The Houstoun holdings were increased to possibly their broadest extent during the time of Sir John. Before the death of his father, he already had acquired a separate estate in the adjoining parish of Kilmalcom which, as far as is known, he kept after inheriting the Houstoun lands. During his lifetime, he added several farms or estates in the southern part of Renfrewshire to his vast holdings. Records of a later period, in 1731, show there were 57 tenants on the Houstoun estate.

This great estate was inherited by his son, John V, who was the third of the baronets and was described as a "man of great and opulent fortune." However, at the time of his death in 1722, "in the flower of his age," he left the estate burdened with a 200,000-pound debt, according to "Complete Baronetage." 2 Sir John had served in the Scottish Parliament before inheriting the estate.

The fourth and last of the baronets in Scotland was Sir John Houstoun VI. He married his cousin, Eleanora, daughter of the eighth Lord Cathcart. Eleanora, born in Edinburgh, was a playwright, her most famous works being the comedies, "The Croquette" and "In Foro." She brought a dowry of 3,500 pounds, which would have been of little help to the "much encumbered" estate. There were no children from this unhappy marriage which ended in a rather sordid divorce case. According to "Complete Baronetage," Sir John was impotent, though Eleanora had known of this condition before the marriage.

Sir John transferred the estate to his uncle, Sir John Shaw, in 1740 but Shaw died in the same year as Houstoun in 1751. The lands soon passed into the hands of strangers.

With the death of John VI, the unbroken line of Houstoun barons and baronets descending from Hugh of Padinan, in the reign of Malcom IV, ended in 1751 in the reign of George II, having endured for six centuries. The Houstouns had been part of the painful development of Scotland from the Middle Ages through many vicissitudes and tragic wars. They had endured to the dawn of an era of peace with industrial and cultural development for Scotland within the United Kingdom. With all their travail, there had been times of exciting adventure, days of exultation over heroic deeds, withal, through the centuries, joys mingled with tears.

During these 600 years, the Houstons had spread over the






2 Completc Baronetage, 1665-1707, edited by G. E. C., Vol. IV, p. 268.