Menteith

Menteith, LAKE OF, a beautiful sheet of water in south-west Perthshire, 17 miles W. by N. of Stirling. Lying 55 feet above sea-level, it has an utmost length and breadth of $1\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ and 1 mile, and a depth in places of 80 feet. It sends off Goodie Water 9 miles east-south-eastward to the Forth, and contains three islets—Inchmahome, Inchtalla, and Dog Isle. Inchmahome has remains of an Augustinian priory (1238), the refuge in 1547–48 of the child-queen Mary Stuart before her removal to France; whilst on Inchtalla is the ruined tower (1427) of the Earls of Menteith. That title was borne by a Celtic line in the 12th century, and afterwards by a Comyn, Stewarts, and Grahams (1427–1694). See Dr John Brown's Horæ Subsecivæ (1858), and Sir W. Fraser's Red Book of Menteith (2 vols. Edin. 1880).