charters of his lands having been all destroyed, the king granted him a new charter dated 23 Jan. 1528-9. On 18 Aug. 1533 Patrick, earl of Bothwell, great admiral of Scotland, appointed him admiral-depute within the bounds of Cunningham. During the absence of the king in France in 1536, to bring home his bride, the Princess Magdalen, he acted as one of the council of regency. He died in June 1545, and was succeeded in the earldom by his grandson Hugh (d. 1546). By his wife Helen, third daughter of Colin, first earl of Argyll, he had six sons and eight daughters: Alexander, master of Montgomerie, who died young; John, lord Montgomerie, killed in the skirmish in the High Street of Edinburgh called 'Cleanse the Causeway,' 2 May 1520, and father of Hugh, second earl; Sir Neil of Langshaw; William of Greenfield; Hugh, killed at the battle of Pinkie in 1547; Robert, first rector of Kirkmichael, and afterwards bishop of Argyll; Margaret, married to William, second lord Semple; Marjory, to William, second lord Somerville; Maud, to Colin Campbell of Ardkinglass; Isobel, to John Mure of Caldwell; Elizabeth, to John Blair of that ilk; Agnes, to John Ker of Kersland; Janet, to Campbell of Cessnock; and Catherine, to George Montgomerie of Skelmorlie.
[Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot.; Exchequer Rolls of Scotl.; Pitscottie's Chron.; Balfour's Annals; Sir William Fraser's Earls of Eglinton; Paterson's Hist. of Ayr; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), i. 496-8.]
MONTGOMERIE, HUGH, third Earl of Eglinton (1531?–1585), eldest son of Hugh, second earl, by his wife Mariot, daughter of George, third lord Seton, was born about 1531. He succeeded to the estates on the death of his father, 3 Sept. 1546. Hugh Montgomerie, first earl [q. v.], was his great-grandfather. With his brother William he was incorporated a student of St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, in 1552. Having married Lady Janet Hamilton, daughter of the regent Arran, he for some time acted, although a catholic, in concert with Arran in political matters. He assembled his forces with Arran in October 1559 in Edinburgh in support of the congregation (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1559-60, entry 130), and in December he was stated to have declared openly against the French (ib. entry 392). Yet in the February following he was reported to be wholly addicted to the queen's cause (Crofts to Cecil, 23 Feb., ib. entry 762); and he was one of those who after the death of Francis II, husband of Mary Stuart, attended a convention at Dunbar on 10 Dec. 1560, when a bond was signed on behalf of the queen (ib. 1560, entry 818). In February following he set out to visit Mary in France (ib. entry 968), and remaining there till her return to Scotland in August, set sail in one of the vessels of her train, which was captured and for a short time detained by the English.
Eglinton was one of the most constant and persistent supporters of Mary Stuart in her catholic policy, and especially in her efforts to establish the mass. On 3 June 1562 Randolph reports that he and the Bishop of St. Andrews hear daily masses (ib. 1562, entry 145), and Knox mentions him as present with other papists at the mass in the chapel of Holyrood when Darnley, in February 1565-6, received the order of the Cockle from the king of France (Works, ii. 519). At the marriage banquet of Mary and Darnley, 29 July 1565, he was one of the nobles who waited on Darnley. With other lords and barons of the west he also, on 5 Sept., signed a bond for the king and queen (Reg. P. C. Scotl. i. 363); and in the 'roundabout raid' against Moray his forces formed part of the van (ib. p. 379). He was one of the lords who, 17 Dec. 1566, assisted at the baptism of the young prince James, at Stirling, according to the rites of the Romish church (Knox, ii. 536).
Eglinton had no connection with the murder of Darnley, and with other catholic lords was opposed to the marriage with Bothwell, although at first he maintained a position of neutrality. He attended the supper given by Bothwell in Ainslie's tavern, 19 April 1567, but, alone of those present, managed to slip out without signing the bond for the marriage. He joined the lords who met at Stirling to take measures for the deliverance of the queen from Bothwell, but did not support their action after her confinement in Lochleven, and held aloof from the parliament convened by the regent's party in the following December (Calderwood, ii. 550). He joined the Hamiltons and other supporters of the queen after her escape from Lochleven (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1566-8, entry 2172), and fought for her at Langside, 15 May 1568. After the battle he made his escape by hiding himself till nightfall in the straw of an outhouse. On the 24th he was charged to deliver up the castles and fortalices of Eglinton and Ardrossan (Reg. P. C. Scotl. i. 626). This he failed to do; and having, with the Hamiltons and others, held a convention on behalf of the queen at Ayr on 29 July (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1566-8, entry 2397), he was at a parliament held on 19 Aug. declared guilty of treason. For some time he
