for the destruction of the religious houses. The same year proposals were again made for his marriage with Elizabeth, which were rejected by the latter in 1561; and subsequently after the death of Francis II. (in December 1560), he became, with the strong support of the Protestants and Hamiltons, a suitor for Mary, also without success. He was chosen a member of her council on her arrival in Scotland in 1561, but took up a hostile attitude to the court in consequence of the practice of the Roman Catholic religion. He now showed marked signs of insanity, and was confined in Edinburgh Castle, where he remained till May 1566. He had then lost the power of speech, and from 1568 he lived in retirement with his mother at Craignethan Castle, while his estates were administered by his brother John, afterwards 1st marquess of Hamilton. In 1579, at the time of the fresh prosecution of the Hamiltons, when the helpless Arran was also included in the attainder of his brothers and his titles forfeited, the castle was besieged on the pretence of delivering him from unlawful confinement, and Arran and his mother were brought to Linlithgow, while the charge of his estates was taken over by the government. In 1580 James Stewart (see below) was appointed his guardian, and in 1581 acquired the earldom; but his title and estates were restored after Stewart’s disgrace in 1586, when the forfeiture was repealed. Arran died unmarried in March 1609, the title devolving on his nephew James, 2nd marquess of Hamilton.
James Stewart (d. 1595), the rival earl of Arran above referred to, was the son of Andrew Stewart, 2nd Lord Ochiltree. He served in his youth with the Dutch forces in Holland against the Spanish, and returned to Scotland in 1579. He immediately became a favourite of the young king, and in 1580 was made gentleman of the bedchamber and tutor of his cousin, the 3rd earl of Arran. The same year he was the principal accuser of the earl of Morton, and in 1581 was rewarded for having accomplished the latter’s destruction by being appointed a member of the privy council, and by the grant the same year, to the prejudice of his ward, of the earldom of Arran and the Hamilton estates, on the pretence that the children of his grandmother’s father, the 1st earl of Arran, by his third wife, from whom sprang the succeeding earls of Arran, were illegitimate. He claimed the position of second person in the kingdom as nearest to the king by descent. The same year he married Elizabeth, daughter of John Stewart, earl of Atholl, and wife of the earl of March, after both had been compelled to undergo the discipline of the kirk on account of previous illicit intercourse. He became the rival of Lennox for the chief power in the kingdom, but both were deprived of office by the raid of Ruthven on the 22nd of August 1582, and Arran was imprisoned till September under the charge of the earl of Gowrie. In 1583, however, he assembled a force of 12,000 men against the new government; the Protestant lords escaped over the border, and Arran, returning to power, was made governor of Stirling Castle and in 1584 lord chancellor. The same year Gowrie was captured through Arran’s treachery and executed after the failure of the plot of the Protestant lords against the latter’s government. He now obtained the governorship of Edinburgh Castle and was made provost of the city and lieutenant-general of the king’s forces. Arran induced the English government to refrain from aiding the banished lords, and further secured his power by the forfeitures of his opponents. His tyranny and insolence, however, stirred up a multitude of enemies and caused his rapid fall from power. His agent in England, Patrick, Master of Gray, was secretly conspiring against him at Elizabeth’s court. On account of the murder of Lord Russell on the border in July 1585, of which he was accused by Elizabeth, he was imprisoned at the castle of St Andrews, and subsequently the banished lords with Elizabeth’s support entered Scotland, seized the government and proclaimed Arran a traitor. He fled in November, and from this time his movements are furtive and uncertain. In 1586 he was ordered to leave the country, but it is doubtful whether he ever quitted Scotland. He contrived secretly to maintain friendly communications with James, and in 1592 returned to Edinburgh, and endeavoured unsuccessfully to get reinstated in the court and kirk. Subsequently he is reported as making a voyage to Spain, probably in connexion with James’s intrigues with that country. His unscrupulous and adventurous career was finally terminated towards the close of 1595 by his assassination near Symontown in Lanarkshire at the hands of Sir James Douglas (nephew of his victim the earl of Morton), who carried his head in triumph on the point of a spear through the country, while his body was left a prey to the dogs and swine. He had three sons, the eldest of whom became Lord Ochiltree.
ARRAN, the largest island of the county of Bute, Scotland, at the mouth of the Firth of Clyde. Its greatest length, from the Cock of Arran to Bennan Head, is about 20 m., and the greatest breadth—from Drumadoon Point to King’s Cross Point—is 11 m. Its area is 105,814 acres or 165 sq. m. In 1891 its population was 4824, in 1901, 4819 (or 29 persons to the sq. m.). In 1901 there were 1900 persons who spoke English and Gaelic and nine Gaelic only. There is daily winter communication with Brodick and Lamlash by steamer from Ardrossan, and in summer by many steamers which call not only at these piers, but at Corrie, Whiting Bay and Loch Ranza.
The chief mountains are in the north. The highest is Goatfell (2866 ft., the name said to be a corruption of the Gaelic Goadh Bhein, “mountain of the winds”). Others are Caistel Abhail (2735 ft., “peaks of the castles”), Beinn Tarsuinn (2706 ft.), Cir Mhor (2618 ft.) and Beinn Nuis (2597 ft.). In the south Tighvein (1497 ft.) and Cnoc Dubh (1385 ft.) are the most important. Owing to the mountainous character of the island, glens are numerous. Glen Rosa and Glen Sannox are remarkable for their wild beauty, and among others are Iorsa, Catacol, Chalmadale, Cloy, Shant, Shurig, Tuie, Clachan, Monamore, Ashdale (with two cascades) and Scorrodale. Excepting Loch Tanna, the inland lakes are small. Loch Ranza, an arm of the sea, is one of the most beautiful in Scotland. The streams, or “waters” as they are called, are nearly all hill burns, affording good fishing.
The oldest rocks, consisting of slate, mica-schists and grits, which have been correlated with the metamorphic series of the eastern Highlands, form an incomplete ring round the granite in the north of the island and occupy the whole of the west coast from Loch Ranza south to Dougrie. On the east side in North Glen Sannox Burn, they are associated with cherts, grits and dark schists with pillowy lavas, tuffs and agglomerates which, on lithological grounds, have been regarded as probably of the same age as the Arenig cherts and volcanic rocks in the south of Scotland. The Lower Old Red Sandstone strata are separated from the foregoing series by a fault and form a curving belt extending from Corloch on the east coast south by Brodick Castle to Dougrie on the west shore. Consisting of red sandstones, mudstones and conglomerates, they are inclined at high angles usually away from the granite massif and the encircling metamorphic rocks. They are associated with a thin band of lava visible on the west side of the island near Auchencar and traceable inland to Garbh Thorr. The Upper Old Red Sandstone, composed of red sandstone and conglomerates, is only sparingly developed. The strata occur on the east shore between the Fallen Rocks and Corrie, and they appear along a narrow strip to the east and south of the lower division of the system, between Sannox Bay and Dougrie. On the north side of North Glen Sannox they rest unconformably on the Lower Old Red rocks. Contemporaneous lavas, highly decomposed, are intercalated with this division on the north side of North Glen Sannox where the band is highly faulted. The Carboniferous rocks of Arran include representatives of the Calciferous Sandstone, the three subdivisions of the Carboniferous Limestone series, and to a small extent the Coal Measures, and are confined to the north part of the island. They appear on the east coast between the Fallen Rocks and the Cock of Arran, where they form a strip about a quarter of a mile broad, bounded on the west by a fault. Here there is an ascending sequence from the Calciferous Sandstone, through the Carboniferous Limestone with thin coals formerly worked, to the Coal Measures, the strata being inclined at high angles to the north. On the south side of a well-marked
