230 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



Crown ; and during the twelfth and thirteenth 

 centuries the Scottish Kings occasionally resided 

 there. The planting of the oak trees is ascribed by 

 tradition to David, Earl of Huntingdon, afterwards 

 David I. of Scotland, and a date is surmised about 

 1140. We must remember, however, that the appear- 

 ance and habit of the trees rather indicate natural 

 sowing, and that at that remote period, in a country 

 thickly wooded, clearing was a worthy "work, while 

 planting was not of much account. The estate 

 passed from the Crown to the Hamilton family 

 about the time of the Battle of Bannockburn. There 

 is a tradition that when Bruce gave Cadzow to 

 Walter Fitzgilbert de Hamilton for his services in 

 the War of Independence, he stipulated that a 

 certain number of white cows should be maintained 

 and the oaks preserved ; but there does not seem to 

 be any authentic information as to this, and the 

 story is told in several different ways. 



During the tumultuous and troublous times of 

 the Reformation, and after the Battle of Langside, 

 when Cadzow Castle was twice besieged and taken 

 and ultimately destroyed, when the power of the 

 great Hamilton family was overthrown, and their 

 chiefs were executed or "put to the horn," when 

 the herd at Cumbernauld, as we have seen, was 

 nearly extirpated, we know nothing of how it fared 

 with the Cadzow herd, or how they survived amid 

 the foraging of hungry armed men. 



On the authority of Mr. Brown, the Ducal Cham- 

 berlain already referred to, Sir William Jardine, in 

 the Naturalists Library, says that "during the 

 troubles consequent on the death of Charles I. and 

 the usurpation of Cromwell, they were nearly extir- 

 pated, but a breed of them having been retained for 

 the Hamilton family by Hamilton of Dalzell and by 

 Lord Elphinstone of Cumbernauld, they were subse- 

 quently restored to their ancient purity." 



In 1764, John Wilson published Clyde, a Descriptive 

 Poem, a work at which he had been engaged for 



