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between seven and eight years. A descendant, Sir David, of Cumbernauld, distinguished himself at the battle of Otterburn, and was one of a Commission appointed to treat for peace with England in 1405. Having seen Prince James, son of Robert III., set sail on what was understood to be a voyage to France for liberty, but which turned out in reality a long captivity in England, Sir David was murdered on returning by Douglas of Balveny, at Hermandstone, near Edinburgh, and buried in the chapel of Holyrood. The Cumbernauld family appear to have been ennobled about 1460, Robert Lord Fleming appearing in the records of Parliament, 1466. As a diplomatist in the stormy time which succeeded the death of James IV., few sustained a more conspicuous part than John Lord Fleming of Cumbernauld. In the spring of 1520 he was appointed ambassador to the Court of France to secure the return of Albany to Scotland as Regent, and to accomplish, if possible, the still more delicate task of undermining the friendly sentiments which it was thought Francis I. then entertained for Henry VIII., and with whom he had afterwards a romantic interview on the "Field of the Cloth of Gold." A daughter, Mary Fleming, who became the wife of Maitland of Lethington, was said to have been in her youth one of the Queen's celebrated "Four Marys," although one version of the popular ballad describes the enticing group as made up from the families of Hamilton, "May Hamilton," Seaton, Beaton, and Carmichael. In 1526 James V. ratified and approved "a charter of new infeftment maid to Malcolm Lord Fleming, making the touns of Biggar and Kerkentulloch burghis of barony, with the mercat dais, in all punctis" as other burghs of barony. Soon after the imprisonment of Queen Mary in Lochleven, a party professing adherence to her cause, and known as the "Queen's Lords," finding themselves removed from all offices of importance under the new Government, betook themselves to the Castle of Dumbarton, then held by Lord Fleming, zealous in the Queen's support, and there entered into a bond to release and protect their captive sovereign, and, if possible, bring to punishment the murderers of her husband, King Henry, Lord Darnley.

After the defeat at Langside, and when the unfortunate Queen had so far carried out the doubtful scheme of submitting her case to her sister of England, Mary writes to Elizabeth regarding Lord Fleming of Cumbernauld:"As for my Lord Fleming, seeing that upon my credit you have suffered him to go home to his house, I warrant you he shall pass no further, but shall return when it pleases you. But for Dumbarton I answer not when my Lord Fleming shall be in the Tower. For they which are within it, will not forbear to receive succour if I don't assure them of yours; no, though you should charge me withal, for I have left them in charge, to have more respect unto my servants and to my estate than to my life." The confidence reposed by the Queen in Lord Fleming is further brought out during an interview, when it was proposed to remove her from Carlisle to Bolton Castle, this being the first decisive step taken by the English Court to dispose of her person against her will. "I require" (said the fugitive Queen in anger), "I require the Queen, my good sister, either that she will let me go into France, or that she will put me into Dumbarton, unless she will hold me as a prisoner, for I am sure that her Highness will not of her honour put me into my Lord of Murray's hands." Straitly besieged by the Regent Lennox, Fleming ventured to bring under notice of the Queen's Commissioners the persecution he was being subjected to, and the destruction to which his private property was exposed. Among other enormities perpetrated by Lennox, particular stress is laid upon the slaughter of the white kye in the forest of Cumbernauld "as the lyke was not manteint in ony uther pairt of this Ile of Albion." When the Castle of Dumbarton was surprised by the intrepid daring of Crawford of Jordanhill, Lord Fleming made his escape to the Clyde, and afterwards got on board a vessel proceeding to France. Lady Fleming was captured, but dismissed with many marks of the Regent's favour. Hamilton, Bishop of St. Andrews, deeply implicated in the murder of Darnley, was taken to Stirling and executed. During the civil war the Cumbernauld family threw in their lot with the King and served loyally under Montrose. It was in the old Castle of Cumbernauld

that Montrose and his party in August, 1640, entered into that bond which first brought them into direct hostility with the Covenanting party they had up to that time supported. In September, 1650, the Committee of Estates, considering the Castle of Cumbernauld to be a place of great importance, ordered it to be victualled and garrisoned. Sir William Fleming, then with Charles II. at Breda, was, as appears from the Wigtown family papers, despatched on a special mission to Scotland, the King's instructions being of this tenor:-"In case my friends in Scotland do not think fit that Montrose

lay down arms, then as many as can may repair to him. You shall see if Montrose have a considerable number of men; and if he have you must use your best endeavours to get them not to be disbanded; but if he be weak then he should disband, for it will do me more harm for a small body to keep together than it can do me good." Some days before the date of the "instructions" Montrose had fallen into the hands of his enemies, and Fleming arrived in Edinburgh only to learn that the Marquis had terminated his career on the gallows. The old castle, it may be remarked, after being deserted by the Cumbernauld family in favour of the spacious new mansion, was set fire to by a party of Highlanders during the rebellion of 1745 and burned to the ground. The parish of Cumbernauld was detached from Kirkintilloch about 1649. The first minister, Thomas Stewart, was ejected for non-conformity in 1662, and his successor, Gilbert Muschett, seems to have been much troubled by the predilection his parishioners manifested for conventicles. Even after the Revolution had transformed the Episcopalian rebel into a Presbyterian Dissenter, the spirit of hostility continued as strong and active as ever. Thus, in July, 1688, after denouncing twelve persons as fugitives, the parish clergyman thought proper to enter in the session-book that "the meeting-house preacher is ane rebell, and not pardonded; excommunicate, and not relaxed; and ane slander and leising-making, alienating the hearts of His Majesty's subjects by not keeping the three late thanksgivings." The ancient dignity of the family, it may be mentioned, was revived in 1606 by James VI., John Lord Fleming,

successor of the Governor of Dumbarton Castle, being then created Earl of Wigtown and Lord Fleming of Biggar and Cumbernauld. John, sixth Earl, following the loyal traditions of his house, passed with James II. to St. Germains at the Revolution, but returned to Scotland and took an active part in opposition to the Union negotiations. Suspected of complicity in Jacobite plots, he was committed prisoner to Edinburgh Castle in 1715, but was afterwards liberated by order of the High Court of Justiciary, and took up his residence at Cumbernauld, where, in 1731, he erected the fine mansion-the destruction of which in 1877 was so much regretted. Earl John died in 1744, and was succeeded in his titles and estates by a brother Charles, who died unmarried 26th May, 1747. The estates thereupon devolved on a niece, only daughter of Earl John, the Lady Clementina Fleming, who in 1735 had married Charles, afterwards tenth Lord Elphinstone. One or two of the descendants of Lady Clementina merit special notice. Her eldest son, John, succeeded to the Elphinstone honours; Charles, R.N., was lost in the "Prince George," burnt at sea in 1758 when proceeding to the Mediterranean, the loss by this calamity being 485 out of a total of 745 on board Admiral Broderick's war-ship; a third son, William, had a son, Charles, lost in the "Blenheim," 1707, the mysterious fate of this war vessel forming the subject of a once popular ballad by James Montgomery. The fourth and youngest son of the Lady Clementina was George Keith Elphinstone, Admiral of the Blue, a naval officer of very high reputation, created Lord and afterwards Viscount Keith. By his first wife, only daughter and heiress of William Mercer of Aldie, Viscount Keith left one daughter, Margaret Mercer, married to the Count de Flauhault, French Ambassador at the Court of St. James'. Viscount Keith married secondly Hester Marie Thrale, who survived till 31st March, 1857, when she passed away at the great age of ninety-three, the last surviving member of the once renowned Johnsonian circle at Streatham. (See also pp. 187-191.) The mansion of Cumbernauld had been only partly tenanted during the last seventeen years. In 1875 the estate was sold by the Hon. Cornwallis Fleming, nephew of Admiral Fleming, to

Mr. John William Burns of Kilmahew, Dumbartonshire, for £165,000. The property was then described as consisting of 3,807 imperial acres, whereof 2,833 were arable, and the remainder as plantation or rough pasture. The gross rental was then set down at £4,692, and the public burdens at £421.

Making a pleasing addition to personal as well as family history, the "Memoir of Admiral Lord Keith," completed by Mr. Allardyce, was an altogether fresh work in biographical literature, and bore at the same time not remotely on the stirring events occurring in Egypt. The closing scene of Admiral Keith's official life was intimately associated with the memorable surrender of Buonaparte to Captain Maitland, of the "Bellerophon," during the command of the Channel Fleet by the gallant Viscount. On his shoulders rested the responsibility of transferring the fallen monarch on board Sir George Cockburn's ship, the "Northumberland," preparatory to being despatched, with a few chosen attendants, to his lonely banishment on St. Helena. It cannot be forgotten, however, by students of the great Revolutionary war, that some fifteen years before the "Surrender" Keith-Elphinstone commanded the fleet which carried out Sir Ralph Abercromby with a British force to Aboukir, when the French power in Egypt was broken for the time, and where Sir Ralph fell mortally wounded as the enemy retreated to Alexandria, preparatory to a full capitulation within a few months. In announcing the accomplishment of the expedition to Egypt, General Hutchinson, who succeeded the brave and popular Abercromby, wrote to the Secretary of State: "I cannot conclude this letter without stating to your Lordship the many obligations I have to Lord Keith and the navy, for the great exertions they have used in forwarding us the necessary supplies, and from the fatigue they have undergone in the late embarkation of a considerable number of troops and stores, who were embarked on the new lake, and proceeded to the westward under the orders of Major-General Coote. The utmost despatch has also been used in sending the French troops lately captured to France, which in our present position was a service of the most essential consequence." The despatch of French prisoners would appear to have been not the least of

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