Those who know the Lower Clyde will remember the old
but now much restored house of Ardincaple, standing up behind Helensburgh at the entrance to the Gareloch. Mr. E. R. Welles, after much patient research, has compiled an instructive volume on Ardincaple Castle and its Lairds (Glasgow : Jackson, Wylie, 31s. 6d.), which reflects very clearly the turbulence of the Lennox in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and shows how Scottish baronial families rose and fell. The Macaulays of Ardincaple, who appear first in 1294 and came to an end in 1767, were, as a rule, partisans of the house of Lennox and opponents of the Campbells of Argyll. The twelfth laird in 1603 was indicted as an ally of the Macgregors by the Earl of Argyll; but was saved by his patron, Lennox, who took him to England in the train of James VI and I, and procured for him a knighthood. Mr. Welles points out that Scott lays some of the scenes of The Legend of Montrose in Ardincaple, which he calls Darnlivarach. The book is admirably illustrated.
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