ABERDEEN, _March 11, 1637_.
CXXVIII.--_To the_ EARL OF CASSILLIS.
[JOHN KENNEDY, sixth EARL OF CASSILLIS, was the son of Gilbert Kennedy, master of Cassillis, which is six miles from Ayr. He was served heir to his uncle, John, fifth Earl of Cassillis, in 1616. His Lordship was a person of considerable talents, of great virtue, and a zealous Covenanter. Having studied under Dr. Cameron, Principal of the College of Glasgow, a great defender of absolute government, he could not yield to some clauses in the first draught of the Covenant, which seemed to vindicate the use of defensive arms against the King; but he agreed to the Covenant as it now stands. He sat in the Glasgow Assembly, 1638, as elder from the Presbytery of Ayr; and was one of the three ruling elders sent to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster in 1643. He was one of the commissioners who, in March 1650, went from Scotland to Breda, to treat with Charles II. He attended at the crowning of Charles at Scone, January 1, 1651. So strongly attached was he to the royal family, that when on one occasion Cromwell summoned him to a meeting, instead of attending it, he, along with some ministers and his chaplain, kept a day of fasting and prayer in his family. On the other hand, such was his hostility to the measures of the court, in establishing Prelacy and in ejecting the Presbyterian ministers from their charges, that he seldom paid stipend to any of the curates intruded into their places till compelled by a charge of horning. Wodrow designates him "the great and worthy Earl of Cassillis." "I have this account," says he, "of the Earl of Cassillis, that he was singularly pious, and a man of a very high spirit, who carried with a great state and majesty. His carriage in his family was most exemplary and religious. He was very much in secret duty, and had his hours wherein none had access to him. Upon the Sabbath his carriage was singular. He usually wrote the sermon, and at night caused his chaplain to examine all his servants and his children, even after they were pretty big, upon the sermon; and every one behoved to give their notes; and after all, many times he took out his own papers and read to them. When at Edinburgh, Lauderdale sent a servant to him upon a Sabbath night, telling him he was coming to wait on him. Presently he called Mr. Violant, his chaplain, and ordered him to go out and meet Lauderdale, and tell him that if he designed a Sabbath day's visit he was very welcome, but he would discourse upon no other thing with him but what was suitable to the day. Lauderdale came up, and discoursed with him,--as he could very well do,--only upon points of divinity" (Wodrow's "Analecta"). His Lordship died at his own house in the West in 1668.
The mansion is near Dalrymple. It is on the banks of the Doon, and embosomed in wood, with the hill called _The Dounans_ facing the house. It is a confused pile of building. A long avenue of fine old trees leads up to it.]