G4KDENS OLD AND NEW. 



reduced his family to the brink of ruin. LuJovic, the last 

 childless holder of the title in this line, contrived to obtain a 

 regrant .of the title, by which was interpolated between 

 himself and the family of Edzell the whole line of the 

 Lindsays of the Byres, being the seventeenth to the twenty- 

 second Earls, of whom the last died in 1808, after which the 

 title reverted to those to whom it seemed rightly to belong. 



It is now time to go back to the sons of the ninth Earl, 

 whose apparent rights in the Earldom of Crawford had been 

 diverted. Sir David Lindsay of Edzell and his brother John, 

 Lord Menmuir, who built Balcarres in 1595, were contrasted 

 characters. David \vas the soul of honour, generosity, and 

 warm affection, and had great taste in architecture and design, 



Edzell, from its situation low and at the foot of the hills- 

 could exhibit nothing picturesque or grand, apart from its own 

 architectural character and decorations, Lord Menmuir, in 

 fixing his residence at Balcarres, bequeathed to his descendants 

 the enjoyment of pure and fresh air, of proximity to the sea, 

 and a prospect embracing rock and meadow, island and lake, 

 river and ocean, well-nigh boundless, and for which they have 

 great reason to bless the merciful Dispenser of all thing's, who 

 has cast their ' lines of life ' so pleasantly. And it may be an 

 agreeable reflection to them that, though part of the original 

 edifice, as built in the Scoto-Flemish Gothic of the sixteenth 

 century, has been destroyed in the course of more recent 

 improvements, the greater part still remains incorporated into 



THE PLANNED GARDEN OF BOX. 



while John was an astute lawyer and statesman of varied 

 talents, a linguist, and a practical man of business, but a 

 scholar and poet also. The two brothers had, indeed, much in 

 common, and frequently corresponded. Both of them were 

 great builders and planters, and while the castle of Edzell 

 developed under David's hands, that of Balcarres had its 

 origin in the taste of John. " Ye desire me," wrote David's 

 half-brother. Lord Ogilvie, to him, "to bestow some few lines 

 on you concerning my planting truly, albeit 1 be the elder, 1 

 will gif you place as maist skilful therein. Your thousand young 

 birks (birch trees) shall be light welcome." "Remember," 

 wrote Lord Menmuir, "to send me my firs and hollins," 

 forwarding at the same time a present of elm s^ed. Gaidening 

 and planting were the favourite pursuit of both brothers, 

 and in a letter from Lord Menmuir at Edinburgh to David, he 

 thankshim for his "letter with 'La Maison Rustique ' and 

 ' Columella,' whilk will serve for my idleness in Balcarres and 

 not for this town " The taste for country occupations had 

 descended from Earl David, and became hereditary in the 

 Lindsay family both at Edzell and Balcarres. There exists a 

 curious instrument of David's attested in his vindiarunn 

 or garden at the former place. It is recorded that there his 

 work included the garden wall, presenting the fesse chequee 

 of Lindsay and the stars of Olenesk, flanked by brackets 

 for statues and alti-rilievi. The garden at Balcarres was also 

 at all times an object of interest and pride to its possessors. 



Lord Crawford, in his " Lives of the Lindsays'," remarks 

 in regard to the building of the two houses: "But, while 



the more modern structure, and that a few of the more 

 ancient trees that surround the house, ilexes and hollies, are 

 still venerated among us as having been planted by the hands 

 of our ancestor, Lord Menmuir." 



It may be remarked that Menmuir was the forensic title 

 of the distinguished lawyer, and that it was his son, David of 

 Balcarres, who became first Earl of Balcarres. The estate at 

 the time included Balcarres, Balneil, Pitcorthie, and other 

 lands, and Lord Menmuir, in 1592, obtained a charter 

 uniting these in a free barony. He died three years after 

 building the old house, and the property remained in the 

 direct line of heirship of the family until 1789, when, mainly 

 owing to the chivalrous adherence to the Stuarts earlier in the 

 century, Alexander, sixth Earl of Balcarres, sold the estate 

 to his younger brother, the Hon. Robert Lindsay of Leuchars, 

 who had made a great fortune in the West Indies Meanwhile, 

 misfortune had overtaken the family of David Lindsay of 

 Edzell, and Burke cites the case of his descendant, another 

 David, unquestionably head of the great house of Lindsay, as 

 an illustration in his " Vicissitudes of Families." Ruined and 

 broken-hearted, the last Lindsay of Edzell fled unobserved and 

 unattended, and, losing the wreck of his fortune, landless, and 

 Ivimeless, he proceeded as an outcast to the Orkney Islands, 

 where he spent his last days as ostler at the Kirkwall Inn. 



Some years after the sixth Earl of Balcarres had sold his 

 estate to his brother, the twenty-second Earl of Crawford, of 

 the line of Lindsay of the Byres, died (1808), and the old title 

 at length came to the senior line, the sixth Earl of Bjlcarres 



