Valise Graham, a junior grandson of Sir Patrick the Graham of Dundaff, ancestor of the ducal house of Montrose, married Euphemia Stewart, Countess Palatine of Strathearn, of which dignity James I deprived them, but created Malise Earl of Menteith in 1427. William, 7th Earl and Lord Justice General established his right as Earl Palatine of Strathearn in 1630; but this aroused such envy that his confirmation was recalled, and the arms of Strathearn were ordered to be “dashed out of his windows."
He was created Earl of Airth in 1633. His son, Lord Kilpont, was murdered under dramatic circumstances by Stewart of Ardvoirlich, as recorded in Scott's Legend of Montrose. William Graham, Lord Kilpont's son, succeeded his grandfather as Earl of Airth and Menteith, but little was left of the estates. Since his death in 1694, the Earldoms of Airth and Menteith and Strathearn have been dormant.
There are many cadets of the Grahams of Menteith, of whom the most celebrated are the Grahams of Gartmore and Ardoch, descending from the fifth son of the 1st Earl, and of which house the Scottish patriot, R. B. Cunningham-Graham of Ardoch, M.P., was lately the representative.