The remaining history of this extraordinary company is easily told. In 1818 they ceased to exist as a Water Company. On the New River Company agreeing to pay the York Buildings Company a perpetual annuity of £250 18s. 6d., the latter bound themselves to stop supplying water. Their estates sold, their mining and forestry difficulties at an end, and their old business abandoned, in 1829 they applied to Parliament and obtained an Act dissolving the Corporation.

"Thus," writes Dr. Murray, "after an existence of one hundred and fifty years, the company came quietly to an end. It had commenced life modestly, and it expired unnoticed and without regret. The design of purchasing the forfeited estates was a magnificent one, and if wisely carried out might have resulted in much benefit to Scotland, and great profit to the company. It had, however, been originated in a mere 'humour of stock jobbing,' and this taint clung to it ever after. The conduct of the company's business often showed considerable ingenuity, but most of its schemes were wanting in honesty, and it seems strange that one generation after another of directors should all have been inoculated with the evil principles which sprung into life in the Great Bubble year. It over-weighted itself with a capital vastly too large for its requirements, while instead of making calls upon the stock-holders or borrowing upon mortgage, it burdened itself with an enormous annual charge for annuities, and used its capital as a means of gambling, calling it in and re-issuing it as suited financial requirements, and accorded with the state of the money market, and so dealing with it as to convert its own shareholders into creditors. These operations were a source of great loss, as were also its various trading adventures, while the rents obtained from the estates

were utterly inadequate to meet the annuities and other annual charges. Death brought relief by the lapse of annuities, and the rise in the value of land ultimately enabled all debts to be discharged. In this respect the company is almost unique in the history of commercial disaster. Without any call upon the stockholders, the whole liabilities, principal and interest, were discharged, and the company passed away in a good old age, if not with honour, at anyrate with the credit of having paid everyone, and something left to divide amongst its members."

When the Kilsyth estates became the property of Sir Archibald Edmonstone, the Edmonstone family had exactly changed places with the Livingston family, for in the early part of the 17th century, 14th October, 1614, an ancestor of Sir Archibald mortgaged his family estate of Duntreath to Sir William Livingston of Kilsyth, the grandfather of the last viscount. "This mortgage," says Mr. Edwin Brockholst Livingston, "was paid off by his successor; so that the Edmonstones, more fortunate than their old neighbours, not only now possess their own family estates, but also those formerly belonging to the Livingstons of Kilsyth."

CHAPTER XIV.

The Kilsyth Estates-The York Buildings Company-The Edmonstone Achievement-THE EDMONSTONE FAMILY-Princess Isobel - Royal Descent - Cadency-Princess Mary - First Three Edmonstones-The Fourth Sir William-Connection with Sir William Wallace-The Fifth Sir William-Murder of Sir James Stewart - Sir JAMES EDMONSTONE — The Gowrie Conspiracy—Apprehended by Arran—A Deep Plot— Popular Fury-Settles in Ireland-Duntreath Redeemed-The Ninth Laird-His Brief but Brilliant Career-Sir Archibald Edmonstone, the Eleventh Laird-Buys Kilsyth-M. P. for Dumbartonshire-Sir Charles, Second Baronet-Sir Archibald, Third Baronet-Contests Stirlingshire-Sir William, Fourth Baronet-A Brush with Pirates-Visits Lord Byron-Captain Wild-Sir Archibald, the Fifth Baronet.

THE Kilsyth estates were held by the Livingston family for a period of over 300 years. William Livingston, the first proprietor of that name, died in 1459; and as his father fell at the battle of Homildon Hill in 1402, he must have entered on the possession of the Kilsyth property some time before that event, because it was to his father he owed his establishment in Monyabroch parish. After the Rebellion of 1715, Lord Kilsyth had to flee the country. His estates were forfeited, and became the property of the Crown. After being a few years in the hands of the Government, in 1720 they were bought by the York Buildings Company. This corporation were in possession of them till 1782, when

they sold them to Campbell of Shawfield.

In the fol

lowing year this gentleman parted with them to Sir Archibald Edmonstone of Duntreath. Although, from time to time, this family has sold portions of them, the

greater part is still in their hands, and thus for over a century they have had uninterrupted interest in the prosperity of Kilsyth,

A glance at the Arms of the Edmonstones is sugges

tive of some of the distinguishing incidents in the history of the family. A Scottish eye at once notices with pleasure the double tressure on the field with its flore-counterflore embellishment. The crescents are indicative of cadency. The sinister hand couped gules in the middle chief of the upper tressure, is a witness of Irish connection. The helm affronté-an important distinction in heraldry-declares the bearer to be of the bloodroyal if barred. The helm of the Edmonstone escutcheon appears, however, to be only that of a baronet, The annulet is adorned with strawberry leaves. The crest was originally a camel's head. It next became a horse's, and now it is a swan's. The camel's head is the undoubted crest, but its meaning and origin are alike unknown.

The Edmonstones are a very old family. It is probable they are the descendants of one or other of those Saxon barons who accompanied Margaret, sister of Edgar Atheling, to Scotland, when she was married to Malcolm Canmore, Their first appearance in authentic history dates from 1248, when there was living in Midlothian a certain Hendruas de Edmondiston, an intimate relation of the Setons, another ancient Scottish house, The first Sir William Edmonstone of Duntreath was the son of the brother of Sir John Edmonstone, who married the Lady Isobel, daughter of King Robert II. It was long believed that this first Duntreath Edmonstone was the son of the Princess Isobel; but this error was fully exposed by the late Sir Archibald Edmonstone, who was too veracious a historian to allow the pride of a double descent from the Scottish Royal family blind his interests to the truth, His investigations have indicated the Edmonstone achievement and placed the cadency of the family beyond dispute.

In 1425 the first Sir William Edmonstone, then