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MAYBOLE.

CARRICK, the ancient lordship of the Bruces, was a sort of state in itself, of which Maybole, now a country village, was the capital. In later times, and down to the abolition of the heritable jurisdictions in Scotland, it was the chief town of the bailiewick or bailiary of Carrick. The minister of Maybole, who had at the Revolution to resign his benefice as a nonjuror, tells us "As to the civil jurisdiction of this country, it is a Bailliary, and belongs heritably to the Earl of Cassilis, who exercises his power by a depute, and has the privilege to appoint his own clerk, without dependence either upon the Secretary or Register. The ordinary seat of the courts of justice is at the town of Mayboll on Thursday: though the meeting of their head court be at a little hillock or know, called Knockoshin in the bounds designed for the new town of Girvan. All the inhabitants of this country answer to this court, both for civil debts and crimes." "The offices of depute or clerk,"

he continues to say, "are advantageous posts to any the Earl bestows them upon; for by the plenty of wood and water in this country, which tempt men to fish, and cut stob or wattles for necessary uses, they find a way yearly to levy fines for cutting of green wood, and killing fry or fish in prohibit time, that makes a revenue to these offices, and is a constant tax upon the people." As the bailiary of Carrick was peculiar, so was the constitution of the town of Maybole. The same writer observes, that it "is neither a burgh royal, for it sends no commissioner to Parliament, nor is it merely a burgh of barony, such having only a power to keep markets, and a magistracy settled among them, in dependence on the baron of the place. But here it is quite otherwise, for they have a charter from the king, erecting them into a burgh, with a town council of sixteen persons." When its well-endowed collegiate church sent forth its sleek ecclesiastics to vie with the civil dignitaries, Maybole was a place of note and consequence. The noble bailie and his taxing depute now no longer salute the provost and rector, and the county gentry have long ceased to flock to the bailie's court; but there were persons not long ago alive who had a faint recollection of Maybole being a genteel town," where the descendants of some ancient families still lingered. The edifices which owe their existence to the same cause have, however, survived them. To its ancient importance this village is indebted for several baronial remains, such as one meets with but rarely even in larger towns. The Earl of Cassilis, with many of the other gentry of Carrick, had their city mansions or hotels in Maybole, as the chief nobility of the empire now have their town houses in London. The Tolbooth, of which the tower has some Gothic details-a rare feature in the baronial antiquities of Scotland-was thus the town residence of the Kennedies of Blairquhan, who had their territorial fortalice in the neighbouring parish of Straiton. The other tower, commonly called "the castle," of which two engravings have been given, was the hotel of a still more potent personage-the Earl of Cassilis, and the Bailie of Carrick-so that it possessed something like the same importance as the government house of a colony.

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A strange instance of the Bailie's power, and the manner in which it was used, occurred at the commencement of the seventeenth century. Having ascertained that his enemy, Kennedy of Bargany, a cadet of his own family, was to pass through Carrick, he issued forth from Maybole Castle, with two hundred armed followers, determined to intercept him, and pay off some old score of feudal vengeance. Bargany was accompanied by Muir of Auchindrane, and a few armed followers; but they were quite insufficient to withstand the forces of the Bailie, who carried away his enemy's bleeding body to the castle. The advice on which he acted was an instance of the savage calculating coolness

Description of Carrick, by Mr Abercrummie, minister of Minibole-Historical Account of the Families of Kennedy, p. 175. MAYBOLE, 1-2.

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of the age. He would have slain Bargany outright in cold blood. But his followers thought it would be prudent to wait, and see if the object had not been already accomplished. "But all me lordis menne thocht he was bot deid, in respect of the aboundanse of bluid that he had bled, counsellit me lord to tak him with him, and thair sie his woundis: and giff thay war nocht deidly, than to tak his lyfe by law, for he wes Judge ordiner of the country." This stretch of magisterial power was unnecessary, as the wounded man did not live many hours; but even "the judge ordinary of the country" had some reason to fear unpleasant consequences from the transaction. The Countess took horse and rode in haste to Edinburgh, to bespeak the interest of her powerful connections; and on the payment of a considerable fine, Cassilis obtained an act of council justifying him, as having acted in the service of the king. But there were avengers of a different kind aroused, and the slaughter of Bargany was the inducement to a series of crimes so remarkable that they deeply interested Sir Walter Scott, and induced him to dramatise them in his Ayrshire Tragedy. Muir of Auchindrane, Bargany's brother-in-law, had had many conferences with Kennedy of Culzean about reconciling the family feuds, which ended in Culzean being waylaid to a solitary place, and murdered. Auchindrane was charged with the murder; but it could not have been shown that he had made an assignation with Culzean, had it not happened that his messenger, arriving at Maybole, where Culzean was living, got a poor scholar of the name of Dalrimple to convey the answer to his master. The existence of Dalrimple was a spectre haunting Auchindrane's existence. Various efforts were made to keep him in distant lands, but he ever returned; and at last, with the assistance of an individual named Bannatyne, he was murdered. Being buried in the sand within high water mark, the waves exposed his body, and several means devised to hide it proved ineffectual. This deed only made a new accuser in Bannatyne, whose life was next sought; and having more to fear, apparently, from the vengeance of his master than the sword of justice, he confessed the series of iniquities. Maybole Castle has been allied with another sad and wild incident, which, however, has no surer foundation than tradition. The lovers of popular poetry will remember the ballad of Johnny Faa, commencing with—

"The gipsies came to our ha' door,

And oh but they sang bonny-
They sang sae sweet, and sae complete,
That down came our bonny ladie."

Whenever they saw her beauty, they cast the "glamour or spell over her, and she was compelled to follow the gipsy leader. This ballad has been referred to the conduct of the wife of John, sixth Earl of Cassilis, an austere man and a resolute Covenanter. The tradition says that, after having been several years married, and having given birth to several children, she was visited by her former lover in the disguise of a gipsy, followed by some desperate characters. She agreed to elope with him; but the whole band were seized by her stern lord, and put to death before her eyes. The Castle of Maybole was assigned her as a place of residence or confinement; and tradition, which is always ingenious in adapting itself to existing realities, says, that the heads which so prettily decorate the small oriel window of the tower, are sculptural portraits of the lady's paramour and his band-the crown on the principal head representing the royalty of the gipsy king.†

* History of the Kennedyis, p. 50.

+ See the story of the Countess of Cassilis, in Chambers's Pictures of Scotland, i. 291.

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