Menteith

Menteith is the most southerly, a large area stretching from the Allan Water to Loch Lomond, including the Doune, Callander and Trossachs districts; and of course the parish of Port of Menteith itself and the Lake thereof--no significance about that appellation of lake, despite the nonsense talked by some about it being the only lake in Scotland. It was called Loch of Menteith until well into the last century. The early Celtic Earls of Menteith were a great force in Scotland, for their territory straddled the waist of the country, and, moreover, held the line between Highlands and Lowlands. Their principal castle was on the island of Inch Talla, in the Loch of Menteith, where they kept up princely state, with the Priory of Inchmahome on the next islet; but when Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany, James I's cousin, married the heiress in the early I5th century, he found the island-fortress inconvenient, and built a great new castle at Doune, which thereafter became the capital of Menteith. On his execution, for treason, James split up the earldom, as being too powerful for any one subject, giving Doune and the eastern part to another branch of the Stewarts--who still hold it--and the rest, with the earldom itself, to the Grahams. Certain descendants of the Grahams, also, are still landholders here, though the earldom itself was eventually suppressed by Charles I in shameful fashion. Menteith is half Highland, half Lowland, fertile, scenic, non-industrial, typical indeed of the county as a whole. Being within easy reach of Edinburgh and Glasgow, it is very and deservedly popular with the visitor who has not time to 'do all the Highlands properly'.