 till his death, 29 Jan. 1801. He married in 1759 Mary, daughter of George Johnstone of Whiteknow in Dumfriesshire. Graham was a man of liberal sentiments, and is said to have been an excellent scholar. He made a special study of mathematics in the hope of discovering a method for finding