The
Cunningham Family Lands
The ancient
Cunningham lands lie opposite the Isle of Arran on the wind-blown
west coast of Scotland - an area that until the recent reform
of local government, was known as 'Cunningham District'. More
specifically, the Cunninghams controlled, or sought to control,
the valleys of the Annick Water, Lugton Water and the Bombo
Burn - all good farmland stretching between the towns of Kilwinning,
Kilbirnie, Stewarton and Kilmaurs (incidentally the 'kil-'
prefix in Scottish place names means 'cell' or church: Kilwinning
means church of St Finnan and Kilbirnie the church of St.
Brendan).
The story of
the Cunninghams starts in the twelfth century with King David
I of Scotland. He was exiled as a boy to the English Court,
which was then dominated by the Norman associates of William
the Conqueror, and when David became King, he brought with
him to Scotland a group of Norman friends to whom he distributed
land. One of these, Warnebald, received lands in Cunningham,
Ayrshire and in the manner of that time, adopted the name.
The word 'cunningham'
may come (rather prosaically) from the Saxon word 'cunneag'
meaning 'milk pail' and 'ham' meaning 'village'; otherwise
it may be from the word 'ingas' meaning 'people' and 'ham'
(as in Coldingham, the village of the people of Colud), the
origin of the 'cunn' element having been lost. In any case
it is clear that Cunninghams descend from Warnebald, who preferred
to call himself 'de Cunningham' rather than 'de Kilmaurs'
or 'de Kilwinning'.
Warnebald obviously
came from good stock since the Cunninghams prospered; in 1263
we find Hervey de Cunningham supporting his king with an army
of peasant-warriors against the Norsemen at the battle of
Largs, fought on the beach very close to the Cunningham lands.
The Norsemen were driven off and a grateful king confirmed
Hervey as legal owner of all the Kilmaurs lands in the following
year.
In the 15th
century Cunningham of Kilmaurs became Lord Kilmaurs and later
Earl of Glencairn, a title still held by the head of the clan.
In the early 16th century, William, third Earl of Glencairn
was entrusted with the (successful) negotiations for James
V's marriage to Mary of Guise. By this time some judicious
marriages on their own part meant that the Glencairn lands
stretched from Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde south to
Moniaive just north of Dumfries where the Cunninghams had
built Glencairn Castle, now known as Maxwellton House.
Whilst the
Kilmaurs Cunninghams flourished, junior branches of the family
were settling lands elsewhere: notably at Polmaise and Auchenbowie,
just south of Stirling and at Kilmaronock Castle by Loch Lomond.
There were also some Cunninghams at Barns in Fife, at North
Synton in the Borders and at Balfron in Dumbartonshire.
However the
family's success in Ayrshire had led to conflict with another
expansionist Norman family who had received lands a little
further north in Renfrewshire - the Montgomerys. Relations
might, in any case, have been strained in the troubled sixteenth
century since the Montgomerys were strong supporters of Mary
Queen of Scots and the Cunninghams were Protestant reformers
(the Earl of Glencairn had John Knox dispense communion to
him and his family privately at his house near Port Glasgow
in 1556). The struggle for local domination was certainly
on fire in 1528 when the Montgomerys sacked the Cunninghams'
Kerelaw Castle and it came to a head in 1586 when Alexander
Cunningham of Aiket, David Cunningham of Robertland and others
killed Hugh Montgomery, 4th Earl of Eglinton near the Bridge
of Annick. The Montgomery revenge was ruthless: they shot
Alexander Cunningham near Aiket, cut David Cunningham to pieces
then killed every other Cunningham they could find. However
they did not find them all since the Montgomery seat of Eglinton
Castle was then burnt in retaliation - and the feud rumbled
on for another twenty years.
In the next
century the Earls of Glencairn continued prominent in national
life: the 9th Earl raised an army for King Charles II in 1654
in an attempt to overthrow Cromwell's Scottish administration.
The rising failed but when Charles II returned as king, he
appointed Glencairn as his Chancellor of Scotland, a post
he held from 1661 to 1664.
By coincidence,
three Cunninghams were close friends of the Ayrshire bard,
Robert Burns: James, fourteenth Earl of Glencairn (who was
one of the poet's principal patrons and on whose death Burns
wrote a moving lament) Sir William Cunningham of Robertland,
and Alexander Cunningham the historical writer, to whom he
wrote verses of which the first runs:
My godlike
friend - nay! do not stare;
You think the phrase is odd-like!
But God is love the Saints declare
Then surely thou art God-like!
Living so close
to the west coast, it is not surprising that many Cunninghams
ventured into the Atlantic - settling in Northern Ireland
and further afield. But when their descendants return to their
roots in Ayrshire they find that most of the prominent Cunningham
castles - Clonbeith, Robertland, Kerelaw and Glengarnock -
are now in ruins. Kilmaurs, Aiket, and Caprington Castle survive,
although much altered, and are in private hands. Only one
of the Cunningham houses is open to the public each summer:
this is Finlaystone three miles east of Port Glasgow (where
the Earl of Glencairn entertained John Knox) and which now
houses an exhibition on the MacMillan clan. Maxwellton House
in Dumfriesshire is now a private house but the gardens are
open to the public. Dean Castle, north of Kilmarnock, which
the Earls of Glencairn had for some thirty years in the late
18th century, is open to the public all year round but is
really the family seat of the Boyds, Earls of Kilmarnock.
The Cunninghams
were essentially a successful farming people and for many
centuries the headline events - affairs of state, murder and
revenge - had little impact on the families that eked out
a living beside the Annick Water. They were not much involved
in war, being more pre-occupied with their milking pails -
and as the family motto has it, with "Over Fork Over".
