CHAPTER VII HARASSING THE FRENCH 73 CHAPTER VIII AT CARBERRY 80 CHAPTER IX LANGSIDE--AND AFTER 97 CHAPTER X DEFECTION? 108 CHAPTER XI THE HOLDING OF THE CASTLE 125 CHAPTER XII THE MERCAT CROSS 137 SIR WILLIAM KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE _I._ THE KIRKCALDYS IN the parish of Kinghorn, on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth, a farm-house known as the Grange still marks the spot where, three centuries ago, the ancestral seat of the Kirkcaldys stood. The greater part of the present structure is comparatively modern; yet it bears a look of antiquity which indicates that its transformation has been gradual and fragmentary, and not wholly uninfluenced by the design of the original builder. The only date to be seen about it figures, accompanied with an illegible monogram, on the lintel of what is now an inner door, and commemorates some addition or alteration made in 1687. Two portions, however, show traces of even greater age, and may, with some plausibility, be looked upon as relics of the old baronial mansion. They are a dovecot, and a flanking tower of solid masonry. A low recess, near the foot of the latter, is traditionally believed to have been the entrance to a subterranean passage leading down to the shore, beneath the village which the cottages of the dependents of the family formed, and on the site of which a few dwellings still cluster together. That, in the days when the prosperity of the Lairds of Grange was at its height, this village was of some size and importance, may be inferred from the fact that it possessed a chapel of its own, dedicated to St Mary, and used as a burial-place for the family. The Kirkcaldys, who took their territorial appellation from their estate of Grange, and who probably derived their name from the ancient town near which that baronial seat was situated, were amongst the oldest and most influential families in the county of Fife. As early as the thirteenth century, Sir William de Kirkcaldy is mentioned amongst the nobles on whom the fortune of war imposed temporary submission to Edward I., and who were compelled solemnly to take the oath of allegiance to him, on the Gospels, in presence of his Commissioners. In 1440, the name of Sir George de Kirkcaldy appears in a charter which made over to him one half of the lands of Seafield and of Tyrie.