Page:Tournament at Eglinton Castle.pdf/24

24 The Montgomeries of Eglinton date their nobility from the time of William the Norman; and the first of the race known to British history signalised himself as leader of the first divsion of his kinsman William's array at the battle of Hastings, descendant of this wariorwarrior [sic], Sir J. Montgomery, of Eaglesham, in Renfrewshire, took Henry Lord Percy (Hotspur) prisoner with his own hand at the battle of Otterbourne; and marrying a daughter of the ancient house of Eglinton and Ardrossan, by whom he acquired those baronies, the honours and estates of that family were superadded to his paternal inheritance. In 1448 his son was created Lord Montgomery; and in 1507 tbethe [sic] rank of an Earl was conferred on this noble race; and the present Earl (who is also a British Peer) is tbethe [sic] thirteenth occupying that high position among the aristoeracyaristocracy [sic] of the empire, being connected by intermarriages, through a long and brilliant succession with many of the chief nobility of the land, and even with the ancient royal blood of Scotland. The Earl of Eglinton is in his 27th year; and succeeded to the large estate of his grandfather in 1819, when his Lordship was only seven, and hche [sic] had therefore a long minority.

Eglinton Castle is situate near the south-eastern extremity of Cunninghame, the most northerly of the three districts into which Ayrshire is divided, standing a short way inland in the bosom of the noble and town skirted bay of the Firth of Clyde, which stretcbesstretches [sic] in form of a crescent from the Cumbraes to Ballater. The distriotdistrict [sic] of couutrycountry [sic] which has seen the "field, feast and combat" of former times renewed, is rich in the most elevated associations. It is "the land of Bruce and of Burns." The ground has been ballowedhallowed [sic] by tbethe [sic] deeds of chivalry, the genius of poesy, the spirit of religion, and the energy of patient industry. It was here that Wallace, when the liberties of his country had been cloven down, first struggled to restore its independence; and here it was where "many a hero shone,"—

Nor should it be forgotten that in more recent times the hamlets of Kilwinning and Irvine, in the immediate vicinity of Eglinton Castle, were illustrated by the moral lights of another age—when Bailie and Dickson were pastors in these humble parsonages, yet were associated with the Nobles of the day in a great national movement two hundred years ago—nor that the wide-spread plains which now gladden the eye, smiling in all the golden promise of autumn's abundance, were once scourged and desolated by the bloody hand of persecution, under the auspices of the infamous Turner, and his yet more infamous masters.