Hemp and flax were mixed with the hair to keep the head-dress firm. He observed also that the Scottish women ruled their households and even their husbands with "an iron rod."

Ayala was writing, of course, before the disastrous battle of Flodden, which left the nation in fear and mourning. Lady Houstoun and Lady Fleming faced great responsibilities after their husbands and other male members of their families were slain in that battle.

Some idea of the high esteem in which the Houston women were held can be gained by mentioning only a few of the dozens of marriages found in official records. This, too, is evidence of the wide influence which they exerted in the Scottish Lowlands through the centuries.

Margaret Houstoun is mentioned in 1522 as the wife of the prominent William Sterlin of Glorat. Elizabeth (Bessie) Houstoun, daughter of Sir Ludovick, married William Napier of Culcreach in 1659. Her sister, Marion, married Alexander Naiper, who succeeded his brother, William, in the same estate. Katherine Houston married William Lennox, scion of the great Scot family of Stewart, September 18, 1660.

Among the most important marriage relations of the times were those between the Houston and Montgomery families and the Houstons and Hamiltons. These connections had great influence in the settlement of a large number of Houstons in Northern Ireland in the early 17th century. More will be said later of this great Ulster migration, which extended on to America in the 18th century.

In the mid-l5th century, Margaret Houstoun, who was the daughter of Patrick I, or else of his father, one of the missing generations of the family line, married George Montgomery, first laird of Skelmorly in Ayrshire in the southwest tip of Scot.land. Two generations later, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Patrick Houston II, married Cuthberth Montgomery, third lord of Skelmorly. (Elizabeth was twice married, the other union being with a Renfrewshire neighbor, John Maxwell of Pollock.)

Another marriage of these two families was that of Jonet Houston to Sir William Montgomery, laird of Giffin, who died sometime prior to March 10, 1471. Sir Hugh Montgomery of Hessilheid in North Ayrshire, whose father was killed in the Battle of Flodden, married a daughter of the Houstoun baron. From this union came a line of Montgomerys, some of whom were to settle near Derry in County Donegal, Ireland, during