Glasgow hitched his political star to that of his kinsman James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], under whose aegis he came into government in 1697, and whose close ally he remained. While Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, considered Glasgow ‘a gentleman of application and character’, the Jacobite George Lockhart^‡ was scathing in his judgment of a man he considered a vulgar and grasping careerist.⁴ Glasgow, he wrote,

had nothing to recommend him ... being upon no account to be reckoned a man of more than ordinary sense. He was esteemed proud, arrogant, greedy, extremely false, and a great speaker at random; was so ridiculously vain, that he affected a great deal of respect and reverence as his due ... There was no man had such a sway with the duke of Queensberry, as he; and I look upon him as the chief of those evil counsellors that persuaded and engaged him [Queensberry] to follow, at least persevere in ... pernicious ways.

Lockhart also affected to despise Glasgow’s social origins: the earl, he wrote, liked to hear praise of

his illustrious and ancient family, tho’ he and all the world knew his predecessors were not long ago boatmen, and since married the heiress of Kelburn, a petty little family in the shire of Ayr, the representatives of which, until his father’s time, were never designed the laird, but always the goodman of Kelburn. However, having, by being concerned in farming the public revenues, scraped together a good estate, he wanted not ambition to be a man of quality, and concerned in the government ... Thus we see to what height ambition and impudence, without any merit will bring a man in this world.⁵

Lockhart was not the only observer to regard Glasgow as an upstart. One of Queensberry’s enemies listed it as a grievance against his administration of Scotland that he had recommended peerages for ‘the meanest and most despicable persons’, including Glasgow, whose earldom had ‘extremely irritate[d] the ancient nobility’.⁶ In fact, whatever Glasgow’s distant origins may have been, his immediate family background was far from humble: his father had achieved political prominence under Charles II, representing Buteshire in the Scottish parliament and serving as one of the lords of the articles in the Scottish parliament of 1685. This distinction came as a consequence of a strong commitment to the loyalist cause in the south-west of Scotland during the Covenanter disturbances after 1678, which extended to service in James II’s forces against the Argyll rebellion in 1685.⁷ However like his patron Queensberry, Glasgow himself quickly accepted the Revolution and refashioned himself as a strong Presbyterian and ‘Revolutioner’. As David Boyle, he sat in the convention parliament in Edinburgh, and advanced into office with Queensberry in 1697, acquiring his first peerage title in 1699 and being nominated as a court party representative on the union commission of 1702.⁸

As well as promotion in the peerage, the new earl of Glasgow also acquired a significant appointment in the spring of 1703 as treasurer depute, part of a package of measures intended to buttress Queensberry’s ascendancy over Scottish government.⁹ Writing in November 1703 to William Carstares, the eminent Presbyterian minister and principal of Edinburgh University, Glasgow stated his belief in the necessity of maintaining in office the present ministry, and settling the Scottish succession in the house of Hanover, in order to defeat the schemes of the Jacobites. He was also opposed to enacting any limitations on the monarchy ‘for it is inevitably our own great loss and disadvantage, if the monarchy shall be incapacitated to support itself, and protect us who are subjects’.¹⁰ Yet, in spite of all these professions, he was cautiously manoeuvring himself into a position in which, should a crisis occur, he might be able to survive a mortal injury to the Queensberry interest. After being put out of office with the duke in 1704 he dutifully defended his patron against the attempts of the New Party and others to implicate Queensberry in the ‘Scotch Plot’, but, in the crucial parliamentary vote on the succession in the 1704 Parliament, Glasgow abstained while other Queensberryites joined the opposition.¹¹ Glasgow returned to office on Queensberry’s resumption of power in 1705 and rejoined the duke’s inner circle as though nothing had happened: Queensberry entrusted him to take messages to James Graham*, duke of Montrose, for example.¹² Some of his friends were pushing for him to be made secretary of state, but the post of treasurer depute, to which he returned, provided opportunities to advance his own family and dependants.¹³ At the same time he was developing personal connections with other influential government figures, including James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), and Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, with whom he opened a direct correspondence on the basis of his administrative role in the Scottish treasury, offering political advice and making requests for patronage. He urged Godolphin to remove the New Party entirely from office and make the Scottish administration ‘all of a piece, thoroughly upon the Revolution bottom’, that is to say the Queensberry faction; this would be the only way to settle the succession.¹⁴

Glasgow played a key role in the preparations for Union. In December 1705 he urged Queensberry to create a Scottish commission entirely composed of the ‘old party’ (that is to say the court), but when the duke wished to broaden the basis of support for his policy it was Glasgow whom he sent to try to detach John Leslie*, 9th earl of Rothes [S], from the Squadrone Volante (as the former New Party were now called).¹⁵ As well as being named a Union commissioner, Glasgow was given a particular role in managing Presbyterian opinion. He had close links with ministers and with the church establishment in general, dating back to his election as rector of Glasgow University in 1690. He was appointed in 1706 as lord high commissioner to the general assembly of the Kirk (with an allowance of £700 per session), and completed business satisfactorily in April 1706 before rushing down to London for the joint meetings of the union commissioners.¹⁶ During the following summer it was reported that he had become estranged from Queensberry, and had been seen in the company of members of the Squadrone, but this may well have been a ploy to gain the trust of the Squadrone lords, for we have no other evidence of tensions within the court party, and in August 1706 Glasgow was again dispatched on Queensberry’s behalf with messages to Montrose.¹⁷ Once the Union treaty had been agreed, he resumed his role in managing Presbyterian opinion. As a representative elder in the commission of the general assembly (the executive body governing the Kirk between assembly sessions) he was chosen to assist in drafting an address to the Scottish parliament in October.¹⁸ Locally, he and other court party peers managed to suppress an anti-Union address in Ayrshire.¹⁹ But although he felt able to reassure Godolphin of the likely success of the treaty, his optimism about the clergy in particular proved misplaced, and he himself suffered rough handling by the Edinburgh mob.²⁰

Predictably, Glasgow voted a solid pro-Union line in the parliamentary debates on the treaty.²¹ Outside Parliament, he continued to work to reassure the Presbyterian clergy of the security guaranteed to the Kirk, serving as high commissioner to the general assembly again in April 1707 (when he was described by one observer as ‘a modest, good man’). In his capacity as treasurer depute he also played a crucial role in mollifying potential grievances among the political classes in Scotland by distributing the £20,000 sent from England to the Scottish treasury to satisfy various demands for arrears.²² His reward was to be continued on the Scottish Privy Council, and to be included as one of the court party nominees in the first cohort of representative peers to sit in the united Parliament.²³ On the 1707 analysis by Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], he was described as ‘for Revolution but influenced by Queensberry’.

Glasgow took his place in the Lords on 23 Oct. 1707. He attended on 88 days of the session, 82 per cent of the total, and was named to 18 committees. He was present on 18 Dec. 1707 when the queen urged Parliament to consider ways of improving the Union. By this time the Commons were already debating the future of the Scottish Privy Council, which the Squadrone were determined should be abolished. When news of this reached Scotland, complaints were raised by the Presbyterian clergy, whose concerns were transmitted to Glasgow by Carstares. This presented an opportunity to stir up opposition to abolition, and Glasgow advised Carstares that, while it would be unwise for the general assembly to object openly, there would be no objection to protests from individual ministers. He added the information that the queen herself entertained reservations about the proposal.²⁴ Glasgow attended the House regularly during January and early February 1708, when the bill ‘for rendering the Union ... more entire and complete’ was under consideration. When it was considered by a committee of the whole on 5 Feb., he was present and must have supported an unsuccessful attempt to keep the Privy Council in being until October 1708, as he was not named by James Vernon^‡ as one of the three ‘Scotch Lords’ for continuing it.²⁵ Two days later, when the bill passed its third reading, he signed the protest against it as a violation of the treaty of Union. He also attended regularly during the proceedings on bills to establish the method of electing Scottish peers to sit in the Lords and to settle the militia in Scotland. He last attended on 25 Mar., whereupon he went to Edinburgh in order to preside again over the general assembly in April.²⁶

Glasgow himself was still owed considerable sums in arrears of salary: £1,500 for his part in the union negotiations in 1702-3, and £1,000 as treasurer depute. Moreover, as a result of the Union his office in the Scottish treasury was extinguished. These losses would have tested his loyalty, both to his patron Queensberry and to the Union, but he was paid his allowance as commissioner to the general assembly, and his treasurer’s salary for a year from May 1707, and in May 1708 he was compensated for the loss of his other offices by appointment as lord clerk register, a post he had personally solicited from Godolphin. ²⁷ Although he subsequently complained that the exchange of offices cost him £400 a year he was not sufficiently discommoded to abandon the ministry.²⁸ He was also able to secure posts in the Scottish customs service for his brother and other members of his family.²⁹

Glasgow was at the centre of Queensberry’s election strategy in 1708, seeking to be all things to all men in Scotland. On the one hand, he expressed his sympathy with the Presbyterian clergy in their anxieties over the reported Jacobite invasion; on the other, he made contacts with those cavaliers who had been taken into custody on suspicion of Jacobitism, and recommended to Queensberry their release in order to enable them to assist court party candidates in the elections for Commons and Lords.³⁰ In Lanarkshire, where his appointment as baillie of the regality of Glasgow had afforded him electoral influence, he sought to reassure James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], of his goodwill, telling Hamilton’s brother Charles Douglas*, 2nd earl of Selkirk [S], that he would support the family interest, and informing another brother, Lord John Hamilton, that Queensberry and Godolphin were ready to extend their favour to the duke.³¹ At the same time he was working in various constituencies against Hamilton’s allies the Squadrone.³² He reported the reaction of the Squadrone almost with glee: ‘my dear pupils, the duke of Montrose, earl of Rothes and [Thomas Hamilton*, 6th] earl of Haddington, are mightily enraged’.³³ He himself was included on Queensberry’s court list for the election of representative peers and secured his election with ease, having attended in person.³⁴ On a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain compiled about May 1708, he was classed as a Whig.

Glasgow returned to the Lords for the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708. On 18 Nov. a petition was presented against his election and that of three other court party men. The petitioners also claimed that Glasgow, as lord register, had denied them access to the papers necessary to sustain the appeal.³⁵ It was only after the arrival of the relevant papers from Scotland that the Lords were able to consider the petition and Glasgow was named to the relevant committee on 10 Jan. 1709 (one of only two committee appointments). ³⁶ A week later the report was made, and in the ensuing debate Queensberry’s enemies raised the question of whether, as the holder of a British peerage (the dukedom of Dover), Queensberry had been eligible to participate in the peers’ election. When this question was put, on 21 Jan., Glasgow voted in the minority in support of his chief. On 29 Jan. the committee was ordered to recalculate the votes cast, reporting on 1 Feb. amongst other things that although Glasgow’s total had gone down by six, he had retained his seat.³⁷ On 18 Mar. he was probably one of the Scots who joined in an unsuccessful attempt in the committee of the whole House to prevent the inclusion in the bill for improving the Union of a clause to extend the English treason laws to Scotland.³⁸ He last attended on 22 Mar., a month before the end of the session, having been present on 43 days, 47 per cent of the total.

Glasgow missed the opening month of the 1709-10 session, first attending on 15 Dec. 1709. He voted with the Whigs on 20 Mar. 1710 that Sacheverell was guilty of the charges brought against him by the Commons, and the following day (along with the Squadrone) that Sacheverell should not be eligible for preferment during the three years in which he was banned from preaching. He last attended on 28 Mar. having sat on 50 days, 54 per cent of the total.

In the 1710 election of representative peers Glasgow was dropped from the court list which had been agreed in advance by Queensberry’s lieutenant, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], with John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (and earl of Greenwich), and Hamilton. The Tories’ aversion to ‘what they call the duke of Queensberry’s creatures’ was given as the reason. Glasgow did not take this well and threatened to oppose Argyll’s interest in the election until warned off.³⁹ Nonetheless, he attended the election and voted a court line.⁴⁰ Mar privately advised Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, that no action should be taken against Glasgow other than to ‘drop him at this election’, so that, ‘when he is once rid of his old master, the queen may have him when she pleases’.⁴¹ After Queensberry’s unexpected death in July 1711, Glasgow was appointed one of the tutors (guardians) to the 14-year-old heir.⁴² Politically, he now pledged his allegiance to Mar and to Harley, who had by now become lord treasurer and earl of Oxford, expressing his devotion through a succession of obsequious letters. He was thus able to retain the place of lord clerk register.⁴³ In one letter to Mar in October 1711 he made a particular appeal to keep his office, asserting that ‘I never had the least favour or countenance from the Junto ministry, having opposed them in every measure wherein the interest of the monarchy was concerned, for which they mortally hate me.’ On another occasion he even claimed that he had supported the Union solely out of ‘duty and personal affection’ to the queen, despite ‘scruples’.⁴⁴ He was spoken of as a possible commissioner to the general assembly in 1712 but was not appointed, and, despite continued professions of support for the ministry, and bitter denunciations of the Squadrone, was not included in the court list in the peers’ election in 1713.⁴⁵ In Lanarkshire he used his influence as baillie of Glasgow in 1713 to support the Glasgow merchant Daniel Campbell^‡ who was standing for election with the backing of local Presbyterian interests against the Hamiltons.⁴⁶

After the accession of George I, Glasgow warned William Cowper*, Baron Cowper, that the Scots would rally to the Jacobite cause in large numbers if the Pretender set foot in Scotland.⁴⁷ He himself raised and equipped 500 fencibles to oppose the rebellion.⁴⁸ A member of the Scottish SPCK, he strongly endorsed the society’s work in the Highlands as advancing the cause of political as well as religious enlightenment: ignorance, he wrote, was what made the inhabitants ‘slavishly subject to the will and command of their popish and disaffected chieftains and landlords’.⁴⁹ Otherwise little is known of his politics after 1714, but like many ex-Queensberryites he seems to have been alienated from government in Scotland by the loss of office: he signed a petition to the Lords against the peerage bill in 1719, and in 1722 gave his backing to Tory candidates in the peers’ election.⁵⁰

Glasgow died at Kelburn on 31 Oct. 1733.

Through his education Campbell acquired some legal expertise, which complemented his natural talents as a politician and made him an ideal right-hand man to his brother, the duke of Argyll, at the head of the powerful Campbell interest. Indeed, alongside their formidable mother, he was said to exercise a dominating influence over Argyll.⁵ He was every bit as ambitious as his brother, and as greedy for places and preferments (for himself, his family, and their dependants), all of which made him a prickly and unreliable subordinate, and although in later years he would acquire a reputation for deep cunning and inscrutability, as a young man he also shared Argyll’s impetuousness and bad temper, surpassing him in the virulence of his reaction to any slight, real or imagined. According to William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, he had all his brother’s ‘bad qualities, without one of his good’.⁶

Campbell came into government in April 1705 on Argyll’s appointment as commissioner to the Scottish parliament. Although barely out of his minority, he was given the titular office of lord treasurer (the duties of which were carried out by a commission), in order that he would be able to sit and vote in parliament, and was also named to the Scottish Privy Council. ⁷ Argyll then obtained for him the governorship of Dumbarton castle.⁸ He was included in the commission to negotiate the Union, but he had already set his sights on following his brother into the army, and in March 1706 there was an unfounded report that he had secured a colonelcy of dragoons.⁹ Feeling neglected, he then pressed hard for a peerage in his own right, as a reward for his work on the Union commission. As the next session of the Scottish parliament approached, he deliberately absented himself from Edinburgh ‘in very ill humour’, and tried to incense his brother against the ministry.¹⁰ The peerage was eventually granted in October, after the parliament opened, as a means of fixing Argyll’s support for the treaty.¹¹ Even then, the choice of title proved controversial: Campbell wanted Dundee, a title formerly held by the Graham family, which thereby offended the Squadrone peer James Graham*, 4th marquess (later duke) of Montrose [S]. Because the Squadrone’s support was vital to ratification, the head of the court party James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], appealed to Argyll to intercede, and Archibald was prevailed on to take the earldom of Ilay instead. ¹²

Both brothers voted in the Scottish parliament for ratification, and afterwards Ilay was selected, at Argyll’s express request, to serve as one of the representative peers in the first Parliament of Great Britain.¹³ He was still restless, however, and pressing his claim for military preferment: either a regiment or a lieutenancy in his own troop of the Royal Scots Guards.¹⁴ In the analysis of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], in 1707 he was described as ‘sicut [i.e., just as] Argyll’. He took his seat in the Lords on 23 Oct. 1707, and was immediately in high demand as a man of business. During his first session in the chamber he was present on three-quarters of all sitting days. In November he was named to the select committee on ‘the customs and orders of the House, and the privileges of Parliament,’ and to three further committees: on petitions from the countess dowager of Radnor and from some London merchants, and to consider proposals to encourage privateers in the Caribbean. The following month he was included in the drafting committee for the bill to establish an exchequer court in Scotland; a committee to consider the coal trade and the manning of the fleet; another on ship-building and naval victualling; and committees on two private naturalization bills. 

Ilay was present in the House on 29 Jan. 1708 for the first reading of the bill ‘for rendering the Union ... more entire and complete’, and followed Argyll, sitting in the House as earl of Greenwich, in opposing the Squadrone’s scheme for the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council.¹⁵ In committee he backed an unsuccessful attempt to delay abolition until 1 Oct. 1708, and when the bill passed signed a protest denouncing it as a violation of the Act of Union.¹⁶ As well as serving on nine more private bill committees, he was appointed on 2 Mar. to the committee considering the examinations of William Greg and Alexander Clerk, relating to breaches of security in the secretary of state’s office, and on 13 Mar. to the committee to prepare an address to the queen on this subject. His last recorded attendance in the session was on 16 March. In May he was noted as a Whig (possibly a Court Whig) in a printed list of party classifications.

Before the representative peers’ election of 1708 Ilay was at last given an army commission, as second colonel in a foot regiment. He was also made an extraordinary lord of session. Thus bound to the court, he attended the election with his brother’s proxy, having been included in the court list. He voted a straight court line, and was safely elected, in spite of reports in July that suggested he might be one of those to have a number of his votes discounted.¹⁷ Typically, however, he wanted more from the ministry, and was reportedly ‘very forward’ in demands for a regiment of his own.¹⁸ Possibly for this reason, he delayed taking his seat until 10 Jan. 1709, the day on which the House considered petitions against the peers’ election, and was named to the ensuing committee of inquiry, (although he may still have been on military duty in Flanders and unable to come to Parliament).¹⁹ Even so, he managed to attend almost 70 per cent of all sitting days. On 21 Jan., in the division on whether Queensberry should have participated in the election after receiving a British peerage as duke of Dover, he voted with the minority in favour.²⁰ When the committee examining the peers’ election reported, and votes were recalculated in accordance with resolutions passed by the Lords, Ilay’s total fell, but not far enough for him to lose his seat. On this occasion, loyal support for the ministry in Parliament secured him the colonelcy he wanted.²¹ He was then named on 16 private bill committees in February and March, and on 1 Mar. to the committee to prepare an address to the queen to ensure that, when the war with France came to an end, the French king ‘may be obliged to remove the Pretender ... out of his dominions, and to own her Majesty’s title, and the Protestant succession’. He also opposed the bill extending English treason laws to Scotland, acting as a teller on 18 Mar. in the majority against including a list of all the relevant statutes.²² Ten days later he signed two protests over the bill, the first objecting to the refusal of the House to add a rider which would have allowed prisoners to have a copy of their indictment and a list of witnesses at least five days before their trial, the second against the passage of the bill itself, as another violation of the Union.²³ He continued to attend until the prorogation on 20 April.

Although the new session began in November 1709, Ilay did not return to the House until 1 December. He was then present on 78 per cent of all sitting days. Amenability was a thing of the past: he wanted to exchange his regiment for another and was outraged when John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, would not permit it, so much so that by April 1710 lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, was describing him as ‘one of the most inveterate’ of his enemies.²⁴ He was named to a committee to review the method of keeping records and public papers in offices, and more importantly, on 14 Dec., to the committee to consider the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell. As usual, he also served on a number of committees on private bills and on the committee which decided on the allocation of tickets to peers for the Sacheverell trial. Once these proceedings began, he was included on 28 Feb. in the committee inquiring into the Sacheverell riots. On 17 Mar. he spoke in the House in answer to a speech in Sacheverell’s favour given by Robert Shirley*, Baron (later Earl) Ferrers. The following day he spoke again, voicing his discontent with the ‘very improper and ungrammatical’ manner of expressing the peers’ votes on the question of Sacheverell’s guilt as ‘content or not content’ rather than ‘guilty or not guilty’.²⁵ He voted Sacheverell guilty on 20 Mar., but (in common with his brother Argyll) opposed the proposal that he ‘be made incapable of receiving any further ecclesiastical benefice’ for three years. Godolphin concluded that the ministry’s failure to secure more from the trial was owing to the ‘conjunction’ of Ilay and Argyll with Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, and Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers.²⁶ Ilay’s behaviour was potentially awkward, since he was simultaneously taking pains to position himself in Scotland as a staunch defender of the Kirk; however, for the time being the inconsistencies did not seem to trouble him.²⁷ After the trial he continued to attend regularly and on 5 Apr. was appointed a manager at a conference with the Commons on the Lords’ amendments to the copyright bill. He was then one of the tellers on the division on whether to insist on the amendments, which was rejected by 12 votes. He continued to attend on four prorogation days. His last recorded appearance in this session was on 18 July.

By June 1710 Ilay was co-operating very closely with Queensberry’s lieutenant, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], who was in turn aligning himself with the Tory opposition led by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford.²⁸ Ilay and Argyll had already held a meeting with Harley, probably during mid-March.²⁹ In consequence, Ilay felt it necessary to defend himself to his principal contact in the Church of Scotland, William Carstares, against the charge that he was ‘taking measures against the interest of our church and Revolution-establishment’. His arguments were interesting in the light of his future political strategy. He had, he said, always been of the opinion that:

it was very obviously our interest not to mingle ourselves too much with the factions here, I mean as Scotchmen; for, it being very plain that no party here has our country much at heart; the exasperating any side here, might, at some conjuncture or other, draw both upon us and crush us at once.³⁰

The following month (July) he wrote to a kinsman, John Campbell*, earl of Breadalbane [S], to explain the position he and his brother had taken in the political crisis that resulted in the fall of Godolphin’s administration:

the most compendious description I can make of the present state of affairs is a dispute whether the queen or some of her subjects shall govern… having taken the queen’s side, we are resolved to protect her as far as we have any interest, and I believe her party will easily maintain their ground.

The real purpose of the letter, however, was to secure Breadalbane’s support in the forthcoming peers’ election. Ilay advised him not to ‘engage yourself at all till the very time comes, for it is very hard yet to tell precisely who will be on the right side (as we call it)’. After the dismissal of Godolphin, he wrote again on 25 Aug. explaining that he would have to go to London: the ‘great change lately made ... shows now plainly her Majesty will support herself and her own administration. As for ... the new Parliament, nobody whatsoever doubts of it, and therefore we are busy endeavouring to make the elections as much of a piece as possible’.³¹ This involved working closely with Mar and the Queensberryites. With things now going well, Ilay seemed ‘mighty uppish’, declaring that he could carry any election in Scotland as he pleased.³² By this time he had resigned his regiment and been appointed lord justice general for life; it was even rumoured that he might replace Queensberry as Scottish secretary.³³ Briefly he was given cause for concern by a delay in settling the arrangements for the Scottish elections, and suspected an attempt to include the Squadrone in the proposed court coalition. Harley was, however, warned that this would not work, more particularly because Ilay was ‘the greatest enemy [the] Squadrone hath’.³⁴ With Mar, he successfully organized both Commons and Lords elections, making a particular use of his high personal standing with Presbyterian ministers.³⁵ He attended the peers’ election, where, in the absence of the Squadrone, the court list (agreed between Ilay, Queensberry, James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], and John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S]) which included Ilay, was elected without opposition.³⁶ From a different political perspective, Daniel Defoe sent Harley a highly critical account of Ilay’s conduct, alleging that he, Argyll and Mar had used ‘menaces and contempt on the one hand, and declared openly the qualification of those to be chosen, which is now called the test upon which the peers were closeted ... viz. their agreeing to impeach Godolphin and Marlborough.’ ³⁷

An analysis of the new representative peers, prepared by the Episcopalian chaplain to the duchess of Buccleuch, described Ilay as a ‘court Tory’.³⁸ Another analysis drawn up shortly after the election said that he ‘will go as his brother wants’. Privately, at this time, he was pressing Harley to get rid of Queensberry, and put his trust in Mar and Argyll.³⁹ He took his seat as soon as the session opened on 25 Nov. 1710, after which he proceeded to attend on 90 per cent of all sitting days, and was named to the committee of privileges and its sub-committee for the Journal. On 9 Jan. 1711 he was one of the Scots peers whose votes helped defeat a Whig motion to adjourn the committee of the whole House inquiring into the conduct of the war in Spain, and especially the allied defeat at Almanza in 1707.⁴⁰ Three days later, in the same committee, he intervened in a debate over a Tory resolution that the disastrous offensive had been approved by the then government. His contribution was on a technicality, objecting to the use of the terms ‘cabinet council’ and ‘ministry’, since neither was ‘commonly known in the law ... and therefore they ought to use a plain English word’. When the phrasing was changed to ‘the ministers’, he acted as a teller in favour of the motion.⁴¹ He again acted as one of the tellers for the subsequent division of 8 Feb. over the retaining of certain words within the representation to the queen on this matter. He was himself rumoured to be preparing a motion for an enquiry into the orders given in the spring of 1708 to bring to London those Scottish peers arrested on suspicion of involvement in the unsuccessful Jacobite rising, including leading cavaliers, his intention being to weaken the Queensberryites.⁴²

In matters of religion Ilay showed no sympathy for the cavalier position, having declared himself against the introduction of any legislation to provide relief for Episcopalians, and had ‘a little engaged his brother that way’. When taxed with this, Argyll was said to have laughed, and said ‘he knows not what his brother means except it be to be head of the Kirk’.⁴³ Both men were against hearing the petition of the Episcopalian minister James Greenshields against conviction by the Edinburgh magistrates for using the Church of England liturgy. Ilay was present on 19 Feb. when the petition was introduced, and spoke on behalf of the magistrates when the case was heard on 1 Mar., walking out of the House after an adjournment motion was defeated. Afterwards it was reported that he had told the Episcopalian representative peer Alexander Montgomerie*, 9th earl of Eglinton [S], that when ‘he went to Scotland he would put the oaths to all the Episcopal ministers’. The story was that Eglinton replied ‘that he never expected better of his hand at which Ilay blushed’. ⁴⁴ In a letter to Carstares Ilay tried to account for his failure in the Greenshields case. Before the session, when Presbyterian ministers in Scotland had requested his help over Greenshields’ petition, and in obstructing a toleration bill, ‘I without any hesitation assured them faithfully of it’. Yet he knew ‘very well that our English friends would never be our champions but when at the same time they were their own and promoted their own interest as well as ours’. Few Whigs had spoken during the debate on 1 Mar.: ‘their bishops left us and the rest declared it was none of their business, and when I moved a delay which might possibly have been of some use to us, they all left my brother and me to debate against the whole House’.⁴⁵ He was also frustrated that some Presbyterian ministers in Scotland still refused the abjuration, which he felt put their spokesmen at a disadvantage, and in particular had deterred him from bringing forward proposals for toleration.⁴⁶ He did, however, vote with Mar and a Campbell kinsman Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], against a favourite bill of English high churchmen, to repeal the General Naturalization Act of 1709.⁴⁷

Ilay attended regularly until Parliament was prorogued on 12 June, but was very careful to avoid controversy. When the bill to prohibit the export of flax and linen from Scotland arrived from the Commons, the House went into a committee of the whole on 1 June to consider it. In an account of the debate, John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerino [S], observed with surprise that Ilay, ‘who can speak so well’ made little impact: ‘he never meddled till near the end’, when he ‘spoke a little’. On being asked ‘why he was so silent, he answered, because he was astonished.’⁴⁸ An important factor was his own ambition. When Queensberry died in July, Ilay was said to be one of several ‘pretenders’ to the vacant Scottish secretaryship.⁴⁹

Ilay took his seat again on 7 Dec. 1711, after which he was present on three-quarters of all sitting days. In advance of the session he was entrusted with the proxy of Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S], which was vacated by Rosebery’s appearance in the House later that month. On 10 Dec. Ilay was noted among those who had voted with the ministry on the ‘No peace without Spain’ motion. Ten days later the House refused Hamilton’s request to be allowed to sit and vote by virtue of his British peerage. Ilay acted as one of the tellers in the division over whether to refer the question to the judges. He then voted in Hamilton’s favour (as had been predicted the day before) and protested against the decision to bar the duke, having, in a ‘very moving speech’, defended the queen’s right to create British peers and argued that to deny Hamilton his seat ‘would be deemed a breach of the Union’.⁵⁰ He also helped to draft, and then signed, the ‘representation of the peers of Scotland’, presented to the queen on 1 Jan. 1712.⁵¹ Later that month, he was reported to be ‘fond of the notion’, suggested by Balmerino, that the proper response would be to call a meeting of the Estates of Scotland, ‘only they apprehend it will neither do here [Westminster] nor in Scotland’.⁵² The queen sent a message to the Lords expressing unease about her Scottish subjects’ concern at the Hamilton vote and seeking the assistance of the House to find a settlement. This was referred to a committee of the whole, to which the pessimistic Scots made little contribution. In committee on 4 Feb. Ilay ‘declared for himself and his country that he wished rather than hoped that anything can come from it’. ⁵³ Nothing did, so three days later he joined his fellow representative peers in boycotting Parliament. 

Most of the boycotters were brought back to the House by the arrival there of the toleration (episcopal communion) bill. Although Ilay had argued against ending the boycott (presumably because he was opposed to this bill, and hoped that the absence of the Scottish peers would ensure its rejection), he was present with other Scots for the second reading on 13 Feb. 1712 and attended the committee of the whole to which it was referred.⁵⁴ Both he and Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, were noted as having spoken ‘against the body of the bill’. He attempted to modify the oath prescribed in the bill, so as to make it more acceptable to Presbyterians who might ‘scruple’ against it, but was overruled by the Tory majority.⁵⁵ After the passage of the bill he resumed his boycott and his attendance was not recorded again until 27 February. The following day he acted as one of the tellers for the division whether to give a second reading to the officers in the House of Commons bill. He again acted as a teller on 13 Mar. for the division over reversing the decree in the cause Conway v. Buckingham. Later, he also made sure that he attended proceedings on the Scottish patronages bill, speaking and acting as a teller on 12 Apr. against the motion to commit. He was noted as one of only four Scots peers to oppose the measure, three of them being Campbells. ⁵⁶ Such attacks on the Presbyterian establishment alienated him from English and Scottish Tories. On 19 May he was present in the committee of the whole on the land grants resumption bill, acting as a teller on the question of whether to include a new clause, and the next day he and his brother, unlike most of the representative peers, spoke and voted against the measure.⁵⁷ However, on the 27th he voted with the majority against a Whig-inspired motion for an address asking the queen to order her troops to act offensively against France.⁵⁸ He continued to attend the House until the end of the session. He attended seven prorogation days between 13 Jan. and 26 Mar. 1713. 

Concern over the embarrassing position in which he felt he had been placed by the ministry’s unwillingness to support the Presbyterian establishment in Scotland, combined with resentment that the Scottish secretaryship had not been filled, provoked an extraordinarily histrionic letter from Ilay to lord treasurer Oxford (as Harley had become) in November 1712. He complained bitterly that he had lost Oxford’s favour, and had in effect been ‘disgraced’ by the very person under whose protection he and his brother had abandoned the Whig ministry in 1710. A bemused Oxford added the comment ‘I do not understand this, it having no foundation’. Another outburst followed in January 1713, when Ilay’s unrealistic ambition of being appointed ambassador to Constantinople was dashed. Now, however, he had to deny accusations that he had been scheming against Oxford, and protested his continuing support.⁵⁹ Ilay’s increasing desperation may also have been exacerbated by a growing realization that his recent marriage to Anne Whitfield was not as lucrative as he had hoped, the new Lady Ilay’s father’s affairs being in a state of confusion.⁶⁰ In a list drawn up in mid-March he was listed by Swift among those expected to oppose the ministry.

Ilay took his seat in the new session on 9 Apr. 1713. In all he was present for 55 per cent of all sitting days but, having attended for just six days, he absented himself for just over a month. In advance of the session he had warned Oxford that he needed to be in Scotland for some days during April and took the opportunity to request appointment as commissioner of the assembly of the Kirk in place of Atholl. His request was not heeded.⁶¹ He was in Scotland in early May, when the political crisis blew up over the extension of the malt tax to Scotland. Some outraged Scots peers considered that the only appropriate response was a bill to dissolve the Union; one, Balmerino, expressed the hope that Ilay ‘is and will be more alert on this head than many of our lords ... because he is discontented’. On the morning of the 26th, the day after Ilay returned to London, a meeting of Scottish lords and commoners was held at his lodgings, where he ‘insisted very violently upon the necessity of prosecuting the dissolution, be the consequences what they will’.⁶² At another meeting the next day he and Argyll were among those who ‘were for beginning instantly to let the court see they could and dared to oppose them, because the Court were the persons who kept the Scots under the Union and would do so until the end of the world whilst they gained by it’.⁶³ George Lockhart^‡ reported that Ilay and Argyll:

roar and exclaim bloodily against the Union, and seem very positive that the Whig lords would join to dissolve if our peers would help in the meantime to stop the ministry. There are [those] here [say] that the two brothers, finding that their court decays, are making this noise and opposition to force the ministry into their ways.⁶⁴

Ilay was also said to have drunk ‘a new kind of health’ at a public entertainment, toasting ‘the speedy and legal dissolution of the Union’.⁶⁵ On 1 June James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], formally moved in the Lords for leave for a bill to dissolve the Union. During the debate, in which he ‘spoke well’, Ilay responded to a comment from William North*, 6th Baron North and Grey, that imposing the malt tax on Scotland was perfectly consistent with the 14th article of the Union treaty which only prohibited such a step during wartime. Ilay recalled that, during the negotiations, since it could not be supposed ‘that the Parliament of Great Britain would ever lay on any sorts of burdens upon the united kingdom, but what they should find of necessity, at that time, for the preservation and good of the whole, and with due regard to circumstances, and abilities of every part of the united kingdom’, the commissioners had agreed ‘that there should be no further exemption insisted on for any part of the united kingdom, but that the consideration of any exemptions beyond what was already agreed on in this treaty, should be left to the determination of the Parliament of Great Britain’. Thus, ‘when this treaty was made, the Scots concluded, the Parliament of Great Britain would never go about to lay on any imposition that they had reason to believe was burdensome’. Finally, ‘having set forth their inability to pay the malt tax’, he concluded by declaring his support for the motion. Later in the debate, when an English peer ‘endeavoured to show the impossibility of dissolving the Union’, Ilay answered, ‘that if the Union had the same sanction as marriage, which was an ordinance of God, he should be for observing it as religiously as that, but that he thought there was a great difference’. ⁶⁶ Eventually the motion was lost on a division. The malt bill then passed its first reading in the Lords, and in an attempt to co-ordinate opposition the Whig Junto suggested that either Ilay or Balmerino propose that its second reading be delayed. Ilay said ‘he would do it with all his heart but that would look Whiggish from him, that it would do far better from one that was a known Tory’, so Balmerino made the motion, only for it to be lost by one vote . Ilay acted as one of the tellers for the division. Although Ilay again ‘spoke very well’ in committee on 8 June the bill was approved and passed without amendment.⁶⁷ He signed the protest which condemned it as an unjust imposition and a violation of the Treaty of Union.⁶⁸ His disgruntlement was then further demonstrated later that month when he was listed among a clutch of court supporters expected to desert over the French commerce bill.

Ilay continued to attend the House until the end of the session. Despite his and his brother’s obvious alienation from the ministry, he attempted to preserve his own personal relationship with Oxford, sending letters in which he combined obsequious professions of friendship with fabricated protests against the supposed malicious insinuations of others, and larded his prose with a sanctimonious (and somewhat callow) self-righteousness:

Were it not that I have a private satisfaction in doing what I think right, of what use is it to be innocent? When first I was engaged in your service, and when you were pleased to think well of me, it was when you were unjustly oppressed by a prevailing party, and when I had more of the countenance of the Court than I have at present; if now, when you are at the head of the administration, I have the less art to please, I must rest contented. If when worldly interest might have led me to betray you, I durst be honest, and when it leads me to serve you, I prove otherwise, sure my enemies who think so must in charity add fool to the character they are pleased to give of me.⁶⁹

At the same time, Oxford was being urged by one of his Scottish advisers to turn out both brothers ‘of all they can be turned out of’.⁷⁰ Islay was aware of the talk against him and confided to William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, that he knew he was ‘taken to be a very dangerous person’ and that Mar had announced he ‘won’t sit in that House [the Lords] if I do’.⁷¹ Even without being dismissed, the Campbells made an alliance with the Squadrone against the ministry before the 1713 peers’ election.⁷² This proved inadequate, however, and, ‘having found himself too weak to appear’ Ilay absented himself from the election, with the result that he lost his seat. Even when Argyll was finally cashiered in March 1714, Ilay retained the governorship of Dumbarton castle until after Oxford’s removal, but his mood was still sour. He observed ‘how heavily everything concerning Scotland goes on’, and complained of English misrule.⁷³ Once he recovered his seat in 1715 he retained it until his death. The remainder of his long parliamentary career will be dealt with in the second part of this work.

Having succeeded his brother in 1743 to the dukedom of Argyll, Ilay died suddenly in London on 15 Apr. 1761 and was buried at Inverarary. While the dukedom was inherited by a cousin, his own earldom became extinct.

Loudoun’s marriage in 1700 drew him firmly under the wing of his uncle and father-in-law, the earl of Stair, and through Stair into the orbit of James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], whose close political ally he became.⁴ He had already been brought into government in Queensberry’s administration in 1697-9, being appointed, inter alia, a privy councillor and an extraordinary lord of session, which would suggest that he had received some legal education. He was certainly reputed a good speaker in parliamentary debates, and after the Union distinguished himself particularly in contributions on Scottish appeal cases.⁵ The Jacobite George Lockhart^‡ had more good to say of him than of anyone else in the ‘old party’ (as Queensberry’s faction was known): Loudon was

of all the persons concerned in the government, without doubt, among the best. He had nothing in his nature that was cruel or revengeful; was affable, courteous, and just ’twixt man and man: and tho’ he pursued his own maxims and designs, yet it was in a moderate gentlemanly way. Being descended of a family enemies to monarchy, and educated after that way, and his fortune in bad circumstances, he easily dropped into the court measures, was soon taken notice of, and ... behaved to all men’s satisfaction, studying to understand the laws and constitution of the kingdom … he was endowed with good natural parts, and had much improven them in his younger years by reading; and tho’ he did not much affect to show them in public, yet there were few exceeded him in contriving and carrying on a design, having a clear judgment and ready apprehension.⁶

Loudoun stuck close to Queensberry during the changes that occurred in Scottish politics following Queen Anne’s accession. Appointed as a treasury commissioner in 1702, he then went out with his chief in 1704, and was one of the Queensberryites who in the Scottish parliamentary session of that year supported for tactical reasons the motion on the succession made by James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S].⁷ When the ‘new party’ experiment failed, Loudoun was immediately spoken of as a likely candidate for the Scottish secretaryship in a restored ‘old party’ government, and, eventually, after some tortuous negotiations, came in jointly with another of Queensberry’s cronies, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], in September 1705.⁸

One of the most important of the court party nominees to the union commission in 1706, Loudoun made an impressive contribution at the opening of the negotiations, according to his fellow commissioner John Clerk^‡, speaking ‘in a vigorous, manly style’ and displaying ‘no mean knowledge of his country’s laws and customs’.⁹ Thereafter he was indefatigable in discharging his duties, missing only one of the joint meetings of the Scottish and English commissioners.¹⁰ In recognition of his efforts he was invested in August 1706 with the Order of the Thistle.¹¹ In preparation for the session of the Scottish Parliament that would ratify the treaty, he was active in reassuring Presbyterian opinion, and trying to win over waverers with offers of patronage, including his kinsman John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], and the cavalier, John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], with whom he was on good terms despite their religious and political differences.¹² He also played a part in managing local opinion, being involved in the successful suppression of an anti-union address from his county of Ayrshire.¹³ He went on to give his own vote for the Treaty, and was selected in the first cohort of representative peers in the united parliament.¹⁴ According to Mar, there was general agreement among the court party that Loudoun had to be chosen. He was also among the small band of Queensberry’s followers admitted to the British Privy Council in May 1707.¹⁵ A rumour of advancement in the peerage came to nought, but he was permitted to surrender his titles to the crown and receive a new grant on more favourable terms.¹⁶ More important to him was the continuance of crown emolument. He kept his place as joint secretary until May 1708, when he was made lord keeper of Scotland, with the same salary of £2,000 p.a.¹⁷ The 1707 analysis of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], described him as ‘for Revolution but influenced by Queensberry or Argyll’.

Loudoun took his seat in the Lords on 23 Oct. 1707, and was present on 85 days of the session, 79 per cent of the total. He was named to 24 committees, including the drafting committee for a bill to establish a court of exchequer in North Britain (20 Dec.), and a committee to prepare an address of thanks to the queen for laying information before the House concerning the attempted Jacobite invasion (4 Mar. 1708). At the end of November 1707 the Commons began discussing the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council, a prospect that raised considerable alarm in Scotland, particularly among ministers of the established Church. On 16 Dec. William Carstares, principal of Edinburgh University, informed Loudoun ‘that many … ministers seem to think that the redressing of such grievances as the Church may have will be render’d the more difficult by the want of a council’. Before replying, Loudoun consulted Queensberry, Mar, and Argyll’s brother, Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S], and was able to forward a considered opinion against interference by the commission of the general assembly, which was ‘a road so dangerous for the church judicatures that any probability that there may be of good consequences from an address … is not enough to answer the hazardous, if not pernicious, consequences that the meddling in things of that kind may in course of time have’. He was hopeful, however, that ‘the slow forms of passing bills here’ would allow time for serious reflection, so ‘that the council may be continued for one year, which will leave room for the next parliament to reconsider.’ In his view it was unclear ‘that anything can be substitute in its place which in the least can supply the loss of it; in short anything of that kind will in the present circumstances have all the bad effects that are objected to it and none of the good.’¹⁸ As a result of his intervention the commission did not send up any objections. When the bill for rendering the Union more complete reached the upper House, Loudoun acted as a teller in the committee of the whole on 5 Feb. 1708 against retaining 1 Mar. as the date for the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council, being in favour of delaying it until October.¹⁹ After the third reading on 7 Feb. he signed the protest against the passage of the bill as a violation of the terms of the Union. He left the House the day before the prorogation on 1 April. On a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain dating from early May 1708, he was classed as a Whig.

Loudoun was active in the 1708 election in Ayrshire and other constituencies, and was accused by the Squadrone of indulging in ‘great threatening and other violent means’ to procure seats for court party candidates.²⁰ He was naturally nominated as a court candidate for the peers’ election and was in Edinburgh beforehand, ‘very busy’ in organizing support for the court list.²¹ As Hamilton put it to Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, on 27 May, Mar and Loudoun ‘are both here and very busy. They have great advantages for all the smiles and power is lodged with them’ together with James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]).²² Loudoun was easily chosen, and after spending the summer on official business in Edinburgh, arrived in London in time for the opening of Parliament on 16 Nov., prepared to do battle against the Whig Junto and their Scottish allies, the Squadrone.²³ Loudoun attended on 81 days of the session, 88 per cent of the total. On 18 Nov. a petition was presented on behalf of William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S] and others against his return and that of other Queensberryites. Loudoun voted on 21 Jan.1709 to support Queensberry’s right to participate in the election even though he now held a British title (as duke of Dover).²⁴ The enquiry into the peers’ election came to an end with a report on 1 Feb. which showed that despite a reduction in the number of his votes Loudoun had retained his seat. On 18 Mar., in a committee of the whole on the bill ‘for improving the Union’ by extending the English treason laws to Scotland, he joined other Scots in unsuccessfully proposing an amendment to specify the laws in question.²⁵ Eight days later he was again present in the committee where ‘all the Scots’ were against the bill, and on 28 Mar., at the third reading, he signed protests, against the bill in general, and against the particular provision denying a prisoner advance notice of the indictment and list of witnesses.²⁶ During the session he was named to 25 committees, including a conference on the bill to continue the acts against coining (21 Apr. 1709). 

Loudoun attended on the opening day of the 1709-10 session, 25 Nov. 1709, and was present on 78 days of the session, 84 per cent of the total, and was named to 19 committees. On 20 Mar. 1710 he voted in favour of the impeachment against Dr Sacheverell, but on the following day opposed denying the doctor ecclesiastical preferment during the period in which he was to be banned from preaching. Thereafter he attended regularly until the prorogation on 5 Apr. and he also attended the prorogations of 18 Apr., 2, 16 May and 1 August. Interestingly, Mar on 6 June felt able to tell his brother, ‘Argyll, Ilay and I are more of a piece than ever and will be so if a new Parliament come especially. The duke of Queensberry and Loudoun are very well with us too’, suggesting that Loudoun had positioned himself astutely in case of ministerial changes.²⁷ Charles Hay^† styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweedale [S]) may have correctly observed the source of Loudoun’s attractiveness to the new administration when he noted on 26 Aug. that Loudoun was likely to continue in employment to allay any apprehensions within the Kirk.²⁸

In preparation for the new Parliament, Loudoun assisted Mar in settling, with Hamilton and Argyll, the court list for the peers’ election.²⁹ Included among the agreed candidates, he left London on 7 Oct. and attended the election on 10 Nov., being duly returned.³⁰ His unusual political position was reflected in the classification given him by the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain, Richard Dongworth, as a ‘Presb[yterian] Court Tory’. Dongworth also estimated his income at about £2,000 p.a., but added that it was ‘encumbered’.³¹ The need to maintain an income from office explains why Loudoun joined Mar and other former colleagues in giving their allegiance to the Tory administration of Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford.³² He had already been allowed £1,000 as ‘royal bounty’ before the election, in response to a memorial to the treasury complaining of arrears of salary, and this additional grant was continued in subsequent years and eventually translated into a pension on the civil list.³³ In another analysis of the Scottish representative peers drawn up shortly after the election he was said to be ‘for the succession and the Union’.

On 27 Nov. 1710 Loudoun resumed his seat and was named to the Address committee. In all, he attended on 94 days of the session, 83 per cent of the total and was named to a further 23 committees, including a conference on the safety of the queen’s person (9 Mar. 1711) and a committee to draw up an address following the death of the Emperor (20 April). On 9 Jan. 1711, whilst the Lords were in committee of the whole on the conduct of the war in Spain, Loudoun was probably one of the Scots who ‘did the business’ in giving the ministry a majority of 59-45 in thwarting an attempt to resume the House rather than endorse the testimony of Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough. Three days later he was probably present to vote in favour of a resolution which blamed the former Whig ministers for the military setbacks in 1707, as ‘all the Scots went one way’.³⁴ Also on 5 Feb. he voted against the bill to repeal the General Naturalization Act.³⁵ When the appeal of the Episcopalian minister James Greenshields was heard on 1 Mar. against a sentence passed against him by the magistrates of Edinburgh for using the liturgy of the Church of England, a number of Scottish peers absented themselves, and it was left to Loudoun alone to champion the magistrates, especially on the question of the regularity of the appeal, which was lost by 68-32, Loudoun being one of ‘only five of the Scots Lords for the delay’ in hearing counsel. Balmerinoch, his opponent on this occasion, observed that Loudoun, ‘to do him justice spoke very modestly, insisting chiefly that the council had so decided often (which was the thing complained of)’.³⁶ The appeal itself was upheld without a division. After the vote Loudoun wrote to Carstares to reassure him of the unlikelihood of any bills coming forward to advantage the Episcopalian cause.³⁷ He clearly found it awkward to balance Presbyterian loyalties with allegiance to the ministry: as Defoe commented, when advising Harley on the appointment of a commissioner to the general assembly (for which Loudoun was putting himself forward), Loudoun had ‘a true view of her majesty’s interest’, which tempered his devotion to the Kirk, although he still retained the goodwill of the Presbyterian clergy.³⁸ On 21 May Queensberry registered a proxy in Loudoun’s favour. 

Loudoun attended the prorogation on 13 Nov. 1711. Later that month he told his kinsman Sir David Dalrymple, 1st bt.^‡ that ‘our first bat of the opening of the Parliament will in all probability be concerning the admission of the duke of Hamilton; folks here talk as if they’d oppose it resolutely.’ But Loudoun did not think Hamilton’s enemies would carry the day: ‘the king of France had never so little to say for the breach of any of his treaties as is to be said in this article concerning the queen’s power of giving and ours of receiving patents’. He admitted that ‘so many of these who are to oppose it have been engaged to procure patents for several Scots peers that they’re resolved, as I’m told, at this time only to insist that none of the sixteen is capable during his being so to be made a peer of Britain’. Loudoun was apprehensive, however, that ‘if once they can find a way to take away the queen’s prerogative, and privilege of the subject, by pretended innuendos and without any foundation in the articles of Union, the consequence of the whole, will but too probably be made to follow upon another occasion’.³⁹

Loudoun was heavily involved in the management of Scottish proxies before the opening of the session opened on 7 Dec. 1711 and the expected Whig attack on the peace. On 3 Dec. Balmerinoch signed a proxy in his favour, as did David Carnegie*, 4th earl of Northesk [S], on the 7th and William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S], on the 8th. Loudoun was present on the 7th, attending on 83 days of the session, 77 per cent of the total, and being named to 11 committees. On 19 Dec. Oxford forecast that Loudoun would support Hamilton’s pretensions to sit in the House as duke of Brandon, and on the 20th Loudoun opposed the resolution that ‘no patent of honour, granted to any peer of Great Britain, who was a peer of Scotland at the time of the Union, can entitle such peer to sit and vote in Parliament’. According to Balmerinoch, Loudoun and Ilay had waited until near the end of the debate when they ‘exerted themselves to the utmost and very handsomely both’.⁴⁰ Loudoun then signed the protest against the resolution as a violation of the royal prerogative, interference in the rights of the subject, and an infringement of the Union. He wrote to Dalrymple that ‘till of late I never expected to have seen this happen, and much less that those who have been the principal managers of it against us would have had any hand in it. I wish they mayn’t have laid the foundation of many misfortunes to this island.’⁴¹ This concern was taken up in a ‘representation of the peers of Scotland’ presented to the queen on New Year’s Day, to which Loudoun added his name.⁴² He was present in the Lords two days later when ‘Harley’s dozen’ new peers were introduced and the House adjourned after a debate of more than two hours. The Squadrone Member George Baillie^‡ reported that ‘the Scots peers were with the majority but will be no more so unless redressed’.⁴³

A hardening of Scottish dissatisfaction was also evident in a proposal from Balmerinoch for a meeting of the Estates of Scotland, which would signal a wish to dissolve the Union. Balmerinoch noted on 17 Jan. 1712 that although Loudoun and other Scots peers ‘seem[ed] fond of the notion ... they apprehend it will neither do here nor in Scotland’. Loudoun was probably in attendance at a meeting at Hamilton’s on the 17th, wherein various responses were canvassed, but it was resolved to await the queen’s speech later in the day, which, as promised, mentioned her concern at her Scottish subjects’ dissatisfaction because of ‘the distinction such of them who were peers of Scotland before the Union must lie under, if the prerogative of the crown is strictly barred against them alone’. In response a committee of the whole was ordered for 18 Jan., which also sat on the 21st and 25th. On the morning of 25 Jan. he attended a meeting of Scottish peers at Hamilton’s house.⁴⁴ He then went to the Lords, where the committee of the whole produced a resolution, to which the House agreed, confirming that ‘the sitting of the peers of Great Britain, who were peers of Scotland before the Union, in this House, by election, is alterable by Parliament, at the request of the peers of Great Britain who were peers of Scotland before the Union, without any violation of the Union.’ This was a tame end to hopes of concerted ministerial action on their behalf, so after another sitting of the committee of the whole on 4 Feb. Loudoun and his compatriots began a boycott on 7 February. In Loudoun’s case the boycott lasted just two days, as he was present on 9 Feb., allegedly out of respect for the queen, who passed some bills that day,⁴⁵ and on 11, 13 and 15 Feb. when the Scottish toleration bill was under discussion (he was absent for the sitting of 14 Feb. when it was not under consideration). He missed five more days, before resuming regular attendance on 27 Feb., the bill having been sent back to the Commons on the 26th, on which day Greenshields confirmed his absence.⁴⁶ On 10 Apr. George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney, registered a proxy in favour of Loudoun. This may have been related to a bill ‘to restore the patrons to their ancient rights of presenting ministers to the churches vacant in ... Scotland’, which was brought up from the Commons early in April. Loudoun delivered in a petition on this bill from the commission of the general assembly of the Church of Scotland, which was heard on 12 Apr. before the second reading. ⁴⁷ A debate took place at the committal, as to whether the bill ‘was not contrary to the Kirk establishment by the Union’, a proposition which Loudoun ‘most manfully asserted’.⁴⁸ In the division he voted in the minority against committal, earning the thanks of the synod of Glasgow.⁴⁹ On 14 May he chaired the committee of the whole on the bill to prevent abuses in making linen cloth, and regulating the lengths and breadths, and equal sorting of yarn, for each piece made in Scotland, which he reported without amendment.

In April Loudoun had supported the bill to resume grants of land made by the crown since 1688.⁵⁰ At the third reading on 20 May all the Scots lords were in favour except Argyll, Ilay, and Walter Stuart*, 6th Lord Blantyre [S], and Loudoun cast Orkney’s proxy against the bill ‘though he [Loudoun] was for it himself.’⁵¹ On 28 May he opposed a proposal for an address to the queen requesting an order for her forces to take offensive action against the French. He attended the Lords until the adjournment of 21 June, and the prorogations of 8 and 31 July. He then travelled to Edinburgh for the election on 14 Aug. of a peer to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Earl Marischal, being one of only four Scottish peers to make the journey.⁵² He was also at Holyrood on 13 Jan. 1713 for a second by-election, this time caused by Hamilton’s death.

Loudoun had returned to London by 17 Feb. 1713, when he attended the prorogation, as he did also on 3, 10, 17 and 26 March. On a calculation of around this date, in the hand of Swift, but amended by Oxford, Loudoun was noted as likely to support the ministry. He was present when the session began on 9 April. By the end of April Scots in both Houses were becoming increasingly concerned at the introduction into the Commons of a bill to extend the malt tax to Scotland. Judging that this was yet another infringement of the Union, they decided on drastic action. Like other Scottish ministers, Loudoun found himself in a difficulty. He could not avoid attending meetings that were called by opponents of the tax, but to begin with acted cautiously and reserved his position.⁵³ When, on 1 June, the fourth earl of Findlater, as Seafield had become, moved for leave to bring in a bill to dissolve the Union, Loudoun ‘spoke well’ in support of the motion, but then argued for postponing a decision.⁵⁴ Given Whig reluctance to support the substantive proposal, this was the only way forward, but the ministry forced a vote with the result that Findlater’s original motion was defeated. The malt bill was then delivered to the Lords on 3 June. Two days later the Scots proposed unsuccessfully to delay consideration of a second reading, Loudoun voting with the minority. Although Loudoun signed a protest on 8 June against the bill, Balmerinoch was unimpressed by his contribution: in the debates on 5 and 8 June Loudoun did not ‘open his mouth (that I remember) yet was very cordial in the thing, but he said the subject was exhausted.’⁵⁵ Around 13 June, Oxford was thinking that Loudoun would support the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. Loudoun continued to attend until the prorogation on 16 July, having been present on 60 days of the session, 91 per cent of the total, and named to ten committees. In the summer he lost his place as lord keeper when the lord chancellorship of Scotland was revived for Findlater, but he was ‘made easy’ by payment of his arrears and the continuance of his pension on the civil list.⁵⁶

At the election of the representative peers on 8 Oct. 1713 Loudoun voted in person for the court list, in which he had secured a place despite rumours that he would be displaced by more strongly Tory candidates.⁵⁷ The choice was unanimous, with Argyll and the Squadrone absenting themselves.⁵⁸ On a list analysing the election returns sent to Hanover on 9 Feb. 1714, Loudoun was classed as a Hanoverian. He left Edinburgh before 9 Feb., but did not attend the first two days of the session on 16 and 18 February.⁵⁹ He took his seat in the Lords on 23 Feb., but on 17 Mar. registered a proxy in favour of Orkney (being absent on 15, 17, 19 Mar., when the House adjourned for Easter). When the House resumed on 31 Mar., Loudoun was in attendance. He was present on 5 Apr. when the House considered the motion that the succession was not in danger, and a proposal to add the words ‘under her Majesty’s government’ was carried, with all the Scots present voting in favour.⁶⁰ Even though Loudoun was still seeking payment of arrears of salary, it was now being rumoured that he had ‘left the court’.⁶¹ This comment may well have been prompted by Loudoun’s vote on 13 Apr. on the losing side along with other pro-Hanoverians such as Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, Arthur Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey, and William Dawes*, archbishop of York, against the insertion of the words ‘and industriously’ to the phrase about fears for the succession being spread throughout the kingdom.⁶²

Forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as likely to oppose the schism bill, Loudoun voted on 4 June in favour of an unsuccessful attempt to allow counsel for Protestant Dissenters to be heard against the bill. On 9 June he supported a proposed amendment to omit some words and thereby allow Dissenting academies to continue teaching Latin, but this was rejected.⁶³ According to Baillie, Loudoun supported two amendments in the committee of the whole, also on 9 June, ‘one allowing school mistresses without the qualification of the act and the other for allowing of appeals from the justices of the peace’, both of which were carried.⁶⁴ Loudoun was present when the Parliament was prorogued on 9 July, having attended on 67 days of the session, 88 per cent of the total, and been named to seven committees.

Following the queen’s death on 1 Aug. 1714, Loudoun took the oaths promptly, and on 9 Aug. received a proxy from Mar. He was present on 13 Aug. when the lord justices’ speech was read, and in all attended on nine days of the short session, 60 per cent of the total. He also attended the prorogation of 21 October. A month later he presented a loyal address from the burgh of Ayr to George I.⁶⁵ He was elected again in 1715 and henceforth attached himself to his clan chief, Argyll, with whom he served as a volunteer at the battle of Sheriffmuir and with whom he acted in the Lords.⁶⁶ His parliamentary and official career after 1715 will be examined in the second part of this work.

Loudon died on 20 Nov. 1731.

As a Highland magnate, able to put a force of clansmen into the field, Breadalbane possessed an obvious attraction to governments in Edinburgh and London, but his position was by no means as formidable as some observers thought.³ Governments were just as likely to regard him with suspicion, while his influence over his followers was dependent on leading them in a direction in which they wanted to go. He was also subordinate to the duke of Argyll, his clan chieftain; he faced competing magnate interests in the counties in which he enjoyed influence, Perthshire and Caithness; and he was chronically short of money. Throughout his career he sought to accommodate these varying pressures and steer a course that would advance his own interests. Hence he appeared devious and slippery. Those who had dealings with him rarely knew what to make of him; they thought him ‘mighty cunning’, amoral, and self-interested, and in one striking phrase, a man who ‘walks in the clouds’.⁴

During the prince of Orange’s invasion in 1688 Breadalbane [S] at first acted as a loyal supporter of King James, but when sent to London to explain to James the actions of the Scottish Privy Council (of which he was a a member) he arrived to find the Orangists in control. He made the best of it and signed the address of the Scottish nobles asking William to rule Scotland until a convention met, then returned north and retired to his stronghold at Kilchurn in Perthshire. There he made favourable noises to King James and the local Jacobite commanders, but once James’s armies were defeated, took the oaths to the new king and queen. His position remained difficult: he was suspected by both sides and his estates were, he claimed, ravaged by Jacobite forces.⁵ In response, he pursued a double game: on the one hand involving himself on the Jacobite fringes of the ‘Montgomerie Plot’, and on the other making promises to ministers in England through his friend Sir George Mackenzie, Viscount Tarbat [S], to deploy his influence to promote the pacification of the Highlands.⁶ In the spring of 1691, assisted by £12,000 from the English treasury, he concluded secret agreements with Jacobite commanders, which were then ratified by the king.⁷ The settlement was by no means watertight, and soon broke down. Moreover, not everyone in the Scottish ministry was happy to trust Breadalbane.⁸ Nonetheless, he pocketed £2,000 in expenses, and in the following year, with the support of Tarbat and the Dalrymples, was restored to the Scottish Privy Council and made a treasury commissioner.

The Scottish parliamentary inquiry of 1695 into the Glencoe massacre upset Breadalbane’s applecart: his previous negotiations with the Highlanders were exposed, he was indicted for treason and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. The hue and cry was led by the secretary of state, James Johnston^‡ and his allies, Breadalbane’s opponents in recent ministerial infighting.⁹ Breadalbane was in fear of his life, but was supported by the Argylls, and eventually released under royal warrant.¹⁰ However, he lost office, and retired to the Highlands, fearing arrest for debt, and leaving his second son, John Campbell^†, styled Lord Glenorchy, the future 2nd earl of Breadalbane, to take charge of the family’s affairs as the designated heir to the peerage (Breadalbane’s right to nominate an heir having been specifically provided for in his patent). 

Breadalbane’s political fortunes improved at the start of Queen Anne’s reign, especially in 1705 when John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], became parliamentary commissioner. He was more than once considered for high office, Argyll proposing him for the treasury commission, only to be vetoed by the ‘old court party’ headed by James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S].¹¹ At the same time Breadalbane was in contact with Jacobite agents, although he prudently avoided signing a letter to Louis XIV in 1707.¹² During the Union debates he absented himself from the Scottish parliament.

In April 1708 Breadalbane learned from the master of the ordnance, David Melville*, 5th earl of Leven [S], one of Queensberry’s associates, that he was to be arrested and taken to London on suspicion of involvement in Jacobite conspiracy. He answered that he had

made it my work all my life to preserve the peace of my country, and for my actings pursuant thereto I was made your lordship’s prisoner in the castle of Edinburgh in the year [16]95, by amiss representation as your Lordship knows … I am 73 years of age, it may be thought very strange, that I who at that time did concern myself so much to bring and recover the peace of the country should now at this age be any instrument to disturb it, when I am not able to go over the door to prosecute or to prevent it, on the one hand or the other.¹³

Breadalbane forwarded to Leven a certificate testifying to his inability to travel, together with suggestions that he might be able to assist the court in the forthcoming election of representative peers. He was told to qualify himself, sign a proxy and ‘send it blank’.¹⁴ But his votes were also being solicited by others; in fact, a flurry of letters was descending on Taymouth from peers across the political spectrum.¹⁵ The most insistent voice came from the leading opponent of the court party, James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], who expected that Breadalbane would assist the cavalier interest and claimed that ‘we want an old wily fox like you … to give good advice and help put it in execution’.¹⁶ However, Hamilton knew that he would have to overcome strong complaints about his own opportunistic alliance with the Squadrone, the political heirs of the very politicians who had contrived Breadalbane’s arrest in 1695. To Leven, Breadalbane confessed that this ‘sudden change’ had left him thunderstruck: ‘to find ... [Hamilton] among the republican Squadrone ... is the world turned round’.¹⁷ Nevertheless, Hamilton was confident that he could explain himself satisfactorily, and he suggested that Breadalbane would be released if he joined forces with the Squadrone.¹⁸ Leven was soon writing to express his concern that Breadalbane had included Hamilton and his two brothers in his list. He warned Breadalbane that he was making a mistake:

I dare say if you bring in some folk you will see the error of it when out of time for they are so engaged with a certain set of men in England that they must go throw stick with them and I am sure your principles and theirs can never agree.¹⁹

More immediately, there was the prospect that Breadalbane would not in fact be released from custody. Eventually Breadalbane bowed to pressure: at the election he voted by proxy, and although he still included the three Hamiltons, ten of his votes went to court nominees.²⁰ On 21 June he heard that the queen had ordered his release.²¹ Leven subsequently wrote that there would be a parliamentary enquiry to discover who had given the order that Scots suspected of Jacobite sympathies should be arrested. Allegations had been made by Hamilton and the Squadrone that the decision had been Queensberry’s. Leven tried to placate Breadalbane by insisting on his own innocence.²² In the end, the responsibility for the instructions was never firmly established.

When Parliament met the Lords enquired into the conduct of the 1708 election of representative peers. Objections had been made to Breadalbane’s list because it did ‘not bear the designation of writer and witnesses nor are there witnesses signing’.²³ The House was informed of these omissions on 17 Jan. 1709, and after counsel had been heard Breadalbane’s list was declared null and void on the 29th. Before the 1710 general election Leven counselled him to oppose any ‘Squadrone man’ in the next election to the Commons; and as in 1708 the earl duly supported the interest of his friend John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], in Perthshire.²⁴ Once more he received numerous appeals for support in the election of representative peers, including a heartfelt appeal from the Jacobite George Lockhart^‡, that it was ‘necessary … for honest men to stand to one another’.²⁵ Atholl was going to insist that Breadalbane himself might be put on the court list but was dissuaded.²⁶ This time Breadalbane went to Edinburgh to cast his vote in person. ‘I am come to this place’, he wrote to Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, on 31 Oct., ‘to serve the queen in voting and influencing others to vote such peers as will be of a piece (if possible) to support her majesty, her crown and the Church’.²⁷ As a cavalier, he was fully in sympathy with the Tory ministry, and contributed to the unopposed return of the court list.²⁸

Over the next few years, and using Glenorchy as an intermediary, Breadalbane cemented his allegiance to the chief minister, Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford.²⁹ The good relations he established with Oxford survived even Breadalbane’s expressions of support in the early summer of 1713 for the attempt to dissolve the Union. He informed Atholl in the summer that, after consultation, the Scottish Jacobite peers had agreed to vote only for hard-line anti-Unionists in the next election of peers, but as the election approached, he contacted Oxford to argue that the best course that could be taken in Scotland was ‘to use our best endeavours for returning a nomination of peers to the ensuing Parliament who may be most forward to serve her Majesty’.³⁰ He also raised the issue of the government of the Highlands: ‘knowing how much your lordship is inclined to oblige the Highlanders for her majesty’s service’, he sent Oxford ‘my thoughts of a scheme to answer your design in that affair’.³¹ An agent of Oxford’s reported in July 1713 that ‘my Lord Breadalbane ... has dependence upon no party, nor upon any great families, and let the world go as it shall please God he is much indifferent, for he is in a condition to defend himself and his own interest from the oppression of any whatsoever’. If the treasurer had ‘a mind to take him by the hand and your interest be the monarchy and church he is willing to come up on that lay’. On the other hand it was clear that the Scottish secretary, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], did not want to see Breadalbane at Westminster: it was suspected that ‘my Lord Mar may be for some pleasing of him other ways by giving him some compliment, but they had best beware that they do not sour him which if they do they may come to repent it, for he is too old a cat to draw a straw before his nose’.³² But thanks to Oxford’s support, Breadalbane’s name appeared on the court list.³³ His new enthusiasm for parliamentary politics had in fact stretched to devising a list of his own preferred candidates. Mar reported that Breadalbane was ‘resolved to have the honour of seeing the queen before he die, and there is no pleasing of him, nor indeed of several others who are concerned for him, if he be not one of the 16’, and added that he ‘was so youthful to-day at the election that he would not so much as read his list with his glasses, and his eyes alone served him very well’.³⁴

Nevertheless, once elected, Breadalbane was in no hurry to make the long journey to London from his Highland lair. He had been proposed, with other Scottish ‘poor lords’, for a pension but Oxford had not acted on this suggestion.³⁵ On 23 Jan. 1714 James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], wrote to urge him to come up.³⁶ Breadalbane admitted that this ‘was indeed my first alarm of having thoughts of going to London I have had since an advertisement from the earl of Mar to make all haste’. Now aged 80, he was determined to obey the queen’s summons. He told Mar’s brother, James Erskine^‡, Lord Grange, that he hoped to reach Edinburgh by 18 Feb., ‘which is the soonest I can promise’, though while he remained in Scotland he was co-ordinating measures with other Jacobite sympathizers and passing advice across to St Germain.³⁷

Breadalbane’s parliamentary career at Westminster proved to be brief but, despite his advanced age, not uneventful. He did not take his seat in the Lords until 31 Mar. and attended only for a further 13 days, being named to no select committees and appearing for the last time on 12 May. Soon after his arrival he had caused a stir by appearing to admit to a Jacobite allegiance in conversations with other peers, but although there was talk of his being ‘attacked’, nothing transpired.³⁸ His last recorded contribution came in a debate on the address to the queen for a proclamation to put a price on the head of the Pretender, when he joined other High Tories in objecting to the provision that the reward should be paid dead or alive.³⁹ He registered his proxy in favour of Mar on 6 and 9 Apr. 1714 (vacated on the 8th and 20th respectively) and again on 14 May. Having thanked Oxford ‘for all the honours and favours you were pleased to confer on me’, Breadalbane ‘with all his Highland crew’ returned to Scotland, reaching Edinburgh on 4 June.⁴⁰ After arrival at Taymouth he immediately called together ‘several of the chieftains of the clans’ and reported to Oxford what would be necessary to secure their support, placing particular emphasis on the secure passage of the militia bill and the bill to resume bishops’ rents for the benefit of the Episcopalian clergy.⁴¹ He had been forecast as being in favour of the schism bill and it is probable that Mar exercised his proxy in support of the bill.

Breadalbane’s presence amongst the Jacobites brought only confusion and uncertainty into their schemes the following year. He took up arms for the Pretender but, once the rebellion collapsed gave himself up and spent the last year of his life under house arrest.⁴²

Breadalbane died on 19 Mar. 1717.

As a political figure Northesk was cautious and calculating, very much the prisoner of his straitened financial circumstances, which required him to seek, and to hold, office. He enjoyed a range of influential political connections in Scotland, including his wife’s stepfather George Mackenzie, earl of Cromarty [S], and his own brother-in-law James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S]. For much of his career he was a follower and political client of James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], under whose wing he settled when he came of age and took his seat in the Scottish parliament in 1698. As a stalwart of Queensberry’s court party he received a sheaf of remunerative offices and appointments – privy councillor, commissioner of the Scottish exchequer and of the chamberlain’s court and justiciary of the Highlands. Although he followed Queensberry into opposition during the ‘New Party’ experiment in 1704, he was by temperament a natural supporter of administration, ‘always adhering on all occasions firmly to the interest of the crown without cash’. He was one of the few Queensberryites to retain his place on the Scottish privy council during their leader’s brief period in the wilderness.⁵ He returned to government with Queensberry in 1705 and in the words of a pro-Union peer ‘behaved very well’ in the parliamentary session which saw the ratification of the treaty. He had previously expressed reservations over the idea of an Union, predicting that the difficulties which ‘may arise on a national account, the jealousies of Church and Kirk, the numberless needless divisions amongst ourselves, joined with the fears of some places being hewed ... will ... prove no small impediments’.⁶

Northesk expected to be rewarded for his support for the Union, but although his salary of £700 a year as a treasury commissioner was continued until August 1708 he did not receive the ‘gift for life’ that he requested, because the queen herself was reluctant to confirm the grant.⁷ Nor was he among those selected in the first cohort of representative peers in February 1707. Queensberry’s lieutenant, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], informed a correspondent that ‘three others who had been very serviceable in the Union pretended to be of the number’ of court candidates, including Northesk and Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S]. Mar continued: ‘there was but room for one, so two of them behoved to be left out. It was thought my Lord Roseberry had the most favourable pretensions.’⁸ Any lingering reservations about Northesk were challenged, however, by an appreciation of his grasp of the problems confronting government in the new state of Great Britain. His concern at Scottish financial management was particularly evident: in February 1708 he told his brother-in-law Montrose that in any enquiry the treasury would ‘make a very odd figure, and I’m sure it will be thought they have been strange sort of people for some while in it’.⁹

Just as Mar was coming to believe that it would be as well to have Northesk in Parliament, Northesk was convincing himself that he ought to secure a place as a representative peer. He wrote to Montrose: ‘we hear the old humour of disagreeing reigns amongst you; I did not believe … it would have begun to appear so soon’.¹⁰ Irritation at the disputes amongst his countrymen in Parliament may go a long way towards explaining his willingness to stand as a court candidate in 1708. Because Mar was ready to support him he was added to the court list laid before the peers of Scotland at Holyrood Abbey on 17 June. He himself voted for the court ticket and in turn received the votes of his fellow Queenberryites, followers of John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], and some cavaliers, altogether enough to ensure his election.¹¹ The court could look upon his election as a victory, but once elected Northesk did not do much to dispel the impression that he regarded parliamentary politics as an unfortunate necessity. Although the new Parliament began on 16 Nov. 1708, it was not until 3 Dec. that he first took his seat.

Northesk attended 57 per cent of the sitting days of the session of 1708-9. He was in the House throughout early January 1709 when it considered the petitions submitted by James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], and members of the Squadrone against the returns in the representative peers’ election. He was himself involved in these as a consequence of having held the proxy of John Lyon, earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne [S], and because of doubts raised about the list of votes he submitted from the earl of Cromarty.¹² As the committee entrusted to consider the petitions reported on 17 Jan., Strathmore’s proxy to Northesk was objected to because it was ‘signed, but not sealed’, while Cromarty’s list was alleged to be defective because he only cast four votes, for those whom he called his ‘children’ (including Northesk).¹³ Another complaint raised by the petitioners was that Queensberry should not have been able to vote in the elections as he had recently (in May 1708) been created a peer of Great Britain, as duke of Dover. On 21 Jan. Northesk fought against the coalition of English Whigs, the Squadrone and Hamilton by voting in favour of Queensberry’s eligibility to vote for Scottish representative peers. Regarding Northesk’s own case, on 29 Jan. the House upheld the validity both of Cromarty’s list of four names and of Strathmore’s signed, but unsealed, proxy. The committee on the petitions was ordered to recalculate the votes cast in the election based upon the resolutions of the House, and when the amended totals were reported on 1 Feb. Northesk was still secure in his place despite having lost nine votes.

Northesk was again present on 11 and 16 Mar. 1709 for the first two readings of the bill ‘for improving the union of the two kingdoms’. When it was moved in the committee of the whole House on 19 Mar. that the bill should extend to Scotland the English laws against treason, Northesk, with the other Scots in the House, voted in the minority against this perceived infringement of Scottish judicial independence.¹⁴ Northesk last sat in the House for the session on 23 Mar., while the heated debates on this bill were still ensuing, and his departure did have a negative effect for the Scottish voting bloc. On 26 Mar. there was a division in the committee of the whole on a further clause to allow the accused in treason trials to be given prior to the trial a list of the witnesses against him. Charles Hay^†, styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), attributed the defeat of this clause to the departure from the capital of both Northesk and David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S], for the clause was only lost through the negative presumed by an equal vote.¹⁵

Northesk did not sit in the 1709-10 session until 17 Jan. 1710 and with this late start (the session had begun on 15 Nov. 1709), he attended only just over half of the sitting days. His only significantly notable contribution was during the trial of Henry Sacheverell. From 14 to 18 Mar. 1710 Northesk, with most of the Tories in the House, subscribed to five protests against resolutions which furthered the proceedings against Sacheverell. Lord Yester singled him out as one of six Scottish peers opposed to the motions of 14 Mar. to proceed in the consideration of precedents in the trial.¹⁶ On 20 Mar. he was one of only four Scots peers, with Hamilton, Mar, and his brother-in-law Wemyss, to vote for the doctor’s acquittal and he added his name to the protest against the guilty sentence. John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, was left baffled and nonplussed by this decision by one whom he was sure would have voted with the court. He would have thought, as he wrote to his duchess, that among the Scots peers, Northesk, Hamilton and Wemyss, ‘would have been on the other side’.¹⁷

Northesk attended the peers’ election on 10 Nov. 1710, and was easily re-elected, having been included on the court list agreed in advance by Mar with Hamilton and Argyll.¹⁸ By this time he seems to have attached himself to Mar, who had sought preferment for him before the election as ‘a pretty fellow, and of a good spirit, can be very useful in the elections of both peers and commoners, and has been very ill used’.¹⁹ Richard Dongworth, the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain, in his analysis of the Scottish representation in the new Parliament, classed Northesk under the ambiguous category of ‘Episcopal Tory, rather court’, while estimating his annual income at ‘not £2,000’.²⁰ In the other analysis of the representative peers drawn up shortly after the election he was classed as being ‘for the Union’. Northesk took his seat in the House on 11 Dec. 1710, a little more than two weeks into the new Parliament. In this first session of 1710-11 he corroborated Dongworth’s opinion, acting as a diligent–he was present on 80 per cent of the sitting days of the session–and loyal, if unobtrusive, supporter of the new Tory administration. He joined with the Tories in condemning the conduct of the previous Whig ministers and their favoured generals in the conduct of the war in Spain. On 9 Jan. 1711 Northesk and the other Scottish representative peers voted against a Whig motion aiming to forestall a resolution extolling the account of Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, which condemned the actions of the Whig generals before and during the Allied defeat at Almanza.²¹ Three days later he voted to censure the conduct of the previous secretary of state, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, in relation to the campaign in the Peninsula and the failed assault on the French naval base at Toulon.²² On 1 Mar. Northesk cast his vote with other Scottish Tories against adjourning consideration of the appeal of the Episcopalian minister James Greenshields against the sentence passed against him by the Edinburgh magistrates; after this vote the House agreed without a division to reverse the sentence.²³

A list of those Tory ‘patriots’ who had distinguished themselves in the session, printed in the summer following the prorogation of 12 June 1711, included Northesk’s name. However, to political insiders Northesk’s allegiances were not so clear-cut. Mar still entertained doubts about him, not least because the earl’s poverty made him restive, a condition exacerbated by the belief that he was owed compensation from government for loss of office at the Union, something that could easily fester into a grievance. Mar had repeatedly asked the lord treasurer Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, to do something for him.²⁴ The connection with Montrose was also a cause for concern. In early June, as the session was drawing to a close, Mar proposed to Oxford that he might use Northesk to approach the veteran Squadrone Member George Baillie^‡, with a scheme for putting the lord chamberlain’s office into commission.²⁵ As well as a temptation to Baillie, this would be a means of satisfying Northesk’s pretensions. In due course Northesk made contact with Baillie, who, when introduced to Oxford by Mar, revealed that Northesk had also spoken on this matter to Montrose. Montrose, in a letter to Baillie of 26 Oct., made light of this approach from the court, doubtless fearing that it compromised him in the eyes of Baillie and other party colleagues, and felt ‘he need not trouble himself to make any return’.²⁶ Because he was uncertain how far he had successfully allayed the suspicions raised by the discovery of their correspondence, Montrose urged his brother-in-law to act cautiously. Northesk was appointed to the commission of chamberlainry established by the ministry in November 1711, at a salary of £1,000 a year.²⁷

He nevertheless refused to come up to town when summoned by the ministry for the first days of the session of 1711-12 ‘till he get a letter telling him that, notwithstanding the office he lately got, his past services shall be considered’.²⁸ His proxy with Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], was registered from 7 Dec. 1711, the first day of the session. After the vote of 20 Dec. denying Hamilton the right to sit in the House by virtue of his British peerage as duke of Brandon, George Baillie observed to his wife that ‘there were six of the Scots peers not come up which lost the point’, which number included Northesk.²⁹ Presumably his proxy with Loudoun, one of those Scots present that day, was not counted because proxies do not appear, surprisingly, to have been called for in the final decision in the House which saw the defeat of Hamilton’s claims. Northesk did not sit in the House to vacate his proxy until 9 Feb. 1712 and after this late start he attended only 56 per cent of the session’s sitting days. Shortly after his arrival in the capital in February, Northesk presented a letter to Oxford about arrears of money owing to Montrose. He reported to his brother-in-law the duke that ‘we being in the House, I took occasion to do it there; he [Oxford] did not open it, but said he would give me the answer.’ The exchange had been witnessed by Mar, who lost no time in cross-examining Northesk. ‘He asked me if the treasurer had been speaking of a former affair’, Northesk wrote to Montrose. He continued, ‘I told him not, but that I was giving a letter from you, and I thought best to tell him about what it was, for I know he would otherwise, and perhaps he might have other thoughts’.³⁰ Northesk judged it prudent not to be seen in Oxford’s company too often and for the rest of February and early March only discussed this matter once with the treasurer, preferring to negotiate instead with an under-secretary.³¹

On 17 Mar. 1712 the commissioners of public accounts presented a report to the Commons alleging financial mismanagement in Scotland arising from the failure to appoint new treasury commissioners after the death of William III. According to the report, between the death of William III and the Union there were no acting commissioners of the Scottish treasury and ‘the whole public revenue of Scotland was … left without any legal direction or government’.³² One of the most serious incidents concerned a loan of £20,000 from the English to the Scottish treasury at the end of 1706, to cover deficiencies on the civil list. The problem was that no terms had been settled for repayment of the loan and the report questioned whether any of the money had even been applied to the civil list. Though the Scots in Parliament were preoccupied at this time with the Episcopal communion toleration bill, Northesk realized the dangerous implications of this report, and warned Montrose that it could be used maliciously against outstanding Scottish claims such as Montrose’s. ‘What sort of a reel would it make? The very starting the question, makes a great grudging, there being hardly one in Scotland, it would not effect one way or other, and subjecting men’s private rights to a review, as well as public grants ’twould be a very odd thing.’ Northesk now felt it necessary to approach Oxford directly about Montrose’s arrears. He told Montrose on 25 Mar. that ‘I made bold on Sunday at court to mind the treasurer, whose answer was much as formerly but every kind of thing is so put off, that I’m more afraid of delays in your concern as before’.³³ Oxford, Northesk and Montrose continued to negotiate the details of the claim for arrears in the context of their moves to stifle the potential controversy surrounding the commissioners’ report on the Scottish treasury.³⁴ As the danger began to subside in the spring of 1712 Northesk resumed a more active parliamentary role and on 20 May voted in favour of the bill, ultimately rejected, for the parliamentary resumption of William III’s land grants.³⁵ Eight days later he sided, with Mar and Hamilton, against Oxford’s ministry by voting in favour of the Whig motion to address the queen against the ‘restraining orders’ issued to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, ordering him not to engage in offensive military actions against the French. Perhaps this was done to force Oxford’s hand regarding his constant importunities, for during this time, Northesk expressed increasing anxiety to return to Scotland as soon as he could, because of the ruinous expense of his living in London.³⁶ He last sat in the House on 21 June, a little more than two weeks before the end of the session.

In the autumn of 1712 Northesk was promised a payment of £1,000 besides his salary as a commissioner of chamberlainry. The money was never paid, but the prospect, and his evident necessities, were enough to sustain his discreet support for government.³⁷ Certainly in the spring of 1713 Jonathan Swift considered Northesk a certain supporter of the ministry for the forthcoming session. Northesk was present at two of the prorogations in March of the long-postponed session to discuss the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht and was again present when that session finally met for business on 9 Apr. 1713. He attended on all but eight of the days of this session – 88 per cent. Following Swift’s forecast, Oxford himself predicted that Northesk would support the ministry by voting for the bill to confirm the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty; this bill, however, never even made it as far as appearing before the House. Once again, though, Northesk showed that he was not entirely the ministry’s servant, especially when specifically Scottish matters were concerned. On 1 June, when James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], moved for leave to bring in a bill to dissolve the Union, Northesk voted with the other Scottish peers and their temporary Whig allies to adjourn the debate. This attempt to delay consideration of the bill so that more votes in its favour could be mustered was unsuccessful and the ministry was able to defeat the motion for such a bill that very day. Northesk later voted on 8 June with the minority against the third reading of the bill to extend the malt tax to Scotland and subscribed to the protest that declared the bill a violation of the Treaty of Union.³⁸ He continued to attend until the end of the session on 16 July and throughout the summer bombarded Oxford with further requests for financial assistance, especially the £1,000 the lord treasurer had promised to pay him the previous year and his salary as a commissioner for the chamberlainry. To buttress his case, Northesk claimed that continuing residence in London was expensive and at the same time prevented him from taking care of important personal business in Scotland.³⁹

Northesk was re-elected as a representative peer in October 1713 but was again slow to take his seat, appearing in Parliament only on 31 Mar. 1714, well over a month into the session.⁴⁰ He still managed to attend close to three-quarters of the sittings of this session. He was still awaiting the £1,000 he had been promised, and reappointment to the commission of chamberlainry in the autumn of 1713 was inadequate to purchase his active support for government in this session. Nevertheless, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, considered him a supporter of the schism bill, and he was certainly present in the House during the proceedings on this bill, while his name does not appear in the protest against its passage on 15 June. He remained in the House until the prorogation on 9 July. That was his last ever attendance on the House, for Northesk did not sit for the session following the death of Anne which convened to proclaim the Hanoverian Succession and he was not elected a representative for any of the Hanoverians’ Parliaments. He certainly showed no enthusiasm for welcoming the new dynasty, writing to Montrose on 21 Aug. 1714 that he preferred to stay at home rather than endure a troublesome and costly journey to London. Although, as he conceded, it would have been advisable ‘to have made my compliments to the king at his first coming, and however insignificant one is, there may be somebody ready enough to misconstruct what they do, however I’m less concerned since your Grace knows my reasons.’⁴¹ He showed no sympathy for the exiled Stuarts either, steering well clear of active Jacobite involvement despite his former closeness to Mar, and during the ’Fifteen his house, including the wine cellar, and estates were pillaged at a cost of over £2,500.⁴² The ensuing debts lay heavily on him in his last years and ill health also contributed to his deteriorating circumstances. By 1722 he was associated with the Tories in Scottish politics but played only a minor role in the elections of that year.⁴³ Northesk died at Ethie Castle 14 Jan. 1729.⁴⁴

Dsundonald was only 16 years old when he succeeded his elder brother William, who according to his uncle Charles Douglas*, 2nd earl of Selkirk [S], was ‘one of the hopefullest youths I ever saw’. The new earl’s situation was not happy: a sickly child, caught in the crossfire of competing family interests. His widowed mother, who had married Charles Hay^†, styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), fretted over him and would not let him live on his own in the ancestral home at Paisley, as his brother had done. She called in the head of her family, her brother James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] (later duke of Brandon), to bolster her demand that Dundonald live in her household.³ The young man’s frustration found expression in February 1706 when he complained to his mother that her cosseting was causing him public embarrassment. Lady Yester reminded him that when his brother died she had determined that he should stay with her until he was married. Although recounting her pleasure at the accounts she had received of his conduct, she insisted that she could not yield on this point because ‘my concern is so great for you’.⁴ Nonetheless, she took his complaints as a warning and tried to find him a suitable bride. For his part, Dundonald himself promised to do whatever the duke of Hamilton should advise him.⁵ But at the same time, his paternal uncle William Cochrane^‡, who had been appointed his tutor (guardian), and who was also, by a further complication, Hamilton’s man-of-business, was intriguing to marry Dundonald off. In April Cochrane completed the negotiations which brought his nephew the hand of Lady Anne Murray, the pious daughter of the earl of Dunmore.⁶ Lord and Lady Yester were piqued, but could do nothing, and as the marriage was happy, cordial family relations resumed.⁷

Guided by Hamilton, Dundonald took part in the election of the Scottish representative peers at Holyrood Abbey on 17 June 1708. He voted for the list agreed by Hamilton with Lord Yester’s friends in the Squadrone, but because he was himself still a minor — 17 days short of his 21st birthday — two members of the court party protested that his votes were invalid.⁸ Their objection was considered in the Lords on 29 Nov., when Dundonald’s baptismal record was called for. Shortly afterwards a further order was issued that his mother should attend, to be questioned about her son’s age at the election. Finally, on 26 Jan. 1709, the House decided against him and his votes were annulled.⁹

Dundonald was present again at the peers’ election in 1710, supporting the candidates agreed by the new Tory administration of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, with Hamilton, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], and John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (earl of Greenwich), a list which included his brother-in-law, Dunmore.¹⁰ The following year Dundonald raised the possibility of standing for the vacancy that would be created in the House of Lords if Hamilton received, as expected, a British peerage as duke of Brandon. When he wrote to Hamilton about it, ‘begging’ the duke to ‘procure the queen’s consent ‘ and explaining that ‘the reason I am so pressing to be chosen is because I design to be at London all winter’, he was disappointed by the relatively cool response.¹¹ Hamilton, who may have given his interest in the meantime to James Livingston*, 5th earl of Linlithgow [S], merely advised him to write to Harley (now earl of Oxford) to lay before the queen his request to serve as a representative peer, which he did in September 1711.¹² Two months later Dundonald set out for London, writing to his mother on 1 Dec. that ‘I kissed the queen’s hand on Monday last, my lord treasurer was not then to be seen, so I went with Duke Hamilton, her Maj[esty] was very civil and obliging’. Dundonald now had doubts about the success of his uncle’s attempt to take his seat in the Lords as duke of Brandon; despite Hamilton’s own confidence, ‘many other people think there will be a great struggle’.¹³ His fears were borne out later that month when the Lords resolved that no Scottish peer could sit in the House by virtue of a British peerage conferred after the Union. Disappointed, and resentful enough at the Lords’ decision to sign the petition of Scottish peers protesting against it, Dundonald then decided that he would visit Holland.¹⁴ His absence meant that he was overlooked when the death of William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S], produced a vacancy amongst the representative peers. As Mar commented, he was ‘abroad and so in a manner off the field’.¹⁵

When Dundonald heard that Hamilton had been appointed ambassador to France, he was eager to accompany him, and in late August 1712 wrote to his uncle from Ghent asking him to obtain the necessary permission from the queen.¹⁶ He reached Paris early in November, and wrote to tell his mother that ‘everybody in France in the town and upon the road longs mightily to see Duke Hamilton and all expects to see magnificent doings when he comes’. It was thus a cruel disappointment when he received the tragic news of his uncle’s death, in a duel fought in London on 15 November.¹⁷

Dundonald stayed on in Paris, however, until the autumn of 1713, returning to Edinburgh on 6 Oct. 1713 just two days before the election of representative peers. He had sought Oxford’s assistance in advance, as well as that of George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S]. This, combined with the approval of Argyll, ensured his successful candidacy.¹⁸ He was believed to be still in Scotland at the end of the third week in January 1714 but appears to have journeyed south shortly after, arriving in London in time to take his seat at the opening on 16 February.¹⁹ He took the oaths and attended the session for 89 per cent of sittings. Until he could find a house of his own he lodged with Dunmore. On 20 Feb. he informed his mother that ‘I had the honour of kissing her Majesty’s hands yesternight, and I bless God her Maj[esty] looked extremely well, a quickness in her eyes and a cheerfulness in her countenance; she comes on Tuesday next to the parliament’.²⁰ He was present in the Lords on 2 Mar., the day of the Queen’s speech, when he was named as one of the triers of petitions and on the standing committees for privileges and the Journal. Thereafter, he attended the House with special regularity during March and April, missing only five sittings during these months. On 9 Mar. he was named to the select committee to prepare an address to the queen to order enquiries into the publisher of The Public Spirit of the Whigs. In April he was named on the committee to draw up the address of thanks to the queen for her speech about the peace, and in May was forecast as likely to support the schism bill. He was subsequently included on four committees considering private bills before the end of the session on 9 July.²¹

Midway through the session Dundonald was permitted to purchase from the now disgraced Argyll (for the sum of £10,000) the colonelcy of the 4th troop of Horse Guards.²² At the time Dundonald was reputed to be a Jacobite Tory and a ‘professed Episcopalian’. This was presumably on the strength of his past connection with Hamilton and his present closeness to Dunmore, but his real political principles and preferences are not easy to discover.²³ As a young man he had been described by Scottish Jacobites as ‘loyal’, on the testimony of his ‘nearest relations’; while in Paris he had been approached by a Jacobite agent but seems not to have committed himself.²⁴ Such Jacobite sympathies may have been further underscored by a report of April 1714 that he was likely to marry again (his first wife having died four years previously), this time to the daughter of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.²⁵

When the Lords met following the queen’s death, on 1 Aug., he was again present, and he attended 80 per cent of sittings until Parliament was prorogued on 25 August. In spite of his reputed Jacobite sympathies, Dundonald remained in office after the accession of George I, not least because his financial health may not have been sound enough to sustain the loss of what was a very substantial investment in his army commission.²⁶ He seems to have considered that re-election to the Lords was a possibility, writing from London on 22 Jan. 1715 to his stepfather, now marquess of Tweeddale, that ‘I am sure it is not the king’s fault if I be not of the sixteen’.²⁷ At the same time he promised a vote in the election to Tweeddale’s Squadrone colleague, James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S].²⁸ Dundonald was not, in fact, chosen. However, he remained in London, where he remarried, and attended court as a lord-in-waiting to the prince of Wales.²⁹ Membership of the prince’s household brought political difficulties. In 1717 there was an unfounded report that he was to lose his regiment; and two years later, in the spring of 1719, he helped to organize the petition of Scottish peers against the peerage bill, for which he suffered the punishment of being ordered to dispose of his company.³⁰ He may well have felt strongly on this particular issue from a patriotic viewpoint, since his involvement was at odds with the position being taken by both Argyll and the Squadrone, though Argyll pinned the blame on his political opponents for Dundonald’s disgrace.³¹

Dundonald died suddenly on 5 June 1720, leaving behind a reputation for piety and philanthropy, which he may have taken from his beloved first wife.³²

Colyear’s father and grandfather had both served in the Scots Brigade in the United Provinces, and he naturally followed in their footsteps into the Dutch service, serving as a lieutenant in his father’s regiment upon its foundation in 1675. He later became lieutenant-colonel for another Scots regiment in the United Provinces, seeing action on the continent throughout the Dutch wars against Louis XIV. The loss of his right eye, which was visible in contemporary portraits, occurred however as a result of a duel in 1687. He sailed for England with the prince of Orange and on the last day of 1688 was given command of one of the regiments that James II had previously raised in the early part of that year with officers from the regiments of the Scots Brigade. This regiment took a prominent part in the Irish campaigns, and after the conclusion of the siege of Limerick in 1691 Portmore in April 1703 was appointed as military governor of the city. Colyear’s regimental record during the remainder of the Nine Years’ War is not entirely clear, but it included active service, and in May 1696 he was promoted major-general. Later that year he married James II’s former mistress, Catherine Sedley, suo jure countess of Dorchester. Far from respectable, and sometimes perilously indiscreet, Lady Dorchester had come under suspicion of disloyalty in the early years of William’s reign, but enjoyed a substantial pension and property in Ireland by virtue of her relationship with the late king. Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, for one, viewed Colyear’s choice of wife cynically. While allowing that Colyear ‘is one of the best foot officers in the world, is very brave and bold, hath a great deal of wit, [is] very much a man of honour and nice that way’, he noted that ‘yet [he] married the countess of Dorchester, and had by her a good estate’.⁵ As Burnet suggested, Colyear’s matrimonial decision paid off for both parties: his loyalty to William III shielded his wife from criticism, and the estate he had acquired through her permitted social advancement. He was promoted major-general, was naturalized by an act of Parliament on 4 May 1699, and the following month was given a Scottish peerage and instructed by the king to take his seat in the Scottish Parliament, ‘where [his majesty] thinks you may do him service in this juncture’.⁶ In the general election of November 1701 he stood for New Romney, previously the constituency of his late father-in-law Sir Charles Sedley^‡. He campaigned on the Whig interest, or at least as a court supporter, but was beaten into third place by two Tories.⁷

Following the death of William III, Portmore was re-commissioned as major-general, and after the outbreak of war in 1702 his regiment was involved in heavy fighting in Flanders, with considerable losses, and, more successfully, in the attack on Vigo Bay.⁸ John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, proposed that he be sent as governor of Jamaica but the lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, advised against this: ‘My Lord Portmore is an officer that the more he is known, the better he will be liked, so that the only apprehension I have against your thought of sending him to Jamaica, is that he may not like it. For I know he has set his heart upon being left governor of Cadiz’.⁹ In the event, Portmore received neither post: instead, his reward was promotion both in his military rank, to lieutenant-general, and in his rank in the Scottish peerage, where he became earl of Portmore. It is possible that Marlborough’s proposal of the Jamaica governorship was partly motivated by malice, deriving from jealousy of his own position in the light of the success of the Vigo operation, for it soon became apparent that Portmore would have difficulties put in his way. Although stating his own preference to keep his regiment in England, he was first sent to Flanders, where his troops were again involved in action, and was then dispatched to Portugal to serve under Meinhard Schomberg*, 3rd duke of Schomberg. ¹⁰ His concern was that in his absence there might be moves in Parliament against the royal grants previously bestowed on his wife. As he wrote to secretary of state Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, ‘whilst I am forward to do the best I can abroad for the service of the nation, I am distracted with the apprehension of having my family ruined by a bill of resumption at home’.¹¹ Although these fears proved unfounded, Portmore continued to encounter frustrations. When Schomberg fell ill in 1704, the queen first considered Portmore as a replacement.¹² But, seemingly through Marlborough’s intervention, Portmore lost the Portuguese command to Henry de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I].¹³ When he returned to England in August 1704 and waited on the queen to press his claims for promotion, he made no progress. ¹⁴ Besides Marlborough’s ill-will, there was hostility from James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S], who advised Godolphin ‘to think well of it’ before rushing to give Portmore a colonelcy in the Guards following the death of lieutenant-general George Ramsay.¹⁵ Portmore remained an infantry colonel, and his regiment remained under Galway’s command in the Peninsula.

Three years later there was again evidence of friction between Portmore and Seafield in the aftermath of the first election of Scottish representative peers. Portmore was not present at the election at Edinburgh on 17 June 1708, but completed a proxy vote at Westminster which he sent to Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], to present on his behalf.¹⁶ He favoured the candidates being put forward by Marchmont and the Squadrone in their tactical alliance with James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], against the Scottish court interest of which Seafield was a member.¹⁷ The regularity of the proxy was later challenged by Seafield, on the grounds that it ‘was informal, signed in England, not sealed or on stamped vellum’.¹⁸ Marchmont dismissed this argument, observing that ‘there is no such things required by the acts of Parliament’.¹⁹ Nonetheless, the matter was referred to the House by the coalition of Hamilton and the Squadrone who were challenging the election. The committee examining complaints decided on 29 Jan. in Portmore’s favour, resolving ‘that a proxy signed at Westminster before witnesses, but not sealed, nor on stamped parchment, was a good proxy’.

It is unadvisable to read too much into this temporary alliance between Portmore and the Squadrone (and through the Squadrone to the Whig Junto). The consistent element in his political position from 1702 onwards was his alienation from Marlborough, and by 1710 this had developed so far as to encompass Godolphin as well, who had previously spoken well of Portmore. In the summer of that year, when a replacement for Galway as commander of the army in Portugal had to be found, Godolphin, who now dismissed Portmore as ‘a fop’, tried to block his promotion by suggesting Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, for the post instead. Rivers, though, refused, leaving the way open for the queen to propose Portmore.²⁰ His appointment as commander-in-chief in Portugal was thus confirmed on 27 June 1710. Godolphin, who suspected that Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, had recommended Portmore, disapproved of the appointment, although he put on a brave face to Portmore himself. ‘I hope it is only in the command of the troops’, he wrote to Marlborough, ‘in which I hope he may do very well, because there is nothing to do. But as to any other matters, I look upon him to be entirely well finished.’²¹ The political significance of this announcement was clear. Charles Hay^†, styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), told his father on 8 July 1710 that ‘there will certainly be a new ministry and a new Parliament … Portmore goes for Portugal immediately which is all of a piece’.²² In fact, Portmore’s departure was delayed by the ongoing political crisis and it was only on 20 Sept. that he took his leave.²³

Portmore completed a proxy vote for the ensuing election of Scottish representative peers, entrusting it to Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S].²⁴ Meanwhile he was pressing the court at Lisbon ‘to act with vigour against Spain’ to which end he would ‘view the condition and numbers of the troops in their quarters, and to get all things ready for their early taking the field in the spring’.²⁵ Whilst Portmore busied himself in animating the Portuguese army, the House began its enquiry into the conduct of the war in Spain, prompted by the recent defeat at Brihuega. It was well for him that papers presented to the House in the winter of 1710-11 made it clear that he had not been present at the disastrous allied defeat at Almanza in 1707.²⁶

Portmore’s wife continued to solicit further favours on his behalf. Hearing that George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], was to be made a general of foot, she wrote to Harley on 30 Apr. 1711, asking him to

take the first opportunity to represent to her majesty that this would be giving away my lord’s rank, who is an older lieutenant general than Lord Orkney. A thing of that nature is seldom done to the meanest officer, much less to one of my lord’s post actually in the queen’s service. 

Harley was obviously keen to help, for he marked this letter as having been answered ‘immediately’. ²⁷ Significantly, though, it was only after Marlborough’s replacement as captain-general in 1712 that Portmore was transferred to Flanders, to serve under Marlborough’s successor, James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.²⁸ Further distinctions followed for Portmore: nomination to the Privy Council, admission into the Order of the Thistle, and in 1713 the governorship of Gibraltar.

Portmore’s connection with Oxford (as Harley became in May 1711) also opened the way for his entry into the House of Lords. In July 1713 Oxford’s son-in-law, George Hay*, styled Lord Dupplin (later Baron Hay [S]), included Portmore’s name in a list headed ‘peers pretending next elections’.²⁹ Many Scots peers were opposed to his candidacy, as they thought he was ‘not of their ancient race, and that he was born in Holland and never naturalized’, the latter of which was true as his act of naturalization had been passed by the English Parliament before the Union.³⁰ Nevertheless, probably because of his backing from Oxford and the court, he was successfully returned as a representative peer on 8 Oct. 1713, and a contemporary analysis of the views towards the succession of the incoming 16 marked him as a Hanoverian.

He first sat on 16 Feb. 1714, the first day of the new Parliament, and he went on to attend 72 per cent of the sitting days of this first session of Feb.-July 1714. His proxy with John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], was registered on 17 Apr. 1714, only for Portmore to resume attendance, thus vacating the proxy, three days later. Although he was absent on only three occasions between the first meeting of Parliament and the end of April 1714, Portmore was during this time more concerned with negotiating the purchase of the regiment of John Dalrymple*, 2nd earl of Stair [S]. The agent and middleman involved in these transactions assured Oxford that he should ‘applaud the earl of Portmore’s forwardness to part with such a sum in this juncture to show his zeal to her majesty’.³¹ Portmore eventually secured command of the Royal North British Dragoons at a cost of £6,000 in early April 1714. This provoked an outcry but Oxford observed, regarding this and other changes in the military officer corps of the time, that ‘no one is put in but who is undoubtedly zealous for the House of Hanover’. ³²

Once the purchase had been concluded Portmore continued to attend diligently and missed only five sittings in May. In early June Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, forecast that Portmore would support the schism bill brought up from the Commons on 2 June 1714. The Journal’s attendance register suggests that he attended throughout proceedings on this bill. In a committee of the whole on 9 June two amendments were proposed to the bill, one in favour of exempting schoolmistresses from the scope of the bill and the other of allowing appeals to the justices of the peace. Reporting on these debates, George Baillie^‡ told his wife that Portmore was in favour of both of these amendments, against the wishes of Oxford and the ministry. Baillie further suggested that yet again there was a difference between Portmore and the 4th earl of Findlater [S] (as Seafield had become), as the latter ‘left’ Portmore and two other Scots peers by voting against the second amendment, after having voted with them on the first. ³³ On about 11 June a petition from Dissenting ministers to be heard against the bill was brought before the House, but was ultimately rejected by a majority of 14. Robert Wodrow noted that Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, had been able to convince ten of the 16 representative peers to vote against the petition, while Portmore and his fellow military commander Orkney left the House before the division.³⁴ In the latter stages of the bill the Whigs tried to alter a clause in order to allow the Dissenting academies to teach Latin and Greek and Portmore was one of four Scots peers – again joined by Orkney - who voted, ultimately fruitlessly, in favour of this amendment.³⁵ Despite these indications of opposition to aspects of the bill, Portmore apparently did not feel the need to subscribe to the protest against the eventual passage of the schism bill on 15 June. After the death of the queen on 1 Aug. Portmore attended the House for its hurriedly convened session to oversee the accession of the elector of Hanover. He attended only five more sittings during the rest of the session of August 1714 – 40 per cent of the total sitting days – and sat in the House for the last time on 25 August. He was not elected as a representative peer in 1715 or subsequently.

As early as May 1711 Oxford had been made aware that Portmore had Jacobite connections, when it was reported that he had secured the rehabilitation of the exiled Jacobite laird of Strowan.³⁶ During the summer of 1715 Bolingbroke was emboldened to write to Portmore directly on the Pretender’s behalf and observed to James Francis Edward that Portmore ‘is an officer and worth securing’.³⁷ Portmore took no part in the 1715 Rebellion, yet he continued to flirt with Jacobitism, letting it be known to the Jacobite court (through third parties) that he was sympathetic, though without any firm commitment. In the spring of 1716 Mar was told that

Lord Portmore has at several times declared his resolution … that, if any attempt be made in England, he will cheerfully come into it and bring a considerable sum into the field with him, and he maintained his having 30,000 l. ready for that purpose … Lord Portmore’s opinion was that 10,000 men in England would effectually do the work.³⁸

Despite these assurances Portmore continued to avoid a decisive commitment, a reluctance which Mar attributed to the influence of Lady Dorchester, who ‘was consulted in all such matters by him’.³⁹ After her death in 1717 Portmore was reported as having decided to ‘come abroad to try his fortune’, possibly fearing that his dealings with the Jacobites would come to light.⁴⁰ The following year he did travel to Holland, where he made direct contact with a Jacobite emissary, to whom he spoke of his ‘discontents’, expressing ‘great contempt of both the Elector [George I] and his son’.⁴¹ By 1721, when he was reappointed to the Privy Council, he was clearly back in favour with the Hanoverians and he remained as governor of Gibraltar until his death, although from 1720 his duties there were largely exercised by the able lieutenant-governor Richard Kane. Portmore did return to Gibraltar himself for a time in 1727–8, to assume command of the garrison in order to resist a threatened Spanish siege.⁴²

Portmore died at his house in Weybridge on 2 Jan. 1730, and was buried in St James’s church beside his wife, whose remains had been removed there the previous September from Bath, where she had died in 1717.⁴³ He reportedly left an estate of £50,000.⁴⁴

At the age of nine Dalrymple killed his elder brother in a shooting accident at the family home. He was pardoned under the Great Seal but his broken-hearted parents sent him away, first to a private tutor, and then to his grandfather Sir James Dalrymple, living in exile in the Low Countries, where Dalrymple studied for a time at the University of Leiden and came to the attention of the prince of Orange. He returned to Scotland after the Revolution, when his father and grandfather were appointed to high office in the Williamite government in Scotland. While there may have been some pressure to follow in the family tradition of the law, his own inclinations were more adventurous. After enrolling for the second time at Leiden in January 1692, he abandoned his studies, and instead served an unofficial apprenticeship in the army and in the diplomatic service.³ He was at Steenkirk in 1692 as a volunteer with the Cameronian regiment and later travelled to Vienna with the embassy (1694-7) of Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton.⁴ In 1702 he was given a commission as lieutenant-colonel in the Scots Foot Guards and again went on campaign in the Netherlands as a volunteer.⁵ He was present at the storming of Venlo (where he is said to have saved the life of Prince Friedrich of Hessen-Kassel, the future King Fredrik 1 of Sweden). His exploits caught the eye of the duke of Marlborough, who, having chosen Dalrymple, now styled Viscount Dalrymple, as his aide-de-camp in 1703, used his influence with Grand Pensionary Heinsius to secure him command of a regiment in the Dutch service.⁶

Under Marlborough’s careful guidance, Dalrymple enjoyed a distinguished military career. He was present at all Marlborough’s great victories, from Blenheim onwards. Early in 1706 Marlborough helped him exchange his command in the Dutch service for the colonelcy of the Cameronians, and in the summer of 1706, after Dalrymple had commanded an infantry brigade at Ramillies, he moved to become colonel of the Scots Greys and was advanced to the rank of brigadier-general, preferments which also had the advantage of cementing the earl of Stair’s loyalty in the ongoing union negotiations.⁷

After his father’s sudden and unexpected death, Dalrymple took his seat in the Scottish Parliament on 21 Jan. 1707, and joined the rest of his family in the ranks of the Scottish court party headed by James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S]. He certainly shared his father’s enthusiasm for Union, and had even now conceived the idea that he ought to be rewarded for his family’s several generations of service to the crown with the grant of a British peerage.⁸ Through Queensberry’s influence he was chosen in February as one of the first cohort of representative peers sent to the united Parliament, ‘both upon his own account and his father’s’. In an assessment of 1707 by Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], he was described as ‘sicut [i.e. just as] Queensberry or Argyll [John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] and earl of Greenwich]’, and it was noted that of members of the Commons, William Dalrymple^‡ ‘will be much influenced by’ him, and that Alexander Abercrombie^‡ might be influenced by him or by James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]. He took his place in the Lords on 10 Nov. 1707 on the same day that Marlborough also resumed his seat.⁹ On 7 Feb. 1708 he signed a protest against the passage of the bill improving the Union, which disapproving of the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council in May rather than October and the introduction into Scotland of the English system of justices of the peace, which was seen as a violation of the Treaty of Union. In all, he attended on 65 days of the session, 61 per cent of the total. On a printed list from about May 1708 of the first Parliament of Great Britain, he was classed as a Whig.

Stair remained in the House a week longer than Marlborough, until the last day of the session on 1 Apr. 1708, after which he went immediately to rejoin the army and in consequence was unable to attend the peers’ election in Edinburgh, for which he was included again on the court list. He entrusted his proxy to his brother-in-law, Loudoun, who duly cast it for the court candidates.¹⁰ Since Marlborough was eligible to vote, by virtue of his Scottish barony of Eyemouth, Stair also forwarded the duke’s proxy (naming Stair as one of his preferred candidates) to Queensberry’s close ally John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S].¹¹ Despite all this influential support, Stair was not elected, being one of several Queensberryites ousted by the electoral alliance of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], and the Squadrone Volante, which was supported by the Whig Junto in London, and especially by the Whig secretary of state, Marlborough’s son-in-law, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland. It was reported that ‘many are very angry at young Lord Stair being out’: some criticized his own family; others pointed a finger at those court party candidates who had been returned, like Lord Rosebery. In fact, what seems to have happened is that Stair lost because he could not obtain a sufficient number of court proxies, which were allocated by the candidates throwing dice for them at Queensberry House in Edinburgh. In Stair’s case the dice were thrown for him by another member of his family, whose luck was out while Rosebery’s was in.¹² In giving Marlborough news of the election, Mar was apologetic, blaming Sunderland: ‘Though we have the greatest part, yet I am sorry more of them did not carry, and particularly my Lord Stair.’¹³

After the victory at Oudenarde in July 1708, Marlborough sent Stair to carry an account of the battle to the queen (a task for which he subsequently received a gratuity of £1,000).¹⁴ He arrived at Windsor on 5 July, taking the opportunity to renew his request for an English peerage as compensation for his failure to secure a place as one of the representative peers. This request was strongly supported by Marlborough, who was also determined to make amends for Stair’s disappointment (his own annoyance aggravated by Sunderland’s involvement). However the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, did not share Marlborough’s urgency. He was more concerned at the threatened opposition to Queensberry’s British peerage, and ‘endeavoured to satisfy my Lord Stair that it would not be advisable for himself, nor for the queen, to press it at this time.’¹⁵ Stair had to be content with an assurance from the queen ‘that as soon as it is convenient for my affairs, I will do for him what he desires’.¹⁶ This, and a promise that he would be promoted to major-general, was evidently enough to make Stair ‘happy’.¹⁷ It did not satisfy Marlborough, who wrote from The Hague in January 1709 to remind Godolphin

of the good opinion and friendship I have for Lord Stair, so that I do make it my request to her Majesty, that if her affairs can permit it, that she would be pleased, as she promised, to make him an English peer; and I will be answerable the queen shall always find him a grateful and dutiful subject. I beg you will make this easy, so that he may have the pleasure of serving this session.¹⁸

On 21 Jan., however, the Lords made a ruling that Queensbury, having been made the British duke of Dover in May 1708, was ineligible to cast his vote in the election of Scottish representative peers, a decision which for the time being put an end to Stair’s pretensions. 

Stair was compensated at the end of the year when he was named as the queen’s envoy extraordinary to the king of Poland. He conferred in advance with the Dutch, who were also sending an envoy of their own, and he and his Dutch colleague were able to ensure that the Polish king did nothing to encourage Sweden to attack the Emperor’s German territories, and thus create a strategic diversion in order to assist the French. Stair was also successful in persuading the Polish king, who was also elector of Saxony, to allow two battalions of Saxon troops to join the allied forces.¹⁹ His immediate reward, obtained through Marlborough’s influence, was nomination to the vacancy in the Order of the Thistle in March 1710, though he seems to have been kept waiting to be reimbursed for his expenses in Poland.²⁰ Impressed with his intelligence and diplomatic skills, Marlborough decided that Stair should be sent to England to find out whether it was likely that Parliament would be dissolved. When the dissolution occurred, on 21 Sept., Stair immediately advised Marlborough that ‘your Grace’s presence here will be very necessary to calm things before the sitting down of Parliament. The delay of dissolving Parliament has been a great disadvantage to the new party. The Whigs have recovered themselves and are united and bold.’²¹

Before the election of 10 Nov. 1710 Mar urged Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, to do something to gratify Stair, but nothing was forthcoming, and it was assumed that, with the rest of his family, he would use his influence against the new Tory ministry. Stair made strenuous efforts to secure his own return as a representative peer but, despite reaching a private agreement with the Squadrone Volante, was unable to secure a seat.²² In the event he neither attended the election in person nor left a proxy.²³ Evidently he was one of a number of friends of the late ministry whom the Tories insisted on black-listing, and Mar could not get Stair included on the list he had agreed with Hamilton and Argyll.²⁴ Nonetheless, Daniel Defoe considered that Stair was one of the few men whom all sides in Scotland might still trust: there was only one possible objection against him, ‘his late engagement with the Squadrone.’²⁵ Electoral disappointment was followed by a further revival of his request for a British peerage. On 17 May 1711 he wrote to Mar to remind him of the queen’s promise, adding,

I think I can never apply myself to a man who can better judge of the service my father and his friends did in the matter of the Union than to yourself. I hope the friendship which was between you and him won’t make you averse to the having this mark of honour and distinction put upon his family. In my profession and as far as it lay in my way I have ever been zealous for the queen’s service, without running at any time into the violence of parties. If the queen makes any peers at this time I shall think myself very happy to have your favour and protection. You shall find me more sensible of an obligation than people that are apter to make great professions.²⁶

In a second letter he tried to explain his political stance. 

Now my lord, I must beg your good offices with this great man, if he thinks fit to do me any good, I have nothing that hinders me to be his humble servant and to make him the best returns I can. Last year I thought myself obliged not to meddle in the change, though I had no connection of any kind with the Junto, yet I was in friendship and had obligations to people who opposed the alterations. I was not clear-sighted enough to see that they could be made without some danger to the public, but sic stantibus, for the very same goodwill I have to my country, I should be sorry to see any considerable alteration in the ministry now, and if I can be protected I shall be very glad to give my small assistance to the supporting of it.²⁷

Mar passed the letter to Harley, but nothing transpired. Stair was then able to speak directly to Harley (now lord treasurer and earl of Oxford), when he was sent to England in the summer by Marlborough to try to improve relations with Oxford. Stair brought ‘a project relating to the public service and the carrying on of the war, which cannot be concerted in writing, there being often things which may be found necessary to be altered and many points require to be explained.’²⁸ He had three meetings with Oxford in July but he had nothing to tell Marlborough when he wrote on 24 July because, he said, Oxford ‘intends to write himself’.²⁹ Stair remained in England until September while Oxford and Marlborough exchanged letters. He used the opportunity to make the case for a new diplomatic posting, alleging that he was still out of pocket from his Polish embassy.³⁰ His return to the continent was delayed, but he finally reached Marlborough’s camp by mid-September carrying Oxford’s response.³¹ Although Oxford had expressed approval of Marlborough’s project, the French had opened peace negotiations, and the project had therefore come to nothing.³² Stair told Oxford that he had believed that together Oxford and Marlborough could have saved the country, but now he was convinced ‘that you will find it a very hard task. I wish you good success with all my heart. I shall think myself happy enough in my share in the public good fortune, without proposing or pretending any other advantage to myself.’³³ In later years he would claim that after all his attempts to negotiate with Oxford, ‘in the end, I was allowed to go back to the siege of Bouchain with a bamboozling letter ... to the duke of Marlborough’.³⁴ After Marlborough’s dismissal in December 1711 Stair kept a healthy distance between himself and Oxford, and did not renew his requests. Little is known of his political position in these years, except that in 1713 he seems to have supported Scottish resistance to the malt tax, publicly endorsing the motion in June 1713 for the dissolution of the Union.³⁵ At the same time he continued to petition the treasury for arrears of army pay.³⁶ Eventually, in 1714 he was forced to sell his regiment to David Colyear*, earl of Portmore [S], but at least received £6,000 for it, a sum of money of which he was said to have great need.³⁷ Indeed, he was said to have ‘played and lived at such a rate that he will be quite undone if he is turned out’.³⁸

It was not until after the Hanoverian Succession that Stair’s talents would be put to use again by government. In October 1714 he was named to the Privy Council and given a post in the new king’s household, and after re-election as a representative peer in 1715 returned to the diplomatic service with a plum posting to Paris. His parliamentary and official career after 1715 will be examined in detail in the second part of this work.

He died at Queensberry House on 9 May 1747.

Like his siblings, Lord Charles Hamilton was initially given the surname of his mother, Anne Hamilton, suo jure duchess of Hamilton, rather than that of his father, William Douglas, earl of Selkirk, who changed his surname to Hamilton as part of the marriage settlement of 1656. On 20 Sept. 1660, upon the request of the duchess, Charles II created Selkirk duke of Hamilton for life, the title to be held coterminously with his wife. On 6 Oct. 1688, when their second surviving son, Lord Charles Hamilton, was 25 years old, his father resigned to him, by charter of novodamus, his own earldom of Selkirk, and Charles then adopted his father’s old surname of Douglas for himself.⁴

Selkirk had connections with James II’s court, and had received a grant of money from the royal purse in 1687. At the time of William of Orange’s invasion, only a few weeks after receiving his title, Selkirk briefly served as colonel of the regiment of horse raised in 1685 by his elder brother James then styled earl of Arran [S], as Arran himself was moved on to command the Royal Horse Guards. Yet unlike his brother, Selkirk quickly proved himself a firm supporter of the Revolution.⁵ He was appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber to William III in 1689, at a salary of £1,000.⁶ Over the following few years he sedulously attended William at court in England, on campaign in Ireland, and in his journeys to the continent. ⁷ In 1691 he was employed by William as his envoy to take a message of condolence to Christian V of Denmark.⁸ In about 1693 his father Hamilton made his future more secure by settling on him the lands of Crawford Douglas and Crawford John in Lanarkshire.⁹ However, through all his travels with his royal master on the battlefield, Selkirk never enjoyed a military appointment and Hamilton, then acting as William III’s principal agent in Scotland, felt the need to ask the king that his favoured son be given command of a troop of guards.¹⁰ Instead, in 1696 Selkirk was appointed lord clerk register in Scotland, as part of the reconstruction of the Scottish ministry which brought into power the triumvirate of James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], Archibald Campbell, duke of Argyll [S], and John Murray, marquess of Atholl [S]. Fortunately Selkirk was able to employ a deputy to discharge his duties, so that he was able to remain in the king’s entourage.¹¹ In 1699 he was sent to Denmark again on another mission. This prompted a correspondent of William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], to observe maliciously that the king, having

tried to make Earl Selkirk, your cousin, a soldier, and a courtier, and a comrade, and a statesman, and that he finds omnipotency was only able to do these things, he now is to try how he is qualified to be an ambassador. He is to go to Denmark and Sweden. The jests that pass on this occasion cannot be written; they lose their edge in writing. But the misery is there is not so much as one to his advantage.¹²

With one short-lived deviation, Selkirk followed the political line set by his elder brother Arran, who became 4th duke of Hamilton, upon their mother’s resignation of the title, in 1698.¹³ Although he was identified in 1702 as a member of the Scottish court party, Selkirk seceded from Parliament in that year with Hamilton and other members of the country party in protest at the failure to call a new election. In this he gambled his office of lord clerk register, and lost. He was quickly removed, and lost his place on the Scottish Privy Council at the same time, by the queen’s direct order.¹⁴ Selkirk responded by taking an active part in the Scottish general election of that year on behalf of the country party alliance headed by his brother, and made it his particular concern to try and enlist ministers and other representatives of the Presbyterian interest.¹⁵ For some time he remained bitterly opposed to the ministry.¹⁶ Two years in the wilderness were sufficient, however. In 1704, having deserted Hamilton in the vote in July on the Act of Security, an action which caused a temporary rift between the brothers, Selkirk joined the ‘New Party’ administration as a lord of the treasury.¹⁷ None the less, family loyalties remained potent, and he was reported in December as resisting any attempt by his ministerial colleagues to come to terms with Queensberry, whose hostility to the Hamilton family he feared, alleging that Queensberry ‘desired nothing so much as to brue his hands in their blood’.¹⁸ By the time the New Party experiment came to an end, in 1705, Selkirk had already rebuilt bridges with Hamilton, who welcomed him back as a ‘returning prodigal’.¹⁹ He was turned out of office again when the Parliament met in June 1705, having been specified by John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll as one of those to whom particular exception was to be taken, and was left feeling highly dissatisfied.²⁰ In consequence he reverted to opposition, and in the Union Parliament voted against the treaty, having solicited Presbyterian interests to oppose it.²¹ For some reason George Lockhart^‡ of Carnwath later condemned him for voting in favour of the Union, as an ‘impudent wretch’ who had betrayed his country. ²² At the time of the Union he was owed over £900 in arrears from the Scottish treasury; it is not clear that this was ever paid.²³

In the 1708 general election Selkirk made efforts to assist his younger brother, Lord Archibald Hamilton, to be returned for Lanarkshire against the rival candidate George Lockhart.²⁴ He was also active among the peers who, on Hamilton’s behalf, lobbied for the Squadrone slate of candidates for Scottish representative peers, which had been promoted by the Whig Junto. Hamilton sent Selkirk and their other brother Orkney, to visit their brother-in-law John Murray*, duke of Atholl, and John Campbell*, earl of Breadalbane [S], both under arrest for their alleged involvement in that spring’s Jacobite uprising, in order to persuade them to turn to the Whigs for their release. After the Hamilton brothers’ return to Edinburgh on 12 June, Selkirk was able to write to Breadalbane that Atholl had promised Orkney his proxy.²⁵ Selkirk himself was not on the Hamilton-Squadrone ticket, sacrificing his place to ensure success for the other candidates. James Graham*, duke of Montrose, commented to Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, that Selkirk and three others were among ‘some of our best friends [who] did most generously drop themselves for the public interest’. Selkirk was however at Edinburgh for the election on 17 June, when he voted for the complete slate of other Squadrone members.²⁶

Selkirk was himself in the English capital for most of the session of 1708-9 and kept in close contact with his brothers in Parliament: Lord Archibald in the Commons and Hamilton and Orkney in the House.²⁷ By the winter of 1709 Selkirk, now back in Scotland, had become disillusioned with the Junto, as his brothers Orkney and Archibald failed to receive the military patronage and preferment they had expected and he felt they deserved.²⁸ Perhaps as a result he did not attend the peers’ election on 16 Nov. 1710, despite his vote having been earnestly solicited by the unsuccessful Squadrone candidate Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S] and the government slate having been organized in large part by his brother Hamilton.²⁹ He was even reluctant to ‘meddle’ in the election of James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], to replace the deceased William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal, in August 1712. ³⁰ Likewise he was absent later in November of that year when James Livingston*, 5th earl of Linlithgow [S], was chosen to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Hamilton during a duel with Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun.

With his eight-year-old nephew succeeding to the Hamilton dukedom, Selkirk was obliged to take more responsibility for the family’s business. In February 1713 he went to France to press their claim to the pension granted in 1549 to their ancestor James, 2nd earl of Arran [S], when he was created duke of Châtelherault in the French peerage.³¹ He was encouraged in this by the 22nd article of the Treaty of Utrecht which promised ‘justice to be done to the family of Hamilton, concerning the dukedom of Châtelherault’. To pursue this claim, Selkirk stayed in Paris for eight months, and in June was part of the retinue accompanying Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, to present his credentials to Louis XIV as Anne’s ambassador extraordinary.³² In his struggles with the French administration Selkirk evidently received some help from the lord treasurer, Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, who furnished him with a letter of recommendation to the French court, full of praise for Selkirk’s illustrious family. On 22 July, however, Selkirk wrote at length to the lord treasurer with a long tale of the obstructions he was finding at Versailles, and asked Oxford ‘to finish what your Lordship has brought to so great a length as the affair of Chastelherault’.³³

In preparation for the autumn elections in Scotland Selkirk wrote from Paris with detailed instructions, doing all he could to advance the interests of his family and to heal potential rifts between Orkney and their sister-in-law, Hamilton’s widow, who were backing rival candidates.³⁴ The protracted negotiations at the French court meant there was some doubt whether he would attend the representative peers’ election at Edinburgh. He arrived in London at the end of September 1713, and having waited on the queen, set out immediately for Scotland.³⁵ On 6 Oct. John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], informed Oxford that ‘Lord Selkirk has made more haste than people thought he could possibly have done; he arrived here two nights ago’.³⁶ Two days later Selkirk was chosen a representative peer. ³⁷ His election was confirmed in the House on 12 Nov. 1713, the first sitting after the elections, before Parliament was prorogued that day. Alexander Hume-Campbell^†, styled Lord Polwarth (later 2nd earl of Marchmont), informed his contacts in Hanover in early 1714 that Selkirk was a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. Selkirk, however, attended for only one day of the 1713 Parliament, on 12 Jan. 1714, when Parliament was quickly prorogued. By the time it reassembled in February he had returned to France to continue his pursuit of the family’s debt, and he did not attend again in this Parliament. In June 1714 Orkney was informed that Selkirk would shortly be returning from France.³⁸ The following month Selkirk agreed to compensation from the French of 500,000 livres, but this sum was never paid.³⁹

Despite his scant attendance in the House during Anne’s last parliament, Selkirk remained involved in parliamentary politics after the accession of George I. As early as September 1714 he was discussing with his mother, the old duchess of Hamilton, prospects for the elections in Lanarkshire.⁴⁰ He himself was not, however, re-elected in 1715. Under the new king Selkirk was reappointed to a post in the household, as a gentleman of the bedchamber, and eventually resumed his place as a representative peer in 1722.⁴¹ His parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in the next volumes of this work. Selkirk died in London on 13 Mar. 1739, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. At the time of his death his very considerable estate was valued at £100,000.

From the the late sixteenth century the Elphinstones were a family of prominent lawyers and government officials, with a strong Presbyterian background and a penchant for getting themselves into trouble. The first holder of the title, James Elphinstone, was sentenced to be executed–the sentence was not carried out–for (reputedly) forging a letter from James VI of Scotland to the Pope. His son the 2nd Lord Balmerino was likewise sentenced to death (again not carried out) in 1634 as a result of his opposition to the religious policies of Charles I. He later served as lord high commissioner of the Scottish parliament in 1641 and an extraordinary lord of session from 1641 to 1649. This ancestor’s political activities on behalf of the Covenanters had run the family so far into debt that his son the 3rd Lord Balmerino was forced to sell most of the estate. In these embarrassed circumstances the young Master of Balmerino, as the 3rd Lord’s heir John was styled, continued in the traditional family profession of the law, although unfortunately for a man who was so revered by his contemporaries for his legal knowledge, it has been impossible to determine exactly where he acquired his education. He was briefly a Scottish privy councillor under James VII, but his opposition to the claim of William of Orange to the throne quickly ensured his dismissal from that post and marked his break from family tradition, for he was consistently throughout his career to act as a committed Episcopalian and Stuart loyalist.

Elphinstone inherited his title as 4th Lord upon his father’s death on 10 June 1704 and shortly afterwards took his seat in the Scottish parliament, having, according to George Lockhart^‡ of Carnwath, been ‘persuaded to it, merely to give his assistance to prevent the court’s designs of settling the succession of the crown in the family of Hanover’. Indeed, he was one of the few Scottish politicians to win the unalloyed admiration of Lockhart, who praised the constancy of his patriotism and his loyalty to the exiled Stuarts. According to Lockhart, he was ‘a man of excellent parts, improved by great reading, being perhaps one of the best lawyers in the kingdom and very expert in the knowledge of the Scots constitution’. ⁴

The Union and its aftermath, 1704-10

From his first appearance in the Scottish parliament Balmerino was opposed both to the Hanoverian succession and to a union with England. He was in regular contact with Jacobite agents, who regarded him as one of the Pretender’s ‘principal friends in Scotland’ and as ‘a very bold, loyal man, and of good parts, is very significant in Parliament, and always with the country party’.⁵ Despite the fervent entreaties of his cousin, Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], on behalf of the Scottish court party, he could not be persuaded to support the Union. When the Scottish parliament was considering the treaty, he maintained a dogged opposition, often acting with James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to disrupt proceedings.⁶ Resistance to the increasing pressure for union brought him some diverse colleagues, not only Hamilton himself, with whom the cavaliers co-operated warily, but also Episcopalians such as John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], and William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S], as well as the ardent Presbyterian patriot Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, whom Balmerino joined in defending Scottish constitutional rights. ⁷ He joined Atholl, Hamilton, Fletcher of Saltoun and William Livingston*, 3rd Viscount Kilsyth [S], in justifying the anti-union disturbances in Edinburgh in October 1706 as representing the ‘true spirit of the country’.⁸ In late December 1706 he attended a meeting convened by Hamilton which agreed ‘to proceed to a national address to her majesty against an incorporating union’, and took up the cause of Presbyterians who, it was feared, would be forced after the Union to take a sacramental test to qualify for office. ⁹ The irony of Balmerino’s stance was acknowledged as ‘a perfect comedy to see … Balmerino etc. whose hearts loathe at the sight of a Presbyterian, using all their rhetoric in favour of … true blue Presbyterians’.¹⁰ But he also argued unsuccessfully that the test ‘should be taken off all Scotsmen and they have free access to places of trust in Britain without prostituting their consciences and acting contrary to their religion’.¹¹

In March 1708 Balmerino was arrested and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle on suspicion of complicity in the unsuccessful attempt to raise a rebellion in Scotland, after a footman belonging to Atholl had been intercepted with a packet of incriminating letters addressed to Balmerino and others.¹² However, owing to his willingness to assist the Scottish court party in the forthcoming peers’ election, he was not conveyed to London as a prisoner. David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S], assured John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], that Balmerino and George Gordon, earl of Aberdeen [S], ‘have been very friendly and have acted a good part … every person is convinced that neither of those lords is in the least … guilty of any bad practices against the government.’ He successfully urged Mar to effect Balmerino’s bail and release from confinement, for ‘if we cannot serve them they have no great reason to serve us’. ¹³ Balmerino was also contacted by Hamilton and his new allies the Squadrone, who offered to put him in their combined election list, but he would have nothing to do with the Squadrone and turned the offer down, expressing surprise that Hamilton had stooped to such opportunism as allying himself with that group.¹⁴ He qualified himself and attended the election of 17 June 1708 in person, where he was included among the court nominations, but did not secure a seat, receiving only 42 votes. His own choice of representative peers contained all the court’s principal candidates.¹⁵

In the run-up to the election of November 1710, after considering ‘some of the particulars to be adjusted in relation to the elections in Scotland’, Mar recommended to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, that Balmerino be appointed general of the Scottish Mint, with an annual salary of £300, ‘and the sooner he now get it the better. He is a man can be very useful in the elections and will be chosen himself, and his getting this will save a pretty considerable pension the queen designed him’.¹⁶ Balmerino’s support was also sought by James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), who had not yet shrugged off his allegiance to the outgoing ministry, and hoped to secure an army commission for one of Balmerino’s sons to bring him over.¹⁷ Hamilton too was courting him. Balmerino recounted that the duke ‘swore if I would come into his list he should answer for it upon his life that I should carry it’. However, office in the Mint carried more weight, and Balmerino was included in the court list at the election and comfortably elected.¹⁸ In the list of the new representative peers annotated by Richard Dongworth, the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain, Balmerino was described as an ‘Episcopal Tory’, with an income estimated of only £1,000 p.a., making him the poorest of the peers elected to that Parliament. ¹⁹

Representative peer, 1710-13

Balmerino’s parliamentary career over the two Parliaments of 1710 and 1713 is documented in copious detail in his frequent letters to his friend in Scotland, the Jacobite scholar Henry Maule.²⁰ He first took his seat in the House on 27 Nov. 1710, the second day of the new Parliament. In his first session of 1710-11, of whose sittings he attended 84 per cent, he made important new acquaintances and alliances. Prominent among his English colleagues were William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, to whom he had been recommended (by James Greenshields) as ‘truly Episcopal’, and the Tory grandee Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, for whom he quickly conceived an exaggerated admiration–‘in my opinion the finest gentleman that ever I knew; so much probity and firmness’.²¹ Less exalted among his English acquaintances were William Ferdinand Carey*, 8th Baron Hunsdon (by origins a Dutchman), and Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville). Ossulston’s social diary and Balmerino’s own letters to Maule suggest that Balmerino’s most frequent social and convivial companions were fellow Scots, largely Episcopal Tories, and many with strong Jacobite leanings, such as Marischal, Kilsyth, and William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S].²² On 12 Apr. 1711 Balmerino ended a letter to Henry Maule by adding, ‘When this is sealed I am going to take a turn in the Mall and after that to meet Annandale and Marischal at the British Coffee House; the truth is I have been too long sober’. He was able to report on 19 May 1711 that the previous evening he had dined in a tavern with his friends Hamilton, Kilsyth and Marischal, while on 26 Jan. 1712 he wrote how he dined at Pontack’s with Annandale, Ossulston, Hunsdon, Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S], and Henry Herbert*, 2nd Baron Herbert of Chirbury.²³

Balmerino certainly acted as an Episcopal Tory in the House. Warned in late 1710 that there would soon be ‘warm work on the affairs of Spain’, on 9 and 12 Jan. 1711 he voted to censure the previous Whig ministers over the conduct of the war in Spain, and to vindicate the damning account of the councils of war held there submitted by Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough.²⁴ On 5 Feb. 1711 he and his friends Annandale, Marischal and Kilsyth, along with his nephew (by his first wife) Alexander Montgomerie*, 9th earl of Eglinton, were the five Scottish peers who subscribed to the dissent from the House’s rejection of the bill to repeal the General Naturalization Act. Most notably Balmerino threw himself whole-heartedly into the cause of the Episcopalian minister James Greenshields who had been sentenced by the Edinburgh magistrates to imprisonment for using the liturgy of the Church of England. From early December 1710 Balmerino and Eglinton (both dubbed ‘truly Episcopal’ by Greenshields) were consulting with bishop Nicolson of Carlisle and Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, among others, about preparing Greenshield’s case.²⁵ Greenshield’s appeal came before the House on 1 Mar. 1711, when Balmerino argued

violently against the sentence of the magistrates and lords of session, and said that learned bench had suffered in this case their affection to overcome their reason, and asserted that the supremacy was not taken away in Scotland, and that he knew that since the Revolution things ecclesiastical had been cognised by the Privy Council. ²⁶

The House rejected a delaying motion to adjourn and voted to reverse the sentence. Triumphant, Balmerino then wrote to the bishop of Edinburgh Alexander Rose, the most senior bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church at that time (after the earlier death of Balmerino’s own father-in-law archbishop Arthur Rose in 1704) to tell him that leading English Tories were intent on sending Greenshields back to Edinburgh. This was the last thing Rose wanted, fearing that the minister’s presence would prejudice the Episcopal Church by stirring up public hostility.²⁷ Balmerino conveyed to Harley the archbishop’s view that the arrival of Greenshields in Edinburgh would not be for the benefit of the Episcopal clergy, for ‘they are living very quietly and I am sure they do not want him here, and on the other hand the Presbyterians would look upon it as insulting them if he should settle here.’ Instead he recommended that Greenshields be given a benefice in England, ‘which is both just in itself and will effectually put an end to his projects’.²⁸ Balmerino took a similar view when Scottish high-flyers such as George Lockhart proposed the introduction of bills to provide a legal toleration for Episcopalians and to restore lay patronages in Scotland. Balmerino was sympathetic to the measures in principle but warned that, after the success of the Greenshields case, ‘our courtiers are for no more at this time, and I am heartily of that mind’. He preferred ‘to have patience and wait till they should see how matters was [sic] carried in Scotland after the case of Greenshields’. He knew Maule would disagree with this caution, but refused to commit to paper his reasons for deferring, preferring instead to discuss the matter with Maule and the bishop of Edinburgh when he was next in Scotland. Balmerino was sanguine about the eventual success of such Episcopalian measures: ‘I have no doubt but next session we will have things in our hands as much as now. Nay, a Whig parliament (which I hope never to see) would not refuse us them’.²⁹

Balmerino also took a prominent part in the deliberations on the bill to prevent the export of flax and linen yarn from Scotland to ‘foreign parts’. In the debate in the committee of the whole House on 1 June 1711 he spoke ‘at some length’ on three different occasions, answering the arguments of both Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford), and John Somers*, Baron Somers, and, as he felt, served ‘to put them all by the ears’. He also acted as a teller for the not contents, against Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway, on the question whether a clause exempting Irish (but not Scottish) linen from export duties should be made part of the bill. During the debate Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, had made provocative and insulting remarks stating his preference for the Irish over the Scots, and when Balmerino, acting as teller, held the staff above Sunderland’s head to record his vote, he told him ‘that he deserved that I should lay it on’.³⁰ The proceedings on the linen bill raised broader issues of governance, and when a Jacobite acquaintance suggested a motion to dissolve the Union, Balmerino provided Maule with a lengthy statement of his own views:

I who was always against the Union would never be for a dissolution of it, except the queen and her ministers were first for it, and especially the Whig lords who made it. But for the Protestant succession he would easily get the word of honour of the Scots sixteen to go into it (if it were to come to that); nay, the Union might be dissolved on that condition and no otherwise. Only I said we must have some abatement of the equivalent with which the Whigs ... had bribed us. Also we must have freedom of trade to America ... But for me, except the present ministry agree to this I will hold by the Union to continue. But if the queen and they agree to it I assure him that all Scotland will put on bonfires and dance about them.³¹

With such evident loyalty to the ministry of Harley, created earl of Oxford in May 1711, the impoverished Balmerino felt he could expect some tokens of gratitude after the prorogation of 12 June. In November, in the days preceding the following session, Balmerino exchanged his office in the Mint for a more lucrative position in the newly constituted commission of chamberlainry and trade, although he was not formally replaced as general of the Mint until November 1712. At this time he was also pressing for his younger son to be made a lord of session, against the pretensions of a rival candidate put forward by Hamilton, and signed an address to the queen calling for the law prohibiting the import of Irish goods to be enforced.³² Oxford’s colleague and kinsman Thomas Hay*, 7th earl of Kinnoull [S], assured him that Balmerino was unlikely to give trouble when Parliament reassembled, as he ‘is an honest man and always pleased’.³³

This assessment was quickly belied by Balmerino’s reaction to the the great crisis in Anglo-Scottish relations that marked the session of 1711-12, the decision of the House that the duke of Hamilton could not sit in the House of Lords by virtue of his British title of duke of Brandon. As early as June 1711 Balmerino had relayed to Maule, with some alarm, the news of the growing opposition among English peers of both parties to Hamilton’s claim, at a time when it appeared to have been common knowledge that Hamilton would be created duke of Brandon, although the patent did not actually pass the seals until 10 September.³⁴ On 3 Dec., four days before the new session opened, Balmerino entrusted his proxy with Loudoun, most likely in preparation for this looming confrontation. He managed to arrive in the House for the first time that session (thus vacating his proxy) on 20 Dec., the day when the Hamilton case came to a head. In the debate he declared that sitting and voting in Parliament was a fundamental right of the peers of Scotland, but had been denied as a result of the 23rd article of the Treaty of Union, which allowed only the 16 representative peers to sit. The article not only entrenched upon the rights of the Scottish peers, but also the royal prerogative, something that had neither been intended by the Scots commissioners who negotiated the treaty, nor by the queen. He voted with the rest of the Scottish representative peers in the minority against the motion to bar Hamilton from sitting and signed the protest against the resolution.³⁵ The memorial drawn up by Scottish peers on 1 Jan. 1712 requesting the queen to redress the injustice reiterated many of Balmerino’s arguments and he duly subscribed it. Unlike many of his fellow Scottish peers he appears to have been prepared to give the queen an opportunity to honour the pledge given in her answer, that she was ‘firmly resolved to support the Union of the two kingdoms and ... I will consider of the most reasonable way to procure you satisfaction’.³⁶ At a meeting at Hamilton’s house on 17 Jan. Balmerino did not endorse Annandale’s demand for an immediate Scottish boycott of the House, ‘because I wish sincerely good success to the queen’s designs of peace for the happiness of her people’, though he admitted that he did not expect ‘any redress from the court’.³⁷ He did not accept the court’s proposed remedy when it was announced – to replace the 16 representative peers with 32 peers sitting by hereditary right – and at another meeting of Scottish peers refused to listen to arguments in its favour: ‘I cut them short and said I looked upon the whole project as most unjust’. Instead, he urged the Scots to declare their determination to uphold their prerogative and, if necessary, summon the Estates of Scotland, because only there could the Union be amended. But the others did not agree with him, and, realizing ‘that no good was to be done’, he announced that ‘I should go no more to the House, which they took very well’.³⁸ He informed Oxford that:

My absenting from the House is with the consent of my countrymen, for it is impossible for me to agree with them who think that any contract can justly be altered without the consent of the contractors, who, in the Treaty of Union, were on our part the Estates of Scotland, and not the nobility; nor can our peers dispose of their peerage as of their property; the public is too much concerned in it to permit this.³⁹

Balmerino did not attend the House between 25 Jan. and 9 February. The reason for his eventual abandonment of his boycott was the arrival in the House of the Episcopal communion bill from the Commons on 8 February. Bishop Rose, forever timorous, was opposed to the bill, fearing that it would antagonize the Presbyterians.⁴⁰ Balmerino appears to have agreed initially, but soon found himself conflicted as he watched the bill make its way through the Commons: ‘I was against bringing of it in but now if it fail the Presbyterians would be rampant’. He at first reaffirmed his intention not to return to the House, but his resolve steadily weakened as he felt he needed to support the bill.⁴¹ Even though the Scots had obtained no redress over Hamilton, he attended the House again on 9 Feb., the day after the Episcopal communion bill received its first reading. He was then absent on only ten occasions between 9 Feb. and 8 May 1712, and chaired the second-reading committee on another bill promoted by the Episcopalian lobby, to repeal the Act for Discharging the Yule Vacance. On 9 May he gave his proxy to Kilsyth, and did not sit again until the day of prorogation on 8 July. With this disrupted attendance he came to only 44 per cent of the session’s sitting days. On leaving Westminster that summer he took the trouble to send friendly letters to both Oxford and Mar, expressing his loyalty to the queen and the ministry, and his dependence on Mar. He also reiterated his pretensions for his son to receive a place as a lord of session, although assuring Oxford that he was nevertheless ‘easy under the disappointment I have met with’ in this regard and would still remain loyal to the ministry.⁴²

On 14 Aug. 1712 Balmerino attended the election of a representative peer to fill the vacancy created by the death of Marischal, casting his vote in favour of the 4th earl of Findlater [S] (as the earl of Seafield had become). He was also present on 13 Jan. 1713 when the Scottish peers elected a replacement for Hamilton, who had died the previous November after being fatally wounded in a duel. This time he voted for James Livingston*, 5th earl of Linlithgow [S].⁴³

Balmerino, having attended two of the prorogations in March 1713, resumed his seat in the House when the next session finally met for business on 9 Apr. 1713. He was present at all but seven of its meetings, 89 per cent of its sitting days. He had been included, by Jonathan Swift, in a list of those from whom the ministry could expect support in this session, but any such prospect evaporated after 2 May when Parliament began to debate the bill to extend the malt tax to Scotland. At the request of Scots in the Commons Balmerino agreed to write to all Scottish peers summoning them to a meeting on 12 May in order to come to a unanimous decision on what action to take. There it was agreed that the bill could not be blocked in the lower House and, sure enough, the malt tax bill passed the Commons on 22 May, much to the fury of the Scots in both houses. On 26 May the Scottish peers met again with Scottish Members of the Commons. According to Balmerino, ‘we were all very unanimous and zealous to agree to the Commons’ proposal for leave to bring in a bill for dissolving the Union. Thence we went and met with the Commons where the thing was resolved without one contrary vote’. Lockhart reported to Sir David Dalrymple that Balmerino was among those who ‘were for beginning instantly to let the court see they could and dared to oppose them, because the court were the persons who kept the Scots under the Union and would do so till the end of the world whilst they gained by it, and therefore it was fit to let them see what we durst do.’⁴⁴ Once the decision had been taken a deputation was sent to inform the queen, ‘not to ask leave but to tell her majesty that we are unanimously resolved to insist upon a dissolution of the Union’.⁴⁵ A third meeting took place on 1 June to settle the wording of the motion to dissolve the Union, which Findlater was to propose later that day.

During the debate in the House on 1 June Balmerino supported the motion and spoke ‘very well’. He highlighted the indignities suffered by the Scots since 1707–the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council; the extension of the Treason Act to Scottish law; the Hamilton peerage case–and argued that these far outweighed any of the benefits derived from the Union. He appears, admittedly by his own account, to have been one of the principal speakers for the dissolution, at one point directly opposing his patron Oxford. The long debate culminated in a division on whether to put the question to delay further consideration of the proposed bill. This motion for a delay was defeated by the ministry by a scant majority of four, after which it was able to defeat the motion to bring in a bill for the dissolution of the Union. After this defeat the Scots met again and decided not to pursue the point by bringing into the Commons a dissolution bill, as they were likely to be defeated even more ignominiously there, whereas the Scottish peers ‘had by the help of the Whigs made a noble appearance’ in their House. ‘But’, Balmerino continued in his account to Maule, ‘we all declared that next session we would insist in it and join with any that would help us’.⁴⁶

The Scots peers then considered how to oppose the malt tax bill. On 4 June 1713 Sunderland visited Balmerino and promised him the assistance of the Whigs if he would propose delaying the commitment, so that the House could consider all the articles relating to the malt tax in the Union treaty, as it applied to England as well. Balmerino replied that he ‘would agree to any motion that might retard the ruin of my country, but that amending it would throw it out, for the Commons will not pass a money bill that we amend’. Sunderland conceded this point but insisted on the logic of his proposal, upon which Balmerino promised to ‘talk to my Scots friends’.⁴⁷ On 5 June, following urgent pressure from the Whigs, who wanted a known Tory to open the debate, Balmerino moved to adjourn the second reading of the malt tax bill and appoint a day to consider the state of the nation with regard to the Union, but this motion was defeated – by only one vote. Having received further encouragement from the Whigs, Balmerino then argued against the bill itself, on the basis that, according to the terms of the Union, the malt tax could not be extended to Scotland while the country was still formally at war with Spain, with no peace treaties between the countries having been ratified. This argument persuaded a number of lords to express support for delaying the committal and ‘it ended in a consent to commit it presently, but not to proceed in the committee till Monday and then we are to have a battle royal’.⁴⁸ Balmerino reported to Maule that the committee of the whole House held on 8 June was ‘the fullest that ever I saw, for we were 120’ and his fellow Scots desired that he open the debate on the motion to reject the bill. He made much the same point as previously, that the war was not officially over at that point, but the motion was lost at division.⁴⁹ The bill passed its third reading the same day and Balmerino helped to draft, with the concurrence of Sunderland, Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, and Daniel Finch* 2nd earl of Nottingham, the protest condemning the bill as a violation of the Union and an unjust imposition which Scotland could not pay. He of course put his name to this protest as well, along with 13 Scottish peers and four Whigs.⁵⁰

Balmerino was forecast as a probable opponent of the ministry over the bill to confirm the eighth and ninth articles of the French Commercial Treaty. He attended until Parliament was prorogued on 16 July and remained in London thereafter, when it was noted that he still ‘pretended to’ his salary as a commissioner of chamberlainry and a space for his son in the court of session when one fell vacant.⁵¹ On 21 Sept. he informed Oxford that he was ‘going for Scotland where I will endeavour to advance the queen’s service what I am able and I hope things shall succeed well now that you have put our business in so good hands’.⁵² In fact, once he reached Scotland he attended a meeting with Harry Maule, the bishop of Edinburgh and David Murray, 5th Viscount Stormont [S] and James Maule, 4th earl of Panmure [S] to discuss prospects for a Jacobite restoration. In Jacobite circles he was now regarded as one of the Pretender’s leading supporters in Scotland.⁵³

The Parliament of 1713

Balmerino was present at the election of the representative peers on 8 Oct. 1713. He himself was returned on the successful court list.⁵⁴ Illness delayed his return to London for the new session, and on 13 Jan. 1714 Atholl dispatched to Oxford Balmerino’s proxy as well as his own for the forthcoming session. They were probably blank proxies, perhaps intended for Oxford’s own use, but in any case Balmerino’s proxy never appears to have been formally registered by the clerk.⁵⁵ He first took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Mar. 1714, and came to 80 per cent of the sitting days of the session. He was particularly assiduous in its early stages, being recorded as absent only five times between the first day of the session and 9 July.⁵⁶ His support for the ministry was rewarded by the long-awaited payment of arrears of salary as a trade commissioner, amounting to £1,000, and the appointment of his son to the court of session.⁵⁷ He was forecast as likely to vote for the schism bill, but his only significant contribution to the business of the House came when the House considered the question of the Scottish title of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. There was some dispute about Ormond’s right to vote in the election of representative peers as Lord Dingwall, and papers were presented to the House relating to his precedence in the Scottish peerage. The matter was referred to the committee of privileges and on 8 July Balmerino reported that the committee ‘are of opinion that the Lord Dingwall should be inserted in the roll of the nobility in Scotland’. The report was agreed to by the House, and Parliament was prorogued the same day.⁵⁸

On 14 July 1714 Mar informed Oxford that Balemrinoch and Kilsyth were among those Scottish peers urgently pressing to be allowed to return home.⁵⁹ Balmerino may have returned momentarily to Scotland, for when Parliament reassembled on 1 Aug., after the queen’s death, he did not resume his seat until 16 Aug. and came to only a further five sittings until the prorogation on 25 Aug.; in total he was present on 40 per cent of the sitting days. He was waiting for a further instalment of his salary as trade commissioner and, when he was told that none of the other commissioners had received more than £1,000 for their services, protested to Oxford. Convinced that ‘somebody must have misrepresented him or he would have had his warrant as well as other folks’, he raised the matter again on 6 Sept., this time successfully, although it is unclear whether the warrant was issued before he set out for Scotland. ⁶⁰

With the accession of George I Balmerino lost all his offices. Although he took no part himself in the 1715 Rebellion, he maintained his Jacobite contacts, and in 1718 the Pretender assured him that ‘amidst all our past and present misfortunes I retain a most grateful sense of your constant friendship, which you cannot now show me better than by helping me with your advice in my law suit’.⁶¹ He did little in 1719 to raise opposition among Scots peers to the peerage bill, and although he became more active after complaints were made about his inertia, he reminded Oxford that he had previously expressed his aversion to giving Scottish peers hereditary seats in the House of Lords. In general he had now ‘given over the world; I neither meddle with public nor private affairs’. ⁶² Balmerino died at his house in Leith on 13 May 1736, aged 84, and was buried at Restalrig. He was succeeded by his elder surviving son and namesake, John Elphinstone, as 5th Lord Balmerino [S]. Meanwhile his younger surviving son, Arthur Elphinstone, distinguished himself as a Jacobite leader. He had fought in the ’Fifteen and escaped to France. He then came out again in the ’Forty-Five, was captured at Culloden, and found guilty of treason in a trial before the Lords. He succeeded his elder brother on 5 Jan. 1746 as 6th Lord Balmerino [S], while still in confinement, and upon his execution on 18 Aug. 1746 the title was attainted.

Mar wished to present himself to posterity as a patriot. In the testament he wrote for his son, he stated that ‘to be of some use to my native country, and be assisting to the release of it from the low and declining condition in which I found it, has been my great passion, and much at my heart, ever almost since I can remember anything’.⁵ He did indeed show a profound interest in the material development of his own estates, and of the localities in which they sat. This was a natural response to the ‘disorder’ in which his father had left the family’s affairs, but he also developed a broader interest in architecture and gardening, and in fostering ‘improvements’ in agriculture, manufacture and commerce.⁶ It might be argued that his support for union in 1705–7 reflected this concern for economic progress. However, to an anti-unionist like George Lockhart^‡, such explanations would have carried little weight. He saw Mar as driven by mercenary self-aggrandizement: ‘not a man of good coram vobis, and ... a very bad, though very frequent, speaker in parliament. But his great talent lay in the cunning management of his designs and projects, in which it was hard to find him out when he aimed to be incognito’.⁷

Mar was moved to enter politics because of his debts.⁸ After his appointment to the Scottish Privy Council in 1697 he became a loyal supporter of government, and by the end of William’s reign had tied himself to James Douglas*, 2nd duke Queensberry [S], the head of the ‘court party’.⁹ In turn he was a valuable asset to Queensberry, not only because of his political skill and parliamentary ability, but because of his influence in the Highlands. Having secured command of a regiment at Queen Anne’s accession, he supported Queensberry in the Scottish parliamentary sessions of 1702 and 1703, and after Queensberry’s fall in 1704 followed instructions in leading the duke’s faction in opposition to the ministry of the ‘new party’ (later Squadrone Volante).¹⁰ This extended to voting against proposals for settling the succession that he had supported the previous year when Queensberry had put them forward. As the Squadrone were in turn replaced and Queensberry recovered his position in government, Mar, in Lockhart’s words, ‘returned as the dog to the vomit and promoted all the court of England’s measures with the greatest zeal imaginable’.¹¹ In the 1705 parliamentary session he was given the task of proposing the consideration of a treaty of union, and introducing the requisite bill, though in the event his draft was snubbed by members in favour of an identical version proposed by William Kerr*, 2nd marquess of Lothian [S].¹² According to Lockhart, Mar bamboozled the ‘country party’ leader James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to agree to leave the nomination of commissioners to the queen.¹³ James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]) sent the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, a glowing testimonial of Mar’s conduct in working ‘cheerfully and zealously’ for ‘the queen’s measures’ and recommended him to be one of the Scottish secretaries of state, an appointment which was made in September (after which he relinquished his regiment).¹⁴ Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], who would prove to be a close colleague of Mar’s, wrote similarly. He commended Mar to Godolphin as being ‘of an old honourable family and [has] done the queen very good service’.¹⁵

During the winter of 1705–6 Mar stayed in London and was often in contact with the queen. He claimed credit for obtaining the post of commander-in-chief of the army in Scotland for another Queensberryite, David Leslie*, 5th earl of Leven [S], telling Leven that he had spoken to the queen on the subject ‘often’, as well as to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and the treasurer.¹⁶ He also advised on the choice of the Scottish treaty commissioners, which enabled him to build up political capital with the various appointees.¹⁷ Heavily committed to the idea of union, he played a leading part in the negotiations, and ‘most of ... the private meetings of the Scotch commissioners ... were at his house’.¹⁸ As far as he was concerned, the negotiations produced a highly satisfactory outcome and when the business was concluded he wrote triumphantly to his brother, ‘you cannot imagine how agreeable it was to everybody here our concluding the treaty and delivering it to the queen, which was done very solemnly’.¹⁹ A first reward for his efforts came in August 1706, when he was admitted to the Order of the Thistle. Back in Edinburgh, he kept up a correspondence with Marlborough, Godolphin, and with the queen, reporting on Scottish opinion, and when the Parliament met he was at the forefront of the court party’s efforts to secure ratification of the treaty, receiving the personal thanks of the queen for his efforts.²⁰ In the 1707 analysis of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], he was described as ‘sicut’ [i.e., just as] Queensberry, and as able to influence Col. John Areskine (Erskine)^‡ in the Commons.

The first Parliaments of Great Britain, 1707-10

Mar was an obvious choice as one of the representative peers in the first Parliament of Great Britain.²¹ Having travelled south to witness the English Parliament ratify the treaty, he remained in London throughout the summer and autumn of 1707. At the beginning of May rumours circulated that both he and Loudoun were to be made marquesses along with various other appointments, though Mar’s informant, Harry Maule, confessed ‘What has given rise to these I do not know’. Shortly after, Mar learned of the death of his wife, which, although it had been long anticipated, clearly shook him and he professed to have been left ‘not very fit for business’. Within days, though, he was sworn a member of the Privy Council and was forced to return his attention to his duties. His administrative responsibilities were extremely burdensome and the preparations for the parliamentary session kept him and his fellow secretary ‘in a hurry.’²² He was quite open about his need for employment, his estates not being ‘yet in such a condition that I can live well without the queen’s favour and assistance’, and when the office of Scottish secretary ceased to exist in 1708, he was compensated by being appointed keeper of the signet (at the same salary), an office which in practice did much of the work of the secretary. On 23 Oct. 1707 he took his seat in the Lords, after which he was present on 84 per cent of all sitting days. He does not seem to have been particularly active, but with other Queensberryites opposed the Squadrone’s bill to abolish the Scottish Privy Council, signing the protest against it as a violation of the Union treaty (and privately expressing his concern at its likely impact on the heritable jurisdictions of magnates like himself).²³

After the dissolution he hastened back to Scotland to engage with the elections both of Scottish Members of the Commons and of representative peers. A printed list of the time noted him as a Whig. At the end of May 1708 he wrote to Marlborough conveying news of the elections for the burghs and thanking him for sending up his proxy (Marlborough holding the Scottish peerage of Churchill of Eyemouth). Marlborough’s decision to entrust the proxy to Mar caused some consternation among Hamilton’s grouping and prompted Hamilton to appeal to secretary of state Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, for assistance. Hamilton also complained of Mar’s demeanour. He found Mar ‘to the greatest degree lofty and pretends to mighty favour’. For all Mar’s outward confidence, the outcome of the peers’ election was compromised by Sunderland’s intervention in support of the anti-court alliance of the Squadrone and Hamilton.²⁴ Mar found himself blamed for the arrest of various cavalier lords in Scotland on suspicion of involvement in the planned Jacobite rising; Hamilton took the credit for obtaining their release, and thus secured their votes.²⁵ After the election, which he attended, Mar informed Marlborough that, though ‘we have the greatest part … there has been such influence used against us by great folks at London, that a great many of our old friends, and who are in the queen’s service, were frightened from us, so that it is a wonder we carried so many.’ He then went so far as to complain directly to the queen about Sunderland’s behaviour.²⁶ For the Commons, Mar’s nominee in Stirlingshire, his kinsman, Henry Cunningham^‡, was eventually seated in January 1709 following a double return, but it is not clear to what extent Mar could claim much credit for Cunningham’s election. According to Daniel Defoe Mar and John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (earl of Greenwich in the English peerage), played ‘a game at elections in Kinross and Clackmannan’, which resulted in an indecorous contest between the candidates, Hon. Charles Rosse and Hon. William Dalrymple^‡. Mar supported the latter, who was elected apparently on the strength of some spurious votes manufactured by his sponsor.²⁷

Mar took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708, after which he was present on 83 per cent of all sitting days. He was very uneasy over the increasing influence in the ministry of the Junto, and the Squadrone, who made their hostility to the court party clear by the vigour with which they pursued petitions against Queensberryites chosen in the Scottish peers’ election.²⁸ On 21 Jan. 1709 he supported Queensberry’s unsuccessful attempt to retain his right to vote for representative peers after having been granted a British title as duke of Dover. As with the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council the previous year, when the Lords received the bill to extend the English treason laws to Scotland Mar made some ‘faint opposition’ to the Commons’ amendments presented in April but otherwise did little but sign a protest that it violated the Union.²⁹ The alliance between Hamilton and the Squadrone had forced him to reconsider his position. This process was accelerated when the Scottish secretaryship was revived for Queensberry in February 1709. Although Mar received a pension of £3,000 p.a. for life in compensation for losing his salary as keeper of the signet, he was not compensated for the loss of power and influence that went with it.³⁰ By June there were reports of tensions within Queensberry’s grouping and that, if the duke were to be laid aside and Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, allowed to have his way, Mar would be the most likely to succeed.³¹ When Mar went to the continent in August 1709, ostensibly to take the waters at Aix-La-Chapelle, but also with the intention of waiting on Marlborough, Godolphin wrote to warn the captain-general (correctly) that Mar was now closely associated with Harley. Godolphin considered that although Mar was superficially ‘a man of honour’ who could prove a useful ally, ‘he is likely enough to make you a great many professions, and if they were sincere I should think them as valuable as from most men of his country’. Surprisingly, Marlborough did not agree: ‘I must own to you that his temper has always pleased me’. He was, he wrote, assured by John Dalrymple*, 2nd earl of Stair [S], that Mar was a faithful friend to Godolphin and himself. Having waited on Marlborough, and been encouraged by him to pursue a request to remain abroad over the following winter in order to travel to Italy, Mar was disappointed at Godolphin’s refusal to sanction his absence. When he returned to England he moved even closer to Harley.³²

Having failed to secure leave to miss the new session, Mar took his seat once more on 16 Nov. 1709, after which he was present on 71 per cent of sitting days. Discontented with the progress of affairs, he and Queensberry were reported to be in talks with Hamilton. In February 1710 Mar reported back to his brother on the progress of the Greenshields affair, outlining the reasons for putting the matter off for the time being. The following month he proved a prominent contributor to the debates during the Sacheverell trial. According to one report he was one of a handful of Scottish peers responsible for hindering the Junto in some of their designs.³³ On 14 Mar. he was one of those to register his dissent from the resolution not to insist on the inclusion of the particular words deemed criminal in the phrasing of the impeachment. On 16 Mar. he insisted that he did not believe that Sacheverell ‘had said anything of passive obedience which was not the doctrine of the Church of England’ and divided with the minority in rejecting the motion that the Commons had made good their charge in the first article. Two days later, in the debate over whether or not the Lords might cast their votes article by article, Mar was one of those to the fore in arguing for this manner of proceeding on the grounds that to do otherwise was ‘inconsistent with the usual method of justice in that House’. He subsequently found Sacheverell not guilty and registered his protest at the guilty verdict.³⁴ With the Sacheverell trial completed, Mar featured once more in the session, acting as a teller on the division whether to adjourn the House during discussion of the Eddystone lighthouse bill.

The 1710 Parliament

According to several reports, in the aftermath of the Sacheverell trial Mar was increasingly looked to by the Tories as their preferred candidate to succeed Queensberry as secretary of state.³⁵ Throughout July he was engaged in canvassing for the forthcoming elections and by August his involvement with Harley was close and undeniable. Mar’s brother-in-law (and Harley’s son-in-law), Viscount Dupplin may have been a significant factor in helping draw the two together.³⁶ At the same time, Mar was at pains to reassure his Presbyterian contacts in Scotland, on Harley’s behalf, that the fall of Godolphin presaged no alteration in Scottish affairs, and that the Kirk would be entirely safe under the new ministry.³⁷ In tacking towards the Tories he had moved in advance of his chief, Queensberry, whose failing health rendered him for once ineffectual. This did not mean a renunciation of his allegiance to Queensberry (whose death in 1711 he genuinely mourned), although he did consciously separate himself from other colleagues in the ‘old court party’ in Scotland whose political predilections were Whiggish. He returned to Scotland in October 1710 for the general election. On Harley’s behalf he organized the election of the representative peers, breaking the alliance between Hamilton and the Squadrone and brokering a deal with, Argyll, Hamilton and John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], which left the Squadrone out in the cold and reduced to boycotting the poll.³⁸

On one analysis of the Scottish representative peers drawn up shortly after the election Mar was said to be ‘against the succession, but for the Union’. In a list of the new representative peers drawn up by the duchess of Buccleuch’s episcopalian chaplain, Mar was described as a ‘Court Tory’, with an annual income of less than £3,000 (the amount of his annual pension, which the new administration had confirmed).³⁹ Even though he held no office, his informal role in government meant that ‘the eyes of all’ in Scotland were upon him. With Queensberry’s health in fatal decline he pushed himself forward as Harley’s Scottish minister, which brought about a rupture with Hamilton and Argyll.⁴⁰ He was certainly regarded as the most likely successor to Queensberry and there were even rumours that, having been widowed in 1707, he was planning to marry Mrs Masham’s sister.⁴¹ But at the same time he had made himself dependent on Harley’s favour, since his personal following was less substantial than Queensberry’s party had been.

Mar took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710 after which he was present on 71 per cent of all sitting days. In the new Parliament he achieved a greater prominence. Towards the end of December he again recommended to Harley postponing consideration of the Greenshields appeal to the next session.⁴² In January 1711, he enthusiastically joined the attack on the conduct of the war in Spain under the old ministry. On the 11th petitions were delivered into the House on behalf of two of the generals who had presided over the disasters in 1707, Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I]. Mar spoke against reading their petitions, which were then rejected on a division. On the other hand, on 5 Feb. he voted against the Tory-inspired bill to repeal the 1709 General Naturalization Act.⁴³ Just as he was unwilling to deal with the Greenshields case, he was equally nervous of any attempt by Scottish Tories to bring in a bill to restore lay patronages.⁴⁴ Mar was absent for just under a month mid-session from late April to the beginning of the last week of May, apparently to take the cure at Bath.⁴⁵ His last significant intervention this session came on 1 June, a week after his return, on the bill to prevent the export of Scottish flax to Ireland. Concern had been expressed that Irish linen manufacture should take precedence over that of Scotland, when Sunderland observed provocatively that he would always ‘prefer the interest of Ireland to that of any one county in England’, to which Mar replied that: ‘it was true we had a legal union but it were fit that we had an union of interests and of affection, that this did not seem the way to it for he believed the account of this day’s proceedings would appear very strange to the people of Scotland’.⁴⁶

Shortly before the close of the session, Mar was one of four Scottish peers rumoured to be granted British peerages, though nothing came of it.⁴⁷ In spite of this, the vote over the linen bill, rumours of English opposition to Hamilton’s claim to sit in the Lords by virtue of a newly acquired British title, and discontent at the delays in dealing with Scottish business, made Mar very uneasy about the state of Anglo-Scottish relations.⁴⁸ In June he wrote to Harley (now earl of Oxford and lord treasurer) to put the case for action to meet Scottish grievances:

If that affair of the peerage then go against us, I dread the consequence it will infallibly have. The Union depends on it, and on the Union, with submission, depends the peace of the Queen’s reign, and that really gives me more concern in it than any private hardship it would be to me, tho’ I value that a great deal.

He was himself not weary of the Union, as befitted a man who had done all in his power to bring it about, because ‘it is the only thing which can preserve Scotland, and England too, from blood and confusion; so I do not at all repent any hand I had in it, tho’ I’m afraid I have few of either side of my opinion’. But if Hamilton was not allowed to take his seat as a British peer and Scottish trade continued to be neglected, ‘how is it possible that flesh and blood can bear it? and what Scotsman will not be weary of the Union, and do all he can to get quit of it’.⁴⁹ From a personal perspective, he was also frustrated at Oxford’s failure to nominate a successor to Queensberry, and was pressing his own claims to a British peerage, reminding Oxford of ‘the promise her Majesty was pleased to give me that I should be made at the same time with any she made after the duke of Queensberry, was three days after I came from Scotland from the Union parliament before the Union commenced’. Mar had no objection to Hamilton’s grant, but thought it would look very strange if Hamilton received a British title while:

I, who have had the honour to serve the queen ever since she came to the crown, and I hope to her satisfaction, and who had her promise three years before him and when he has been mostly against her measures, shall be postponed or indeed I may say left out.⁵⁰

Mar knew that whatever the outcome of Hamilton’s appeal either the English or Scots would claim a violation of the Union. He may even have believed that pressing his own claim to a British title would give him an opportunity to play the role of Scottish patriot.

By October 1711 Mar was being looked to by some Scottish peers as a clear successor to Queensberry.⁵¹ He was concerned that the Scottish representatives had not been given earlier notice of the new session and that Oxford expected them to take their seats in quick order. Despite this, Mar did what he could to organize Scottish attendance at the start of the session in December 1711, and the gathering of proxies. He waited on the queen on 27 Nov. who was, he reported, ‘very anxious, as all her servants are, to have all our peers of the Parliament up here immediately’, largely to tackle the issue of Hamilton’s British dukedom.⁵² He took his own place on the opening day (7 Dec.) and was thereafter present on 78 per cent of all sitting days. During the debate on Hamilton’s case in the Lords in December he made a spirited defence of the royal prerogative, and the queen’s right to bestow a British title on a Scottish peer, and voted in the minority in favour of allowing Hamilton to sit as the British duke of Brandon. He also, along with Hamilton and Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S] (later 3rd duke of Argyll [S]), helped draft and then subscribed the Scottish memorial delivered to the queen on New Year’s Day 1712, complaining that the Lords’ decision constituted ‘a breach of the Union, and a mark of disgrace put on the whole peers of Scotland’.⁵³ According to John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], Mar seemed to favour the extreme response of recalling the Scottish estates, but this came to nothing. On 13 Jan. he and other Scottish peers met ministers in a fruitless attempt to discuss a way out.⁵⁴ In reality, as he confided to his brother in letters written at the end of December 1711 and in mid-January 1712, he despaired of breaking the Union ‘in a parliamentary way’, which he thought the English would not permit. He was, though, heartened by the decision to make Dupplin a peer, which he considered ‘makes a jest of the argument against us’. Left to himself, he would have accepted a compromise, but with Scottish feelings running so high he was well aware that he could not afford to.⁵⁵ At the end of January, during the debates on the issue, he responded to Sunderland’s proposal that the Scots should ‘propose some remedy for themselves’ that ‘they were suffering patients and it was not proper for patients to prescribe remedies for themselves’.⁵⁶ He joined the other representative peers in their parliamentary boycott the following month, but broke this to attend the queen when she gave her assent to a selection of bills.⁵⁷ Rather than avoid the House entirely, Mar’s attitude appears to have been to attend on carefully selected occasions, such that in all he was present on nine days during the month. He returned to the House at the end of February when the toleration (Episcopal communion) bill arrived from the Commons, and voted for it, even though he was concerned for the effect its passage would have on Presbyterian opinion in Scotland.⁵⁸ But it was important for him to maintain the support of Scottish Tories, and he was also trying to ingratiate himself with St Germain, possibly as a means of bringing the Scottish Jacobite element in Lords and Commons under his wing.⁵⁹ The various events of the session had undermined his position. Beyond the immediate difficulties over the Hamilton peerage case was the long-term problem that Scottish business remained at a standstill. (This affected him personally, since in 1712 only £750 of his annual pension was issued.) The best way forward, he thought, would be to recreate the post of Scottish secretary, for himself. It may have been an expression of his frustration that on 28 May he voted with the opposition in favour of overturning the ‘restraining orders’ preventing James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from engaging in an active campaign against the French.⁶⁰

The death of William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S], in late May 1712, creating a vacancy for a representative peer, put Mar in an awkward position. At first he recommended his client David Wemyss*, 4th earl of Wemyss [S], a strong Episcopalian who had previously sat in the Lords but had lost his seat in 1710.⁶¹ Then it became clear that the ministry wanted to bring back Seafield (now 4th earl of Findlater). Mar was suspicious of Findlater and fearful of him as an alternative Scottish secretary, but had no option but to support his election. This also had the advantage of discommoding his other great rival, Argyll’s brother, Ilay, who supported another candidate against Findlater, and marked an important stage in the Campbell brothers’ alienation from the ministry.⁶²

Mar was in Scotland over the summer of 1712 for Findlater’s election (one of only a handful of peers to make the journey from London). In September he riled members of the Kirk by attending a Church of England service. It was said he intended to establish the practice in his own locality.⁶³ Hamilton’s death in a duel in November took one grievance off the political agenda, but Oxford’s willingness to let Scottish problems slide intensified discontent. Mar reminded the treasurer in December that two years before he had been empowered to make promises to Scottish peers in advance of the new Parliament, which had still not been performed. By February 1713 nothing had been done and disaster was looming. Mar also complained bitterly of his own condition. He had given up all hopes of employment as secretary of state, and asked instead for the post of master-general of the ordnance, granted to Hamilton shortly before his death.⁶⁴ Neither he nor other Scots received anything. For all his disgruntlement, Mar was still assessed as a likely supporter of the ministry in an assessment compiled in mid-March.

Mar took his seat at the opening of the new session on 9 Apr. 1713, after which he was present on 88 per cent of all sitting days. The introduction into the Commons in the spring of 1713 of a bill to extend the malt tax to Scotland, another apparent violation of the Union treaty, provided the spark to this tinder. On 26 May Mar attended a meeting of Scottish representative peers and Members of the House of Commons, which (counting on a promise of Whig support) resolved on requesting leave for a bill to dissolve the Union, an initiative Mar himself declared was ‘absolutely necessary’. He was then made part of a delegation sent to inform the queen of the decision. In a subsequent meeting he was careful to oppose Argyll’s suggestion that the Scots as a body should join the Whigs in opposition.⁶⁵ On 1 June, following a meeting convened at Mar’s lodgings to settle the wording, the motion for dissolving the Union was introduced into the Lords by Findlater and seconded by Mar.⁶⁶ In the debate that followed, the Junto lord Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, declared that he would not be averse to dissolving the Union, so long as the succession was secured, and desired a further day be appointed to consider the matter. This unexpected intervention caught Mar off balance. He had not anticipated having to provide for the succession in the event of dissolving the Union, and rather than face this prospect ‘stood up and said, that no man was more sincere and hearty than he was for the dissolution, and that he thought the question ... very proper, yet since he found it was misconstrued he retracted and was for a delay’.⁶⁷ This retreat, following his earlier opposition to breaking with the court, encouraged some to suspect that he had been ‘taken off by the treasurer and ... only makes an outward show to keep his interest in Scotland’. Indeed, he was forecast in June as likely to support the ministry over the French commercial treaty. ⁶⁸ But behind the scenes he kept up pressure, warning Oxford that:

If you do not now contrive some relief as to the malt tax in Scotland and some redress for that of the peerage, it will not be in the power of man to prevent addresses from all in Scotland who are able to hold a pen, against the Union by the meeting of the new Parliament.⁶⁹

In the subsequent debates of 6 June over giving the malt tax bill a second reading, Mar was again for delay so that a broader debate on the state of the nation could be held. Although this was defeated, in the committee of the whole of 8 June concerning the malt tax Mar was once more one of those to speak alongside his compatriots Findlater, Ilay and Argyll.⁷⁰

From secretary of state to the ’Fifteen

In September 1713 Oxford finally took action. Mar was appointed as a secretary of state with special responsibility for Scottish business (Findlater returning to the lord chancellorship alongside him) as part of the ministerial reconstruction by which Oxford re-established his ascendancy over the ministry. Oxford also announced the formation of a commission of chamberlainry and trade in Scotland, which offered a raft of new places. Mar managed the 1713 peers’ election for the Court: with the Squadrone again boycotting, his list was chosen unanimously. He made plain his aversion to Ilay being one of the 16, insisting during the summer that he would not sit in the Lords if Ilay was elected. Ilay was accordingly one of those omitted.⁷¹

In the winter of 1713–14 Mar renewed his contacts with Jacobite agents.⁷² This was reflected in an assessment of the Scottish peers returned at the election which noted Mar as a Jacobite. As the 1714 Parliament approached he complained to Oxford that Scottish appointments, though announced, had not been confirmed, and payments of salaries and pensions had not been made, connecting this directly with the delay in the arrival of Scottish representatives at Westminster. He also took the opportunity to rehearse grievances of his own: his pension had not been paid; he had not been provided with accommodation as secretary of state; and the other secretaries, especially Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, were snubbing him.⁷³ Presumably in consequence, a treasury warrant was ordered in January 1714 for him to be paid £3,000 for ‘secret service’.⁷⁴

Mar took his seat in the new session on 16 Feb. 1714 and was thereafter present on over 90 per cent of all sitting days. In his capacity as secretary, he informed the Lords on 6 Mar. that he had ordered the prosecution of John Barber for publishing Swift’s anonymously authored pamphlet The Public Spirit of the Whigs. The Scots were said to be ‘highly incensed at some paragraphs’ in it, but from a ministerial point of view, Mar had no desire to see too extensive an investigation. His intervention ‘put a sudden stop to all further enquiries about that matter, in a parliamentary way’.⁷⁵ In the debate on 5 Apr. on the motion that the succession was not in danger, Mar successfully moved to add the words, ‘under the queen’s administration’.⁷⁶ He was forecast as likely to support the schism bill, but when Scottish Tory members of the Commons proposed the introduction of a bill for the resumption of alienated bishops’ revenues in Scotland, and their application for the benefit of Episcopal clergy, he vacillated. At first he encouraged the belief that he supported the idea, but criticized the draft bill as too wide-ranging, since it included revenues appropriated by universities. Lockhart attributed this concern to the fact that one of Mar’s brothers held a chair at St Andrews, which might have been affected. On his way to the Commons to introduce the bill Lockhart was summoned to a meeting at which Mar, while reasserting his own support for the measure, communicated the queen’s desire that it be dropped. Lockhart was disgusted, and attributed what he saw as double-dealing to a variety of motives, including fear of setting a precedent for a resumption of grants in England.⁷⁷

In July 1714 Mar took as his second wife the daughter of the marquess of Dorchester (‘a notorious Whig’ according to Lockhart), with a portion reputed to be £8,000. At the same time he was still pursuing unpaid arrears of pension and salary.⁷⁸ Mar attended just five days of the brief session that met in August in the wake of the queen’s death. Following Anne’s demise Mar, facing financial ruin and unable to secure office from the new regime, ‘entered into measures’ with the Jacobites (he may have been secretly in touch as early as 1710). At first he encouraged the Scots to press for the dissolution of the Union, which involved himself in some awkward explanation to friends and family, and after the general election of 1715 he raised the Pretender’s standard in the Highlands at the head of an armed force. The rebellion initially met with some success. Mar was able to play on fears of further encroachments on Scots’ finances such as the malt tax to secure backing for the rising. Some Scots peers were also susceptible on account of fears that the system of representative peers was to be scrapped and replaced with a small hereditary Scots contingent at Westminster. Despite being able to draw on these areas of discontent the rebellion gradually lost momentum.⁷⁹ After the indecisive engagement at Sheriffmuir on 13 Nov. the Pretender landed in Scotland, at Mar’s urging, but although ‘he was amused for some days by Mar and his friends’, he quickly recognized the danger he was in and embarked again for France, with Mar in his train. Observing these events, Sir John Clerk^‡, 2nd bt., who counted Mar not only as ‘my acquaintance but my particular friend’, wrote suspiciously that:

it was much admired that the Pretender did not leave Lord Mar in Scotland to take his fortune with the rest of his friends whom he had spirited up to their ruin and the manifest hazard of their master, for since … Sheriffmuir … there was nothing to be expected for the poor unfortunate prince, yet Mar and his party brought him to Scotland when his affairs were in a most desperate condition.⁸⁰

Mar was attainted in 1716 and his estates and honours declared forfeit. Enduring frustration and poverty, he remained in the Pretender’s service for most of the rest of his life and never returned to Britain, being created duke of Mar [S] and earl of Mar [E] in the Jacobite peerage. ⁸¹ He died in May 1732 at Aix-la-Chapelle.

According to Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, in the biographical sketches included in Spring Macky’s edition of his father’s memoirs, Sutherland was a rough-hewn soldier, and an uncomplicated Whig: ‘a very honest man, a great asserter of the liberties of the people; hath a rough, good, sense; is open and free; a great lover of his bottle and his friend; brave in his person ... too familiar for his quality, and often keeps company below it’.⁴ In fact, Sutherland’s early connections were far from Whiggish. After he took over the management of the family estates in June 1681, his father resigning them to him by a crown charter, he attached himself to the arch-loyalist George Gordon, marquess of Huntly (later duke of Gordon [S]). Sutherland himself raised a troop of men in his own county to oppose Argyll’s rebellion in 1685.⁵ But after the Revolution, and Huntly’s departure for the continent, Sutherland judged it politic to raise forces for William and Mary.⁶ His past was not quickly forgotten, and his regiment was disbanded the following year, but in 1693 he was given a new commission, and after a period stationed in Scotland was sent to Flanders in 1694.⁷ Following the peace of Ryswick the regiment returned to the continent and in 1698 was in the service of the United Provinces, where it remained until at least the summer of 1701.⁸ Thereafter Sutherland left active soldiering to his son, William Sutherland^‡, styled Lord Strathnaver, who was given a colonel’s commission for a foot regiment in May 1702. Sutherland himself concentrated on trying to secure promotion in his own military rank, and on pursuing his regimental arrears, which by 1716, with interest, amounted to over £24,000.⁹

Sutherland took his seat in the Scottish Parliament in 1704, on the encouragement of John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S]. After the death of his second wife in the following year he considered withdrawal from public life, informing Argyll that ‘my late unexpressably great loss has made me very indifferent to the world’. He added, ‘I have, I thank God, a competency to live a retired life, though the soldier trade by not being justly paid ... and being too much at court … has impaired my fortune not a little, so that now, unless to serve my queen, country or friend, I resolve never to stir out of Sutherland’. He was, however, concerned for his son’s commission, having heard rumours that the ruling ‘juncto’ in Scotland intended the regiment for another, and allowed himself expressions of bile against those who ‘cover their Jacobitish and self-interested designs’ with pretences of patriotism.¹⁰ In consequence he seems not to have fully carried out his threat to shun public affairs. He was certainly present in Edinburgh in April 1705 where – either from patriotism or pragmatism – he did nothing at the Privy Council to assist the court party to secure a reprieve from execution for the English merchantman Captain Thomas Green.¹¹

By 1706, however, Sutherland was prepared to accept appointment to the Union commission as a duty he should not shirk.¹² In January of that year the court of session had finally ruled against him in a lawsuit that he had inherited from his father, against John Lindsay*, 19th earl of Crawford [S], over precedence in the Scottish peerage.¹³ He attended nearly all the joint meetings of the Union commissioners in London, and during the negotiations forged friendships with the Junto Whig lords John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland.¹⁴ In October, with the Scottish parliament about to meet, Sunderland wrote to say that he was ‘overjoyed to find things have begun with so good a face in your Parliament, and that there is so much reason to hope for success in this great affair of the Union. I assure you our great dependence is upon your lordship and your friends’.¹⁵ Privately, Sutherland wrote to James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], that in his opinion a federal arrangement would be easier to secure than an incorporating union, and for that reason preferable.¹⁶ In public, however, he supported the treaty throughout the ratification debates, voting for every clause, generally alongside Argyll, the Squadrone and the court. He was also in close touch with Daniel Defoe, the pro-Union agent in Edinburgh of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford.¹⁷ His conduct so impressed the leader of the court party, James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], that he was happy to recommend Sutherland on this basis to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, for promotion to lieutenant-general.¹⁸

By the time of Union Sutherland was owed some £1,650 in arrears on pension and salary from the Scottish government.¹⁹ In November 1706 he had reminded Marlborough of his request for a colonelcy in the Guards despite having been told that none would be disposed of until the Parliament in Edinburgh was over.²⁰ Rebuffed, he turned for help to Sunderland, who was not only secretary of state but also Marlborough’s son-in-law. Sunderland reported that he had delivered a letter to Marlborough, ‘who expressed all the respect imaginable, for your lordship’, but repeated that the queen ‘was resolved to declare nothing of this kind, till everything was over in Scotland’.²¹ This answer did not satisfy Sutherland, who wrote to Marlborough’s secretary, Adam de Cardonnel^‡, only to receive the same reply.²² Thus, unusually for a Union commissioner, he seems to have received no material benefit from the passage of the treaty, a point he was later to include among his grievances.²³ More successful was his claim on 13 Feb. 1707 to a seat as one of the first representative peers.²⁴ His contribution to the ratification of the Union was itself a strong recommendation, but his prospects were enhanced by support from Argyll. When Queensberry was drawing up a list of approved candidates his political lieutenant John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], noted that Argyll was very ‘desirous of Sutherland ... and he being one of the treaters and representing a very old family, we could not leave him out’.²⁵ In the 1707 analysis of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], he was described as ‘for Revolution by principle, influenced by Argyll’, and said to be able to influence William Morison^‡ in the Commons.

Sutherland first took his seat on 23 Oct. 1707 and was again present for the queen’s speech to the new Parliament of Great Britain on 6 November. His parliamentary career before 1715 comprised this one session of 1707-8, in which he attended 66 per cent of the sitting days and was named to 15 select committees, mostly on private bills. He did not attend after 1 Apr. 1708. His principal intervention in the session occurred during a debate on the bill to abolish the Scottish Privy Council. The House was in a committee of the whole on 5 Feb. when Sutherland spoke in favour of the bill, an intervention which went against the wishes of his former patron Argyll, and signalled alignment with the Squadrone. It was reported that James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe [S], and John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S], had joined Sutherland ‘for passing the bill, and that the duke of Argyll appeared the warmest against it’.²⁶ On 4 Mar. 1708 Sutherland was named to the committee to prepare an address to the queen on the attempted French invasion.

Although he was still on good terms with Argyll, Sutherland’s new connection with the Squadrone tightened after Parliament was dissolved.²⁷ He enjoyed an overpowering territorial influence in his namesake county (where the voters were his vassals), and deployed this in favour of the Squadrone in the 1708 general election, when he returned a distant kinsman, Sir William Gordon^‡, bt.²⁸ At the same time, his son and heir Strathnaver, was chosen for the local burgh district. Sutherland was delighted to be able to report to Sunderland that, in regard to the Commons, ‘our elections go pretty well’.²⁹ His late arrival in Edinburgh for the election of the representative peers on 17 June caused anxiety for both Hamilton and Montrose, as Sutherland held the proxies of James Hamilton, 6th earl of Abercorn [S], Thomas Fairfax^‡, Lord Fairfax of Cameron [S] and Peregrine Osborne*, Viscount Osborne of Dunblane [S] (later 2nd duke of Leeds). Sutherland was himself included in the list agreed between the Squadrone and Hamilton, but he was not elected. He received only 47 votes, only slightly more than Marchmont, William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S] and William Ross^†, 12th Lord Ross [S]. Writing to Sunderland he attributed his defeat to his votes against the Scottish Privy Council, which made him ‘obnoxious’ to the Scottish court interest, and concluded that ‘I should never have made a struggle but to serve the queen, my family and friends. I am not afraid of being now dropped’. ³⁰ In July, though, he received an encouraging letter from Roxburghe: considering the protests that had been lodged against the election, ‘I believe there will be no difficulty of your Lordship’s and some more of our friends getting into Parliament’.³¹ Somers gave similar assurances.³² Taking encouragement, he joined Marchmont, Annandale and Ross in requesting information from the clerks on proper election procedures.³³ This was followed by a paper in which they insisted that they had good ground to believe that ‘we and several others of the peers not returned by the clerks were legally chosen to be of the number of the 16 peers to represent the peers of … Scotland in the ensuing Parliament of Great Britain by a plurality of the most legal … votes’.³⁴ This was the foundation of a petition which was to be presented at the beginning of the new Parliament.

In the meantime, Sutherland continued to solicit Marlborough for preferment, on his own behalf and his son’s. On 26 Oct. 1708 he was informed by Sunderland that ‘you may depend always upon everything I can do towards serving your lordship or anybody that belongs to you, and shall write to my Lord Marlborough, in relation to my Lord Strathnaver’s pretentions’. As the parliamentary session was imminent, Sunderland hoped that he would ‘lose no time in coming up, and you may depend upon all the assistance we can give, towards doing you justice, and bringing you into the House’.³⁵ Sutherland replied from Edinburgh on 9 Nov., explaining that, although hitherto prevented from travelling south by a cold, he intended to be in London as soon as possible and sent his service to ‘all your lordship’s … friends’.³⁶

The days preceding the opening of the Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708 were filled with frantic lobbying by the Scottish peers Sutherland, Annandale and Ross (Marchmont was absent in Scotland) and their ‘friends’ among the English Junto lords such as Sunderland, Somers and Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton.³⁷ Their petition claiming that the election of William Kerr*, 2nd marquess of Lothian [S], David Wemyss*, 4th earl of Wemyss [S], Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], and David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S], was invalid was presented on 18 November. It was not considered until 10 Jan. 1709, after the relevant papers had been brought from Edinburgh. A committee was appointed to investigate the peers’ election, which first reported on 17 Jan. and completed its proceedings at the end of the month. The votes were recalculated, according to resolutions already passed, and Sutherland’s total fell from 47 to 43, still insufficient to secure election. 

Following the ministerial revolution of 1710, Sutherland was among the allies of the Squadrone who boycotted the peers’ election on 10 Nov., although he did receive a vote from Glasgow holding the proxy of Osborne of Dunblane.³⁸ Nor was Sutherland a candidate at the election of 8 Oct. 1713, although again at least one peer, George Mackay, 3rd Lord Reay [S], thought he was and entrusted his proxy to James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], with special instructions to vote for him. The family remained active in Commons’ elections, however, as both Sutherland and, increasingly, Lord Strathnaver continued to be the dominant, indeed the only, electoral force for the county of Sutherland.³⁹ The earl was present in London in September 1714 at George I’s arrival, and according to the Whig Flying Post was insulted by some disaffected elements for ‘celebrating King William’s birthday’ with other gentlemen.⁴⁰ He had an important ceremonial part in the coronation of the new king the following month.⁴¹ A contemporary Jacobite satire on the Scottish Whigs called him ‘the bravo of the party’ and suggested that his hard drinking had left him ‘much decayed in grace’.⁴² Although his regimental arrears remained unpaid, he was rewarded with several local appointments, including the lord lieutenancy of the six northern counties of Scotland, and, at last, promotion to lieutenant-general.⁴³ When Mar raised the Pretender’s standard in Scotland Sutherland proceeded to his own county. He arrived at Dunrobin Castle in late September 1715 and immediately raised troops (partly at his own expense) which were then equipped by the government. His forces played a significant part in the containment and defeat of the Jacobite forces, including taking the important post of Inverness and overseeing the surrender of the Alexander Gordon, styled marquess of Huntly [S], son of his former patron.⁴⁴ By that time he had already resumed his place as a representative peer following the election of 3 Mar. 1715. His later political and parliamentary career under the Hanoverian kings will be examined in the second part of this work. Sutherland died at Chelsea on 27 June 1733 and was buried at Dornoch in Sutherland.

Montrose combined in his person two very different Scottish political traditions: the exemplary Stuart loyalism of his paternal great-grandfather, the James Graham, marquess of Montrose [S], and the Covenanting sympathies of his maternal ancestors, the Leslies, earls of Rothes. At first, the Graham inheritance appeared paramount. His conduct while travelling abroad as a young man alarmed his redoubtable Presbyterian mother, who heard rumours that he had kissed the hand of the exiled James II in France, and feared that a request to visit Rome might betoken a change of religion.² Although no other evidence survives to suggest youthful enthusiasm for the Stuart cause, Montrose’s ancestry commended him to those of a Jacobite cast of mind, like George Lockhart^‡, who observed that when he ‘first appeared in the world he had enough to recommend him to the love and affection of the nation ... by being the representative of that noble, loyal and worthy family. And his interest increased to so great a degree by his good behaviour after he came from his travels’.³ Time spent in foreign courts had indeed led to ‘improvements’ in his accomplishments, and other observers detected ‘a sweetness of behaviour, which charms all those who know him’.⁴ Moreover, at his debut in Scottish politics Montrose was sufficiently in tune with cavalier opinion to be outraged by the introduction into the Scottish Parliament in June 1702 of an oath of abjuration, and by threatening opposition forced the hand of the queen’s commissioner (and the leader of the Scottish court party), James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], who adjourned Parliament to frustrate the abjuration project.⁵

Over the following winter Queensberry sought to recruit Montrose with offers of patronage and an invitation to present himself at court in London, but at the same time James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], was also urging him to enlist with the ‘country party’.⁶ Beset by the blandishments of Queensberry and his followers, Montrose played for time, acknowledging Queensberry’s ‘kindness’ but declining to travel to England and stating his determination not to ‘engage in anything till I find how my behaviour be approved in the next parliament’. He added, somewhat enigmatically, that while he would ‘ever make it my study to serve the queen ... I can’t promise how that word service may be constructed, for I have frequently known very different sense put upon it’.⁷ In fact, he was ‘very hearty’ in support of the country party in the election, and as the new Parliament approached, he joined some of Hamilton’s followers, including the cavalier William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S], in concerting measures with whiggish oppositionists like John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S], the very men who had supported the abjuration in the previous summer.⁸

Montrose took his seat in May 1703 and promptly aligned himself ‘in the duke of Hamilton’s interest’.⁹ In one speech he made a vehement plea to his fellow countrymen to defend their traditional ‘liberties’, and went so far as to denounce the court party as ‘wholly determined by English councils’.¹⁰ When the discovery of the ‘Scotch Plot’ in the following winter encouraged the lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin to seek a settlement of the succession in Scotland, Queensberry was told that neither Hamilton nor Montrose would comply.¹¹ These comments were consistent with the account of a Jacobite agent that Hamilton and Montrose were among ‘les principaux amis du roi en Écosse’.¹² In the spring of 1704 Montrose was still on good terms with the likes of Lockhart, although at the same time he was being approached by the English ministers, as part of a campaign to detach elements of the opposition in Scotland.¹³ His kinsman and factor, Mungo Graham^‡, journeyed to London in the spring of 1704, ostensibly on business relating to the purchase of property, but was introduced to the queen by James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), and given assurances of the high regard in which his master’s family was held.¹⁴

The result of these various negotiations was the displacement of Queensberry by the whiggish elements of the country opposition, a faction known first as the ‘New Party’, and later as the Squadrone Volante, with Tweeddale appointed parliamentary commissioner. The attempts of the New Party to settle the succession were undermined by Hamilton, who remained in opposition, and who insisted that a treaty with England be agreed before the succession was considered. Tweeddale, on the defensive, sought to buy time by obtaining a six months’ cess, but Hamilton proposed two months instead, and then only after the passage of measures ‘to secure the religion, liberty and independence of this nation’, and the nomination of treaty commissioners.¹⁵ Montrose intervened in the debate to move successfully that, ‘seeing some time was necessary for concerting measures with her Majesty we should not dispute for two months supply’; in addition, it was said, he ‘more or less declared his willingness to grant the six months’.¹⁶ In writing to Tweeddale, Godolphin noted that ‘the queen is very well pleased ... that my Lord Montrose has carried himself so well, and will be very willing to let him see, that to begin with serving her Majesty is the right way to her favour’.¹⁷ As far as Lockhart was concerned, though, Montrose had sold out his old friends. He found it hard to understand how a young man with such a proud heritage could make common cause with descendants of those who had persecuted ‘his glorious great-grandfather’: had Montrose continued in Parliament as he had begun, ‘he would have been acknowledged and followed as the head and leader of the cavaliers. But being of an easy, mean-spirited temper, governed by his mother and her relations (the family of Rothes) and extremely covetous, he could not resist the first temptation the court threw in his way.’¹⁸

Once the session ended Montrose was subject to further pressure to accept the office of lord high admiral of Scotland, along with a pension of £1,000 p.a. John Leslie*, 9th earl of Rothes [S], told Tweeddale that ‘however he may be looked upon in England he is as ill looked upon by the Jacobites here as either your Lordship or I’, and John Ker*, 5th earl of Roxburghe [S], told Tweeddale that ‘if he is not employed we shall look very simple’. Montrose initially declined but gave way when Roxburghe joined Tweeddale in pressing him, though he declined the pension and accepted the office only ‘as a mark of her Majesty’s favour’.¹⁹ From the Squadrone’s point of view, Montrose was a vital ally. They considered it likely that he would oppose the government unless provided for, and that he ‘wants not interest of his own’.²⁰ However, when news of the appointment reached the new parliamentary commissioner, John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], it was blocked.²¹ An angry Montrose wrote to the queen that Argyll ‘has been pleased to stop my commission at the seals. I make no doubt he has informed your majesty of his reasons for so doing. I thought it was my duty not to insist in that matter till such time as your majesty shall please to signify your further orders to me.’²² Argyll’s antagonism seems to have been rooted in a traditional animosity between the two families, to which was now added a sense of personal grievance on the part of Montrose.²³ Although his nomination as admiral was eventually confirmed, Montrose and his followers lined up alongside the New Party in opposition in 1705.²⁴ But he found himself embarrassed by what was seen as evidence of ‘unsteady principles’ and on one occasion was twitted by Hamilton for abandoning his former allies.²⁵ At this point Argyll changed tack and attempted to separate Montrose from the Squadrone by offering him the place of president of the council. Some of Queensberry’s supporters joined in trying to persuade him, but the Squadrone Member George Baillie^‡ stated his confidence that Montrose would never be won over by Argyll.²⁶ Eventually, after several refusals, Montrose did exchange the admiral’s place for that of president of the council in Scotland in March 1706, at a salary of £2,000 p.a., but not to gratify Argyll.²⁷ It was reported that his acceptance was entirely Queensberry’s doing, and that while he gave Queensberry’s party assurances ‘of his being in the same interest with us’, he had made it clear that ‘he would not accept upon terms, so he is at liberty’. Proof came when he refused to serve as one of the Scottish union commissioners; indeed, he hesitated to support the treaty even after Roxburghe and others of the Squadrone declared their approval of it.²⁸ His preciosity, tending sometimes to equivocation, could be trying for his friends: on 19 Sept. Roxburghe wrote that Montrose ‘was plainer than usual; that is so as to make one guess what he inclines to, but said nothing that looked like being determined, save that matters were now come to that pass that things were to be minded, and not persons’. Roxburghe also noted that Montrose ‘spoke too of the uncertainty of the court’s being in earnest, which was more than ever past betwixt him and me before.’²⁹ When the treaty came before Parliament Montrose supported ratification. Queensberry’s cronies reported in October that Montrose had ‘fully declared himself’ in favour of Union, and had ‘acted a fair and handsome part’ in the preparations for the session, persuading his friends to follow his lead, and also helping to bring the Squadrone on board.³⁰ Although on one occasion, in November 1706, he sided with the court party against the Squadrone and Argyll in a skirmish over procedure, he did not deviate from commitment to ratification, despite the intimidation of the Edinburgh mob.³¹ In response to favourable reports of his conduct the queen wrote to express her gratification that the ‘account which I have received ... of the zeal and industry which you have shown for my service, with so good success, has given me such satisfaction that I cannot but take notice of it to you myself’.³²

Montrose’s contribution to the passage of the Union was rewarded by promotion in the peerage, while two of his followers (Mungo Graham and John Haldane^‡) received preferment in his wake.³³ At a more mundane level, he shared in the allocation of funds provided for ‘arrears’ to Scottish officials, receiving £200 for a non-existent claim.³⁴ He had also guaranteed himself a place as one of the representative peers sent to the first Parliament of Great Britain. Queensberry’s political lieutenant, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], reported that ‘we brought everybody who had been for the Union to be content to name three of the New Party beside my Lord Montrose, who is very intimate with them’.³⁵ In an analysis by Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S] in 1707 he was noted as ‘for the Revolution a good countryman will not be led off’. He was expected to be able to influence Roxburghe and Tweeddale, as well as their friends in the Commons James Halyburton^‡, John Bruce^‡ and Sir Peter Halket^‡, and his own associates, Graham and Haldane.

In April 1707 Montrose was in London, arranging to wait upon Godolphin on 26 Apr. and on 19 May was summoned to attend the queen on the following day, whereupon he was added to the British Privy Council alongside Queensberry and three other courtiers.³⁶ He was back in Glasgow by 2 July, reporting to Mar with some gratification that opposition to Union had subsided, especially among the trading classes: ‘It is very easy for England to gain our people’, he wrote, ‘let them but do us justice and make us a good continuance and they certainly have us.’³⁷ He was still in Scotland on 10 Oct., less than a fortnight before Parliament assembled, but had reached London by the 23rd when he was present in the Lords when the names of the representative peers were read out. In all, Montrose attended on 97 days of the session, 91 per cent of the total. The Queensberryites in turn had now become suspicious that Montrose was too close to the Squadrone, and when the session began their fears were justified.³⁸ With the help of the Whig Junto, the Squadrone mounted a campaign to weaken the Scottish court party by introducing changes to the government of Scotland, most notably the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council. A bill to this effect was introduced into the Commons on 29 Nov. and in the ensuing debate Montrose and Roxburghe, ‘who are of a side, were waiting the event in the gallery’.³⁹ On 5 Feb. 1708 the bill received its second reading in the Lords, and was referred to a committee of the whole, where an unsuccessful attempt was made to delay the abolition until 1 Oct. 1708. Only four Scots opposed the amendment – three Squadrone lords and Montrose – and at the third reading two days later all the Scots peers present protested against it except the same quartet.⁴⁰ Montrose was named to 13 committees including that on the bill to establish a court of exchequer in Scotland, where on 5 Mar. he was deputed to prepare a clause on the bill and the committee of 31 Mar. to manage a conference on the bill encouraging trade with America.⁴¹ On a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain he was marked as a Whig.

Although anxiety about the French invasion attempt made Montrose eager to return home once the session ended, he delayed his journey until negotiations were well under way for a pre-election pact between the Squadrone and Hamilton, brokered by the Junto, a reversal of alliances which Montrose, because of his former association with Hamilton, may well have played a part in bringing about.⁴² According to Lockhart, Montrose was one of those to whom the Pretender had originally addressed letters of appeal to accompany the invasion.⁴³ Concern for the success of the electoral scheme prompted Montrose in April to denounce the arbitrary arrest of Hamilton and other Scottish peers suspected of involvement in the projected rising, and to try to fix the blame on Queensberry.⁴⁴ But on 7 May the Whig secretary of state Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, was able to confirm that Hamilton’s release had ‘produced such an union, as will in all probability carry the election of the 16 peers, in the manner ... all of us wish’, and that ‘the whole Squadrone is in the list agreed on’.⁴⁵ Montrose arrived in Edinburgh on 29 May for the forthcoming election.⁴⁶ In reporting to Sunderland the progress of elections in Scotland to both Houses, he identified himself with Squadrone and Whig interests, though it was still to be some time before outside observers would regard him as a full member of the Squadrone.⁴⁷ At the same time Richard Dowdeswell, in reporting to George Tilson in Whitehall, explicitly excluded Montrose from the ranks of the court party.⁴⁸ In the peers’ election on 17 June he voted in person for the list agreed on with Hamilton, and on behalf of William Cheyne^‡, 2nd Viscount Newhaven [S], by proxy for the same list with one exception. He was also vocal in protesting against Queensberry being allowed to vote and against several court proxies, namely George Forester, 5th Lord Forester [S] for being underage and David Ogilvy, 3rd earl of Airlie [S], for not having a properly sealed proxy.⁴⁹ He received sufficient votes himself (48) to secure election, although the Squadrone as a whole did much less well than they had hoped and were obliged to put their faith in the assistance of their Whig friends in adjusting the results through parliamentary inquiry.⁵⁰

Pressing letters from Sunderland and John Somers*, Baron Somers, hastened Montrose’s departure for London, Sunderland requesting his presence urgently ‘for the right interest of Britain, and for everything that may contribute towards making the Union entire and complete’.⁵¹ Although the Journal records Montrose as attending on 18 Nov. 1708, correspondence shows that he arrived in London on 24 Nov., and took the oaths at the next available sitting on 26 November.⁵² He attended regularly in December as the election inquiry gathered momentum. Tension was growing between the Squadrone and the Junto over the Whigs’ failure to secure Queensberry’s dismissal, and Montrose was present at a meeting of party leaders on 11 Dec. at which these issues were brought into the open.⁵³ On 21 Jan. 1709 he supported Hamilton’s successful petition against Queensberry’s right to participate in the peers’ election after having acquired a British title as duke of Dover, but a week later saw his own objection to one of the court proxies rendered invalid by a resolution of the House which allowed the vote of any peer who had taken the oaths in Edinburgh Castle. When the votes were recalculated in accordance with the resolutions passed by the Lords’ committee of inquiry, his own total fell by three, not enough for him to lose his seat. As part of the agreement between Godolphin and the Junto which had brought the election inquiry to an end, Montrose was appointed lord privy seal in Scotland in place of Queensberry, who became the third secretary of state, a place the Squadrone had previously hoped, and the Junto had promised, would go to Montrose.⁵⁴ The new appointment did at least restore the £2,000 a year that he had lost with the extinction of the lord keepership, but he was evidently piqued, and his failure to attend the Privy Council at which Queensberry was declared secretary did not go unnoticed.⁵⁵ Although the reshuffle, in which Hamilton was ignored, broke the alliance between Hamilton and the Squadrone, Rothes was of the opinion that Montrose had been ‘in the hardest circumstances in the world’, since had he refused the appointment, Godolphin would have exploited it to weaken the Squadrone and strengthen Queensberry. Montrose seems to have accepted the Junto’s assurances of continued co-operation, albeit without enthusiasm.⁵⁶ He attended the Lords throughout the proceedings on the Junto-inspired bill to extend the English treason laws to Scotland and protested twice against it on 28 Mar., the day it passed its 3rd reading. According to Baillie he left London on 28 Mar., although the Journal records his presence on 5 April. He attended on 67 days of the session, 73 per cent of the total and was named to 18 committees.

Montrose was in no hurry to return to London for the next session and on 24 Oct. 1709 informed Sunderland that since Parliament had been adjourned until 15 Nov. ‘and ... I reckon there will be little or no business done for the first ten days or a fortnight, I don’t think of being at London before the end of the month’.⁵⁷ He arrived on 29 Nov. and first attended on 1 December.⁵⁸ In all, he was present on 68 days of the session, 73 per cent of the total, and was named to 18 committees. He supported the impeachment of Sacheverell, voting the doctor guilty on 20 Mar. 1710 of high crimes and misdemeanours. He last attended on 5 Apr., the day Parliament was prorogued. 

Montrose was in a difficult position in 1710. Mar wrote on 6 June that he was ‘extremely sorry’ that ‘Montrose and I are not yet like to be of one side … but if our friends serve him I hope he will not think of taking measures with anybody else’.⁵⁹ Montrose certainly seemed to identify with the Whigs when he wrote on 17 Aug., ‘I hear the moment the dissolution is all the Whigs give up. Duke Hamilton and Duke Queensberry are fixed upon the same bottom against us’.⁶⁰ By 26 Aug. Charles Hay^† styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S])thought that Mar had ‘the secret of the list and will offer to 112 [Montrose] and another of 28 [the Squadrone] to make them of the numbers if they will join in the measure’.⁶¹ In the event, Montrose did not succumb to the blandishments of Mar and Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, but joined the Squadrone in ostentatiously dining together while the election took place without them.⁶²

Nevertheless, Montrose did not resign his place, nor was he dismissed. He wrote to Harley (now lord treasurer Oxford) from Edinburgh in June 1711 to pledge ‘real and entire affection’ to the queen’s person and her government, but in the following winter was expressing to his friends his hope that the flames of Scottish resentment over the Hamilton peerage case could be fanned into a full-scale revolt against Oxford’s ministry.⁶³ In June 1712 he was present at a ‘great confluence of the Squadro[ne]’ in Edinburgh to discuss political strategy, possibly relating to the vacancy attendant upon the death of William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal.⁶⁴ Despite Tory pressure, Oxford remained loath to remove Montrose from office, presumably sensing some chance of securing his support, even though he himself gave little grounds for this belief, and Montrose held on to his place as lord privy seal until dismissed in April 1713 to make way for John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S].⁶⁵ During the parliamentary crisis in May-June 1713 he was in London encouraging opposition to the proposed extension of the malt tax to Scotland, though John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], one of the Scottish Tories with whom he maintained friendly relations, confessed himself unsure as to whether Montrose would be willing to go so far as to endorse a repeal of the Union.⁶⁶ Oxford still seems to have entertained hopes of him, however slim, but on 12 June Mar wrote to Oxford of Montrose that ‘by what I can perceive he is further from us now than before he went to the Bath’, and at the beginning of July was informed by Thomas Hay*, 7th earl of Kinnoull [S], that ‘the duke of Montrose [is] gone for Scotland, from whence I conclude he is not to forsake his old evil ways and come into the queen’s service.’⁶⁷

Montrose again joined the boycott of the Scottish peerage election in 1713. He did travel to London in February 1714 and remained in the capital until late May.⁶⁸ On the death of Queen Anne, Montrose participated in the proclamation of George I in Edinburgh and promptly set off for London to take his place on the council of regency, as a nominee of the Hanoverian court, arriving on the 9 Aug. and taking his place as a lord justice on the following day.⁶⁹ After the arrival of George I he was named secretary of state for Scotland, and by November 1714 was challenging Argyll for royal favour, launching what was to be a long-drawn out political struggle between the Campbell family and the Squadrone, of which Montrose, along with Roxburghe was now the recognized leader.⁷⁰ This and other aspects of his subsequent parliamentary and political career will be covered in the second part of this work. 

He died in London on 7 Jan. 1742 and was buried at Aberuthven.

Lord George Hamilton was destined for a life as a soldier from a very young age, being nominally appointed when still only five years old a captain of a troop in the regiment commanded by his uncle George Douglas, earl of Dumbarton [S], shortly to be known as the Royal Scots. With this education on the battlefield he was by all accounts a brave soldier, though apparently no strategist, and was best suited to a subordinate role in battle. ⁴ He gave distinguished military service to William III after the Revolution. In Ireland, as colonel of the Inniskilling Regiment of Foot, he fought at the Boyne, at Aughrim (where he was wounded), and at the siege of Limerick. On the continent, where he served as colonel of the Royal Scots, he saw action at Steenkirk, Landen, and at the siege of Namur in 1695, when he was wounded again. In that same year he was promoted to brigadier-general for his services. Even Swift found little to condemn in him, annotating the character sketch of him drawn by Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, with the comment, 'An honest, good-natured gentleman that hath much distinguished himself as a soldier'.⁵

It was, however, his marriage in November 1695 to the king’s former mistress which brought him the greatest material rewards. Not only was ‘Betty’ Villiers a fortune in her own right, her connections at court, such as her brother Jersey, were of inestimable value. Within a year of their marriage Hamilton had been able to purchase the Villiers estate at Cliveden in Buckinghamshire, formerly owned by George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, which he set about improving until Cliveden could be described by John Macky in 1714 as ‘a noble building, à la moderne’.⁶ In 1696 he was created earl of Orkney, officially as a reward for his ‘fidelity and zeal’ and the many proofs he had given of his courage, but presumably as much to gratify his wife.⁷ In 1697 he received the sinecure of governor of Virginia, a colony he never visited, entrusting the government to a series of deputies. His political preferences at this time were with the Whig ministry. Certainly he could not be expected to sympathize with an opposition party in England which after the Treaty of Ryswick was pressing for the disbandment of the Army, and which was also pursuing a determined campaign to resume the grants of forfeitures in Ireland, including his wife’s extensive holdings in co. Cork. His correspondence from London to his brother, Hamilton, during the political crisis of 1700-1 shows a pronounced aversion to the Tories.⁸ He was unhappy at Hamilton’s alliance with the Scottish cavalier interest, asking him pointedly whether he could really be ‘a Tory in England, and a Whig in Scotland’.⁹

Nonetheless, Orkney’s military career continued to flourish after 1702, thanks to his own qualities in the field and to the fact that Lady Orkney possessed the ear of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. He fought in all of Marlborough’s great victories as colonel of the Royal Scots. Although Marlborough considered him unadventurous, Orkney turned down the chance to become commander-in-chief in Scotland in 1705 (as he also seems to have done in 1696), preferring to remain at the heart of the continental campaign, where the risks, and the potential rewards, were greater.¹⁰ But it was not long before he began to make demands for the further preferment that he considered his due. In 1704 he asked to be allowed to reside as governor of Virginia, and thus enjoy all the perquisites of the office.¹¹ By late March 1705 it was rumoured that he was on the verge of taking up this assignment, but instead he received the promotion to lieutenant-general that had been rumoured for some time.¹² By 1708 his tone had become querulous. He received a share of the Equivalent, following the Union, but spent it on the house and gardens at Cliveden. Money owing him from the Virginia governorship had not been paid, and he now declared himself to be weary of the war. Inwardly he was resentful at what he saw as the ministry’s tendency to take him for granted. Marlborough was at a loss to understand his attitude and was anxious to help, although his duchess was scathing: Orkney, she stated, was ‘the most covetous wretch in nature’.¹³

It was at this point that Orkney made his entrée into politics. He may have been held back previously by a diffidence in public speaking–‘by reason of a hesitation in his speech [he] wants expression’.¹⁴ In the spring of 1708 Marlborough and Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, had agreed, apparently with reluctance, to acquiesce to Orkney's request, made in part through his wife, to stand as one of the 16 representative peers in the elections for the forthcoming Parliament. The duchess of Marlborough appears to have disapproved, but her husband explained that it was far safer to keep Orkney on-side, considering him among those who ‘may be had by those that think it worth their while to buy them’. Besides, Orkney had ‘already told me that he will do whatever I shall think for the service’. Godolphin too was wary of inflaming Orkney’s 'ill humour', although he was sure that Orkney would not be chosen.¹⁵ In a letter of 31 May 1708 Marlborough recommended Orkney's candidacy to John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], who was managing the peers’ elections for the Scottish court party headed by James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S].¹⁶

Unbeknownst to these members of the court party, Orkney was deeply involved in the secret negotiations carried on by Hamilton with the Whig Junto and their Scottish allies, the Squadrone, to oppose Queensberry at the election. It was indeed Orkney himself, on behalf of his eldest brother, who made the first approach to the Squadrone through John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe.¹⁷ In Edinburgh by early June 1708, Orkney assisted in efforts to persuade ‘cavalier’ peers to follow his brother’s line in the election. He spread the idea that his candidacy had the queen’s personal approval and further made use of her name to secure votes for the Squadrone candidates, further claiming that Queensberry and the Scottish court had been responsible for the arrest and transportation of the 'cavalier' peers suspected of complicity in the projected Jacobite uprising of March 1708.¹⁸ He petitioned the government to release his brother-in-law, John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], under house arrest since the abortive invasion, and the other peers who were being transported to London for questioning about their suspected involvement. In a letter to the Whig secretary of state, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, who, against the queen's wishes, was supporting the Squadrone in this election, he made the point that these prisoners ‘could have served us much in both the elections of peers and commons’.¹⁹ As the election drew closer, Hamilton sent Orkney and their brother Selkirk to visit both Atholl and John Campbell*, earl of Breadalbane [S], to persuade them to look to the Squadrone and the Whigs for their release and future favour.²⁰

This embassy initially seemed successful, for at the election of 17 June 1708 Orkney presented himself and revealed that he had been entrusted with Atholl’s proxy as well as that of Lucius Henry Cary, 6th Viscount Falkland [S]. He used these, as well as his own vote, to select the Squadrone list of candidates.²¹ Later events suggest that Orkney and Atholl had differing views on how this proxy was to be used. During his later campaign to reverse some of the results of the election, Hamilton protested against Orkney's use of Atholl’s proxy, arguing that it was invalid because the proxy was ‘not sealed’.²² Orkney partly explained this strange turn of events to Sunderland: Atholl had ‘not done so much as I expected or wished’ in his selection of candidates and the Hamilton brothers may therefore have wished to have had his proxy cancelled. Orkney added, however, in his own defence that ‘I am sure … he [Atholl] had been entire against us’ if he and Selkirk had not paid their visit to extract the proxy from him.²³ Hamilton’s protest against the proxy prompted some to think that Orkney ‘stands on his own feet’, independent of his brother. The Queensberryite David Melville*, 5th earl of Leven [S], however, noted that Orkney had made use of the proxy contrary to Atholl’s directions in voting for the Squadrone candidates.²⁴ On 24 June Atholl revealed to Breadalbane that he had ‘now got from the earl of Orkney the reasons of his altering my list … he says he only altered three of his party but did not change any of the other’.²⁵

Orkney had brought himself close to the Whigs on his own account as well as on his brother’s. In the general election he had used his interest in the Buckinghamshire constituency of Great Marlow to promote his brother Lord Archibald Hamilton as a candidate against two Tories.²⁶ On 22 June 1708, five days after his own election as a representative peer he wrote to inform Sunderland of his imminent departure to join the army in Flanders, and to ask how he ‘would have me talk in the army’.²⁷ He was present at Oudenarde in July, after which he found himself at odds with Marlborough. Orkney had pressed for an immediate invasion of France, and although deferring to Marlborough’s decision to besiege Lille instead, remained disappointed and discontented. At the end of the campaign he returned to London, arriving on 3 Jan. 1709. His brother-in-law, Charles Hay^†, styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), reported that Orkney looked ‘very well’ but was ‘no favourite’.²⁸

Orkney took his seat in the Lords on 10 Jan. 1709, a good two months into the proceedings of the new Parliament, but was still able to attend 63 per cent of the sitting days of its first session of 1708-9. At the time of the election the Scottish lord chancellor James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), opined that Orkney and John Lindsay*, 19th earl of Crawford [S], both of them returned from the Squadrone's list, 'will certainly do well' by supporting the court in the Parliament.²⁹ Orkney's actions in his first session did not bear out Seafield's confidence, however. On his first day in the House Orkney was named to the committee to examine the papers relating to the petitions against the representative peers’ election, including the inventory of proxies. On 17 Jan. 1709 Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, delivered the committee’s report, which outlined the objections made against Orkney’s use of the proxies of Atholl, which, it was pointed out, had been ‘signed, but not sealed’, and Falkland, which had been left undated. Four days later Orkney joined with Hamilton, the Squadrone and the English Whigs in voting in favour of the motion that Queensberry could not participate in the election of the representative peers because of the British title he had recently been granted, as duke of Dover. After counsel was heard on 29 Jan., the House resolved that the proxies held by Orkney at the election were still valid despite their irregularities.

During February and early March Orkney continued to attend the House regularly. On 11 Mar. 1709 he was present at the first reading of the bill ‘for improving the Union of the two kingdoms’ and on 18 Mar. was one of the Scottish peers who voted unsuccessfully against the amendment extending to Scotland the English treason laws.³⁰ When the bill received its third reading on 28 Mar. he subscribed two protests, first against the refusal to allow the addition of a rider safeguarding a defendant’s right to receive a copy of the indictment and list of witnesses before his trial, and second against the bill’s passage. He was present at the House’s consideration of the Commons’ amendments on 14 Apr. and when Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, proposed that these alterations should not take effect until the Pretender’s death, ‘all the Scots’ in the House were in the minority against the motion.³¹

Once Parliament was prorogued on 21 Apr. 1709 Orkney joined the army in Flanders and on 11 Sept. fought at Malplaquet, where he again distinguished himself.³² He sent his brother a long account of the battle, in which he revealed a profound disillusionment with the course of the war: he hoped ‘in God it will be the last battle I may ever see. A very few of such would make both parties end the war very soon ... none alive ever saw such a battle. God send us a good peace’.³³ Orkney attributed much of the responsibility for the slaughter to Marlborough; the tension between the two men, possibly exacerbated by Orkney’s dislike of Marlborough’s favourite William Cadogan^† later earl of Cadogan, was evident when they returned to England in November.³⁴ Orkney now seemed poised to change his political allegiance.³⁵ He failed to wait on Marlborough before the latter went up to London on 10 November. Lady Orkney wrote to the duchess of Marlborough on 14 Nov. to explain that her husband had not wished to be troublesome and that ‘he was going this day to town for no other end’. The duchess was unimpressed by this explanation. Having already been advised by Arthur Maynwaring^‡ of Lady Orkney’s ‘awkward squinting schemes’, she believed that Lady Orkney was ‘working in all things in their power’ to serve Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, and with good reason, for Lady Orkney had been in close, and conspirational, contact with Harley since at least July.³⁶

Orkney resumed his seat in the Lords on 21 Nov. 1709 and attended the session of 1709-10 for more than two-thirds of the sittings. Despite his personal misgivings about Marlborough he did not waver in his support for the Whig ministry in the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell. He was one of those named on 18 Feb. 1710 to the select committee to allocate tickets for the trial, and when it came to the division on 20 Mar. Orkney voted Sacheverell guilty. At the same time, his half-brother and aide-de-camp Sir James Abercromby^‡, bt., who had recently been returned at a by-election for Dysart Burghs, was listed as supporting the impeachment in the Commons.³⁷ Orkney continued to attend until the end of the session on 5 Apr. 1710, before returning to military duties at the siege of Douai. 

It soon became clear that Orkney was a pawn in the Whig ministry’s attempts to prevent the military advancement of his fellow Scot John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S].³⁸ Sunderland expressed the hope that Orkney rather than Argyll would be made a general of foot, in the belief that disappointment would force Argyll to ‘shoot himself through the head’. Although Sunderland considered Orkney ‘a very weak man’, he argued that it was undeniable that he ‘had behaved himself well in the impeachment’.³⁹ Marlborough also favoured Orkney’s advancement as a means of mortifying Argyll, pressing Godolphin to enable him to assure Orkney that ‘when any of his countrymen are made peers he shall be made an English baron’, a promotion on which Orkney had set his heart. ⁴⁰ But the duchess was implacably opposed: ‘though it is hard for one in Marlborough’s station to know who are his true friends’, she wrote, ‘he ought never to forgive so false and apparent an enemy’. It was exceedingly unpleasant for Marlborough to have to ‘gratify a fool to mortify a knave’. For his part, the duke insisted that he had only recommended Orkney because ‘I promised his lady’.⁴¹ However, Argyll was promoted instead in August 1710, while a furious Orkney had to wait until the following May.⁴²

In the summer of 1710 it was still thought that Orkney and Hamilton would support the Whigs and oppose the dissolution of Parliament.⁴³ By the end of the summer Orkney’s thoughts had turned to the prospect of the approaching election. On 28 Aug. 1710 he wrote to Breadalbane that the

great talk of a new Parliament and the uncertainty of my being able to attend the elections of peers, having the honour to command the British foot, obliges me to give your lordship this trouble, not only to beg the favour of your vote, but that you will use your interest with your friends for me.⁴⁴

Charles Boyle*, 4th earl of Orrery [I] (later Baron Boyle), advised Harley, then in negotiations with the unsettled Hamilton, that he should be wary of Orkney’s loyalty:

When the agreement is made with Duke Hamilton I hope he will be made to engage for his brother's behaviour as well as his own; my Lord Orkney’s conduct in the last Parliament is a sufficient pretence to require security for him in the next, and there is the more reason to insist upon this because he has expressed more regard this year than he used to do to my lord Marlborough.⁴⁵

Orkney, however, continued to make overtures to Harley, who backed his return as a representative peer. During September 1710 Orkney returned from Flanders to London, where he failed in his attempts to see Harley.⁴⁶ He then made his way to Edinburgh, from where he reassured Harley that he was ‘extremely obliged for the favour you have done me in procuring me a vote from my Lord Stirling [Henry Alexander, 5th earl of Stirling [S]]. I am sorry I had not the happiness to see you at your own house to assure you how much I am your humble servant.’⁴⁷ On 10 Nov. he attended the peers’election where he was safely re-elected on the list agreed upon by Harley with Hamilton, Argyll, and Mar.⁴⁸ He was afterwards listed by the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain, Richard Dongworth, as a ‘court Tory’.⁴⁹ In another analysis of the Scottish representative peers shortly after the election he was said to be ‘well intentioned’ in relation to the succession and the Union.

Orkney returned to London immediately and on 25 Nov. resumed his seat in the House. On 2 Jan. 1711, the day he was sworn to the Privy Council, he wrote to tell Selkirk about the queen’s message to the House informing them of the defeat suffered by the Allies at Brihuega and the assistance she intended to offer, with the help of Parliament, to the Austrian claimant ‘King Charles’. He further informed Selkirk that a committee had been appointed to draw up ‘an humble address to thank her majesty which will be reported tomorrow, and likely there may be some debate upon the wording of it, since some say they will be the beginning of our looking into the mismanagements of Spain’.⁵⁰ As Orkney predicted, the next day the House ordered an inquiry into the war in Spain. On 9 Jan., when the House was in committee of the whole on this subject, Orkney voted against the Whig attempt to adjourn the committee, after which it was resolved that Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, had given an honourable and just account of the council of war in Valencia before the allied defeat at Almanza in April 1707. Three days later Orkney’s vote also helped to secure the acceptance by the House of two further resolutions, one blaming the previous ministry for the defeat at Almanza and the failure of the expedition against Toulon, and the other stating that, had advice given by Peterborough been followed, the setbacks in Spain would have been avoided.⁵¹ Orkney was then named to two select committees on the Spanish campaign. 

On 1 Mar. 1711 Orkney was one of the Scots peers who voted in favour of the immediate consideration of the appeal submitted to the House by the Episcopalian minister James Greenshields which sought to reverse a sentence passed against him by the Edinburgh magistrates for using the Church of England liturgy.⁵² On 9 Mar. he was named as one of the conference managers on an address to the queen about the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Harley. Ill-health prevented his regular attendance during much of May and he donated his proxy on 2 May to Henry Bentinck*, 2nd earl of Portland, (vacated on 9 May) and on 14 May to his brother Hamilton. That was his last sitting in the House for the session, and in June he left to rejoin the army in Flanders, having been in early May made a general of foot. ⁵³ Lady Orkney was now wholly integrated into the network of the earl of Oxford, as Harley had become in May 1711. With some spite the duchess of Marlborough thought her ‘one of the greatest politicians of our times’.⁵⁴ Orkney himself sought to capitalize on his recent military promotion by renewing his request for a British peerage, having been ‘made to hope’ for this some years before, ‘by some who pretended to be my friends’.⁵⁵

Orkney resumed his seat in the Lords on 7 Dec. 1711, the first day of the session of 1711-12, and on that day was named to the committee to draw up the loyal address. On 20 Dec. he voted, with the other Scots peers present, in the minority in favour of Hamilton’s right to sit in the House of Lords as duke of Brandon; he subsequently subscribed the protest against the House’s resolution excluding Hamilton. He also signed a representation of Scottish peers to the queen appealing to her to redress the injury done thereby to her Scottish subjects.⁵⁶ He continued to attend the House intermittently in January 1712 but as it became clear that Scottish grievances would not be redressed, his attendance declined to the point that he was present at only 13 sittings after 29 January. In total he came to only just over a quarter (27 per cent) of the sittings and last sat in the House for the session on 8 Apr. 1712. Two days later his proxy was registered with Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], for the three months remaining of the session. Back with his regiment in the summer, he once more reminded Oxford of his pretensions, declaring with some exaggeration that he had ‘now served both wars without bettering my fortune in any manner’.⁵⁷

Orkney was in the House for four of the prorogations of the spring of 1713 by which the eagerly anticipated session to discuss the Peace of Utrecht was continually postponed, and he was in the House again on 9 Apr. 1713 when the terms were finally ready for presentation. He attended a full three-quarters of the sittings of this session, concerned as he was both by the peace and the possibility that the malt tax would now be extended to Scotland consequent, as the Treaty of Union stipulated, to the ending of the war. Although Orkney had been forecast by Jonathan Swift in the spring of 1713 as likely to support the ministry, he had already complained to Oxford in January of the lord treasurer’s ‘coolness’ in failing to secure him the promotion to which his ‘rank in the army and continued service without intermission entitles me’.⁵⁸ On 26 May Orkney was ‘out of town’ when the general meeting was held of Scottish parliamentarians which agreed unanimously to address the queen to bring in a bill to dissolve the Union in the face of the attempts to extend the malt tax to the northern kingdom. His absence was regarded as surprising, if not suspicious.⁵⁹ He had, though, returned to the House by 1 June when the 4th earl of Findlater (as Seafield had become), ‘at the head of all the Scotch lords brought in a proposal, praying that leave might be given to bring in a bill for dissolving the Union betwixt the two kingdoms’. Presumably he joined the alliance of Scots and Whigs who voted, unsuccessfully, to adjourn debate on the motion in order to muster more support for it. The ministry was able to defeat that motion for adjournment and then the motion to bring in such a bill. Orkney also attended on 5 June for the second reading of the malt tax bill when the ‘Whigs and the Scots joined against it’, but their combined votes were not sufficient to defeat it at the third reading on 8 June. Orkney signed the protest against the passage of the bill, as a violation of the Treaty of Union. ⁶⁰ Nevertheless, Oxford predicted that Orkney would side with the ministry in favour of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French Commercial Treaty, which, however, was defeated in the Commons before it could even appear before the House. For the remainder of the session there is little evidence of his activity in the House beyond the bare record of his attendance, which he maintained intermittently until the prorogation on 16 July 1713.

At the election of representative peers in October 1713 Orkney was re-elected after soliciting Oxford’s support, ‘since I believe nobody has more zeal for her Majesty's service, or is more attached to your interest than I’.⁶¹ His sister-in-law Elizabeth, dowager duchess of Hamilton, nevertheless claimed that Orkney’s politics were turning away from those of the ministry.⁶² Orkney resumed his seat on 16 Feb. 1714, the first day of the new Parliament, and diligently attended 82 per cent of the meetings of its first session in spring 1714. Perhaps because Orkney was now attending more regularly than previously he received Loudoun’s proxy on 17 Mar., which was eventually vacated by Loudoun’s attendance on 31 March. Orkney was now being actively courted by Oxford and at the end of March was made governor of Edinburgh Castle in place of Argyll.⁶³ He was present in the House on 4 Apr. for a debate on ‘the state of the nation’, at which a ‘question was moved that the Protestant succession in the house of Hanover is in danger’. It was then suggested to add the words ‘under her Majesty’s government’; this was carried with all the Scottish peers present voting in favour.⁶⁴ After the Whigs had moved an address to the queen on this motion, Orkney was named to the drafting committee. Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, also considered Orkney a likely supporter of the schism bill in June 1714. However when a petition was presented to the House by Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton, asking that Dissenters’ representatives be heard against the bill, Orkney left the chamber before the vote, together with his fellow representative peer and army general David Colyear*, earl of Portmore [S].⁶⁵ George Baillie^‡ singled Orkney out as one of three representative peers who on 9 June supported amendments to the bill which would allow schoolmistresses to continue teaching even if they did not meet the qualifications in the bill and which would permit appeals to justices of the peace. He also voted for a motion to omit from the bill the words ‘and other literature’ so that the Dissenters could teach Latin and other subjects.⁶⁶ Thereafter Orkney continued to attend the House until Parliament was prorogued on 9 July. He sat in only five of the meetings of the House during the brief session of August following the death of Anne, which sought to ensure the smooth succession of the Hanoverian monarch George I. 

Orkney was elected a representative peer again in 1715 and continued to sit well into the reign of George II. His parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in detail in the subsequent volumes of this work. In January 1736 he and Argyll were appointed the first ever field marshals of the British army. Orkney, though, died at his house in Albemarle Street a little over a year later, on 29 Jan. 1737, and was buried at Taplow near his house of Cliveden. The title passed to his eldest daughter Anne, suo jure countess of Orkney, who married William O'Brien^‡, 4th earl of Inchiquin [I].

Earl of Arran, 1678-98

Hamilton came from the premier noble family of Scotland, the dukedom of Hamilton being the senior dukedom in the kingdom’s peerage. The family enjoyed great prestige as hereditary keepers of the royal palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, the ducal chambers in the complex occupying more space than the royal ones, and vast estates in Lanarkshire, centred on the grandiose Hamilton Palace. Through his mother Hamilton could claim descent from the Scottish house of Stewart and thus nursed pretensions to the Scottish throne, which always added another level of ambiguity and suspicion to his unpredictable political actions. To his protégé George Lockhart^‡ of Carnwath, however, he seemed to display every signal virtue: ‘a heroic and undaunted courage, a clear, ready, and penetrating conception’, plus a necessary degree of political cunning, and an oratorical style that was powerful, if not necessarily eloquent, for:

he had so nervous, majestic, and pathetic a method of speaking, and applying what he spoke, that it was always valued and regarded. Never was a man so well qualified to be the head of a party; for he could, with the greatest dexterity, apply himself to and sift through the inclinations of different parties, and so cunningly manage them, that he gained some of all to his.¹²

But even Lockhart found Hamilton’s political opportunism hard to excuse, while others ironically termed him ‘the hero’ for his flair for dramatic flamboyance, and were alienated by the exalted sense of entitlement that fuelled his restless ambition.¹³ However, such was the force of his personality that, with the exception of his parents and his most bitter political enemies, those with whom he had dealings were prepared either to overlook his defects of character or put them down to external influences. Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, observed that Hamilton had ‘a fine natural disposition, but [was] apt to be influenced by people about him; hath a genteel address, much the manner of a man of quality’.¹⁴

The young Lord Arran, as he was styled, returned from his travels abroad in France in November 1678 and despite the fears of his censorious father that ‘he retains too much of the way he had when he was a child’, he made a good impression on Charles II, who became his protector. To ensure that he would have to stay in the English capital and not be forced to return to Scotland, Arran in the first weeks of January 1679 was able to procure from the king an appointment as an extra gentleman of the bedchamber.¹⁵ Through the influence of Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland, he was able from 1683 to spend two years at the French court, where he was distinguished by being appointed an aide-de-camp to Louis XIV, ‘an honour’, as he assured George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, ‘that no stranger ever had but myself’.¹⁶

Arran was forced to return to England upon Charles II’s death. The new king James VII and II continued to extend royal favour to him. He was made a full gentleman of the bedchamber ‘in ordinary’ in May 1685 and in July received a commission as colonel of a newly established regiment of horse in order to help suppress the revolt of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.¹⁷ He was able to reinforce his connections with the court at Versailles when in September 1686 he was chosen as ambassador extraordinary to congratulate Louis XIV on the birth of the duc de Berry.¹⁸ In May 1687, he was one of the first members of the revived Order of the Thistle. By the end of that year his debts, amounting to about £10,000, forced him to consider the unpalatable path of marriage to an heiress, and negotiations were soon underway for a match with Lady Anne Spencer, a daughter of his patron Sunderland. The marriage was celebrated lavishly at court on 10 Jan. 1688, a union which Arran’s father considered politically advantageous but financially ruinous, despite the hefty portion of £10,000 Lady Anne was to bring to the marriage.¹⁹ On the invasion of William of Orange, Arran was further promoted to be colonel of the Royal Horse Guards and a brigadier-general.²⁰ He was with the king at Salisbury and on 18 Dec., as a gentleman of the bedchamber, accompanied him part of the way on his journey to Rochester.²¹

Arran showed his continuing adherence to James’s cause when, at a gathering of Scottish magnates in London in early January 1689, he proposed that the king be recalled from France. For this and other ‘treasonable practices’ he was committed to the Tower in the first days of March. ²² His father, who served William as the president of the convention of estates in Edinburgh, thought his son ‘as foolish as ever as to his politics, and they say his wife is little better’ – but he still secured his son’s liberty on £10,000 bail and Arran left the Tower on 10 Nov. 1689 to return to Scotland, despite William III’s misgivings.²³

During the first half of the 1690s Arran continued to involve himself in Jacobite conspiracy in Scotland, including the abortive ‘Montgomerie’s plot’, and conducted a furtive correspondence with James II concerning a proposed invasion.²⁴ Lockhart later claimed that during these early years of William III’s reign Arran was ‘several times imprisoned and much harassed upon account of his loyalty’ to James.²⁵ Arran did not succeed immediately as duke of Hamilton on his father’s death on 18 Apr. 1694 because the duke had only held the title for his lifetime. The title remained with his mother suo jure, as her father’s heiress, and she was by no means convinced that Arran would be the most appropriate heir. Evidently she considered passing over her eldest son and bestowing the dukedom on his younger brother Charles, 2nd earl of Selkirk. Added to this, in January 1696 another younger brother, the army officer George Hamilton*, was created earl of Orkney [S]. The success of his younger brothers may have spurred Arran to try more seriously to placate his mother so that she would pass on her titles to him. Widowed in July 1690, he began to look seriously for a new wife. In April 1696 he gave his mother the first account of his negotiations for the hand of Elizabeth Gerard, a wealthy 13-year-old heiress, the daughter of the late 5th Baron Gerard, with extensive property in Staffordshire.²⁶ It took over two years for the details of the marriage settlement to be ironed out and as the date of marriage finally approached, Arran was able to persuade his mother to resign her titles to him. On 9 July 1698 William III issued a patent creating Arran 4th duke of Hamilton and his marriage to the Gerard heiress was celebrated only a week later, on 17 July.²⁷ However, while his mother lived he could not inherit the family estate that would have given him an annual income of £9,000, and so he depended on securing his wife’s disputed inheritance.²⁸

‘Country’ opposition, 1699-1707

The new duke of Hamilton did not take his place in the Scottish Parliament until the session which met on 21 May 1700, where he quickly showed himself as a Scottish ‘patriot’, agitating for the rights of the Company of Scotland and its abortive colony at Darien against what he saw as the attempts of the English government to thwart Scottish trade and its ‘national interest’. The commissioner of the Scottish Parliament, James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], was forced to adjourn parliament prematurely in the face of Hamilton’s obstructionism. Queensberry had long nurtured a deep enmity towards Hamilton, derived from his and his father’s bitter political rivalry with the 3rd duke. The animosity was mutual, and was to colour much of Hamilton’s political career. ²⁹

After William III’s death Hamilton made his way to London to profess loyalty to Queen Anne and also argued to all who would listen the case for an immediate general election in Scotland, made legally necessary by the accession of the new monarch.³⁰ When the old Scottish Parliament, which had been sitting since June 1689, met again on 9 June 1702, Hamilton rose even before Queensberry’s commission could be read to protest against the illegality of the present assembly and formally withdrew from the chamber, accompanied by 73 other members, including his brother Selkirk.³¹ A deputation representing Hamilton and the ‘country party’ was sent to London to address the queen on this objection, and eventually succeeded in persuading her, or more to the point her minister Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, to proclaim a dissolution.

From 1702 Hamilton was also preoccupied with lawsuits against Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, the executor and chief beneficiary of the will of Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, his wife’s maternal uncle. The dispute, which was to rumble on for the next several years and to lead indirectly to Hamilton’s death in 1712, arose from Macclesfield’s controversial decision to bequeath the entirety of his estate to his brother-in-law and military colleague Mohun, thereby disinheriting his heirs-at-law, among whom was his niece. As Hamilton had married principally for the prospect of this inheritance, this was a serious blow and recovering his wife’s legal right to the estate became an obsession.³² When it was rumoured in the autumn of 1702 that Hamilton would receive an English title, it was thought that he would chose the earldom of Macclesfield, to cement his claim to the late earl’s estate.³³

By the autumn of 1702 there was also talk that Hamilton’s ‘country party’ was to be brought into the new Scottish ministry.³⁴ But at the same time the duke damaged his position at court by making clear his opposition to an Anglo-Scottish union, which at that point was under negotiation by commissioners from both kingdoms. While some admired his ‘patriotism’ on this point, the leader of the court party, Queensberry, regarded him as an unscrupulous intriguer, who, lacking enough ‘interest’ of his own, was trying to take over leadership of one of the two principal opposition factions, Presbyterian ‘Revolutioners’ or Jacobite ‘cavaliers’.³⁵

As none of the promises of favour made to him were realized, either in 1702 or subsequently, Hamilton became the leader of the opposition against the insistence of the court party that the Scottish parliament vest the succession to the throne in the Hanoverians. There was undoubtedly a strong element of self-interest in this position for, upon the queen’s death, Hamilton would (after the Pretender himself) have the strongest claim to the Scottish throne through his descent, via his mother, from the house of Stewart. In the first session of the new Scottish parliament beginning in 1703 he argued for limitations to be placed on any future monarch before the succession to the Scottish throne was determined.³⁶ A result of the opposition’s activities in this session was the Act of Security, which was denied the royal assent. His relations with the court were further complicated by his role in the ‘Scotch Plot’ furore in the winter of 1703-4. He supported the objections of his brother-in-law John Murray*, duke of Atholl, against the spurious allegations of Queensberry and agitated for an examination of the Plot to be conducted in Scotland. At a meeting of the country party leaders in Edinburgh Hamilton nominated three prominent members to act as a deputation to present to the queen their long list of grievances against Queensberry, but did not himself travel to London, despite the urgings of his wife as well as Atholl himself. ³⁷ Hamilton was himself caught up in the English investigation of the Plot. On 20 Mar. 1704 the seven English peers, most of them Whig, assigned by the Lords to examine the Plot submitted their report, in which Hamilton was ‘often mentioned as much concerned’, although usually as the subject of criticism from Mary of Modena, who complained that he never responded to her letters.³⁸

Hamilton’s own actions, and their motivations, in the two sessions of 1704 and 1705 (as in much the rest of his career) are difficult to fathom, but much depended on his expectations of reward from the English ministers. When the Scottish ministry was being reconstructed in the spring of 1704, he was again passed over while his country colleague John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S], replaced Queensberry as commissioner. Godolphin may have tried a direct approach to placate Hamilton, with promises of future favour for present good behaviour, but this also came to naught. Thus at the start of the session of the Scottish parliament beginning in July 1704 Hamilton was furious at his continued exclusion and determined once again to oppose any attempt to name a successor to the Scottish throne. Yet, for whatever reason or calculation, on 13 July he performed a stunning volte-face, the first of many, by proposing that the parliament ‘not proceed to the nomination of a successor until we have had a previous treaty with England in relation to our commerce and other concerns’, even though he had previously condemned any thought of a treaty of union as ‘damnation’. This proposal effectively blocked the immediate nomination of a Scottish successor, but did bring union that much closer. Hamilton then moved that the parliament refuse to consider granting a supply before it had confirmed conditions ‘for securing the independency and sovereignty of this kingdom’ through the passage of the Act of Security. This forced Godolphin to agree, highly reluctantly, to give the act the royal assent in August, in order to procure the necessary supply for continuing the war. ³⁹

In the following session of 1705, Tweeddale was replaced as commissioner by John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (and earl of Greenwich). At first Hamilton and Atholl led a strong parliamentary campaign against the nomination of a successor or a treaty of union, but their obstructionist motions and proposals were defeated by the court with the assistance of members of the ‘Squadrone Volante’. With an act for a treaty now almost inevitable Hamilton performed perhaps his most astounding change of course when on 1 Sept. he moved that the nomination of commissioners ‘should be left wholly to the queen’. The vote on his motion was taken late in the day, in a thinly attended chamber, and won by a mere eight votes, including his own. This sudden and unexpected concession to the court enraged many of his followers and ‘made his whole party stare and look aghast’.⁴⁰

In writing to his own mother and to George Lockhart Hamilton blamed his opposition colleagues for abandoning him on positions he had originally set out and gave further specious explanations for his actions. He was adamant that ‘I can hold up my face and will value myself upon my conduct and show that if I had been followed and seconded, as I should have been, the country would have reaped more benefit from my endeavours than in any Parliament wherein I have yet appeared’. The Presbyterians under Tweeddale had deserted the cause first, while on many occasions the cavaliers had been content to sit silent. Lockhart probably came closer to the truth when he suggested that Hamilton had long been negotiating with Argyll and the Scottish secretary of state John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar, who had promised him a place on the treaty commission. When the prospect of a treaty appeared inevitable, Hamilton may well have calculated that, as a local grandee in receipt of promises from the court, he had a better chance of being chosen a commissioner by the queen than by Parliament.⁴¹

Hamilton was, however, again disappointed, for he was not named to the commission. In the following session of 1706-7, despite having been heavily wooed by Mar and the English secretary of state Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, Hamilton reverted to his former anti-unionism. He and Atholl led the opposition to any treaty through a variety of sometimes suspect parliamentary techniques. He also took delight in being lionized by the Edinburgh populace as a ‘patriot’ and saviour of the nation. ⁴² Yet his own financial health depended on the success of union, or the avoidance of a breakdown of relations with England, for, with huge debts to repay, he relied on the income from the large estates in Staffordshire and Lancashire he controlled through his wife and from the export of black cattle to England from his Scottish estates. ⁴³ Lockhart suspected that ‘his too great concern for his estate in England occasioned a great deal of lukewarmness in his opposition to the Union and unwillingness to enter into several measures that were proposed to prevent the same’.⁴⁴ Such considerations, as well as his own half-hearted claim to the Scottish throne, ultimately immobilized him with indecision, and in crucial votes he was absent from the Parliament, at one point claiming toothache, or gave obscure and ambiguous directions to his followers. His last defeat came shortly after the ratification of the treaty on 16 Jan. 1707, when he objected unsuccessfully to the proposal that the Scottish representative peers to the first Parliament of Great Britain be chosen by the existing Scottish Parliament.⁴⁵ Naturally, he found himself out in the cold. Although Mar had thought it politically advisable that he be included among the first batch of representative peers, Queensberry had personally vetoed his nomination, alleging, as Hamilton reported, that ‘the queen had sent positive orders that none concerned in the government or in her service should vote for me’.⁴⁶

With the Squadrone and the Whigs, 1708-10

From 1704 at least Hamilton had been enmeshed in Jacobite plotting. As this was well known to the English government, Hamilton immediately fell under suspicion in March 1708 when a French fleet with the Pretender and a body of troops on board approached Scotland.⁴⁷ The duke was, however, in Staffordshire at the time and, protesting his innocence, hurried to London while application was made for assistance to his brother-in-law (by his first wife), Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, the secretary of state for the northern department. Hamilton now performed a tactical coup which bewildered friends and enemies alike: through his brother, Orkney, he proposed to the Squadrone and their allies in the Whig Junto (including Sunderland), a compact of mutual assistance in the forthcoming general election, in effect a revival of the old ‘country party’ alliance in Scotland. This was accompanied by a threat that if the offer was declined he was ready to join Queensberry. The bluff was successful, and in return for a promise of electoral support he secured his bail for £10,000.⁴⁸ It was Hamilton’s task then to persuade the cavalier and Jacobite peers that the Scottish court party was to be blamed for their original arrests and that they should support his and the Squadrone’s slate of candidates for the election in return for their release from custody.⁴⁹

By 21 May 1708 Hamilton was back at Holyroodhouse to oversee on behalf of the Squadrone the peers’ election scheduled to take place there on 17 June.⁵⁰ He held the proxy of William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S], one of the arrested peers whom he had convinced to switch sides. Hamilton and the Squadrone carried four seats, including Hamilton himself and his brother Orkney.⁵¹ Hamilton also raised a number of objections against the right to vote of some of those supporting court candidates, and particularly targeted his rival Queensberry, claiming that Queensberry’s elevation into the British peerage as duke of Dover on 26 May 1708 invalidated his right to vote as a Scottish peer.⁵² Throughout the summer Hamilton was at the heart of the effort to compile the various complaints and petitions of the Squadrone against the election of a number of the court peers, co-ordinating his efforts on this with Sunderland. ⁵³

Discharged from his bail, Hamilton took his seat in the House on the first day of the new Parliament, 16 Nov. 1708, and proceeded to attend 83 per cent of the sitting days of its first session. On the following sitting day, 18 Nov., he was placed on the committee to draw an address to the queen condoling with her on the recent death of the prince consort and also submitted to the House the petitions he and his colleagues had prepared against the election of the court members among the Scottish representative peers.⁵⁴ Hamilton himself submitted the protestation against the votes cast by Queensberry, on the basis that as a peer of Great Britain, he could no longer act as a peer of Scotland at the election. Hamilton had long bitterly resented the British peerage conferred on Queensberry, an honour he expected for himself. Hamilton also submitted a protest against the proxy registered by George Forrester, 5th Lord Forester [S], who had not yet reached his majority.

The necessary papers relevant to these petitions were not laid before the House until 23 Dec., and on 10 Jan. 1709 the House appointed a large select committee to consider them, including Hamilton himself. On 17 Jan. the committee submitted its report, in which Hamilton’s objection against Queensberry’s voting was prominent, and four days later Hamilton joined his Junto and Squadrone allies in voting that Queensberry could not participate in elections of the Scottish representative peers under his new British title. Hamilton was present the following day, when it was further determined that the proxy votes cast by Queensberry at the elections should also be invalidated. On 26 Jan. Hamilton gave evidence on the minority of Lord Forrester, in order to invalidate his proxy. The final result of these protracted hearings was minimal: after the votes cast in the election were recalculated on 1 Feb. according to the various resolutions of the House regarding the petitions, Hamilton himself was deducted a mere five votes and retained his seat while only one representative peer lost his place, William Kerr*, 2nd marquess of Lothian [S], who was replaced by the principal petitioner William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S].⁵⁵ Hamilton was at this time ‘reckoned as a very staunch Whig’ and no longer a ‘friend’ of the Pretender and there were rumours that he was to be appointed to some position at court or in the army.⁵⁶ Like all the other Scottish peers Hamilton was also opposed to the bill to ‘improve’ the Union by extending the English treason laws to Scotland and was active in the proceedings surrounding this bill. On 22 Mar. he was a teller in a division in the committee of the whole House on whether to add an amendment to the bill.⁵⁷ Six days later he joined 13 of his fellow Scottish representative peers in signing two protests against it: one against the rejection of a rider giving those accused of treason the right to receive and consider the indictment before trial; and another against the passage of the bill itself. On a more personal matter on 10 Mar. the House agreed to the appeal of Sir James Grey, bt., against a decree of the Council of Session which had exempted Hamilton and Selkirk from reimbursing Gray £1,000.⁵⁸

Hamilton was again present for the opening day of the 1709-10 session, on 15 Nov. 1709, and on that day was named to the committee to draw up the address of thanks to the queen. There is little evidence of his activities in the House in the first part of the session, even though he attended 86 per cent of its sitting days. Throughout the winter of 1709-10 there were fears that Hamilton was becoming disaffected with the Squadrone-Whig alliance, most likely, as usual, because of a perceived lack of sufficient reward to him and other members of his family.⁵⁹ Hamilton’s attitude towards the Whig ministry was undoubtedly affected by the favour it seemed to show Argyll in March 1710: first Argyll received the Garter, which Hamilton had long expected for himself, then he apparently persuaded ministers to reject Hamilton’s request for a British dukedom in recompense. ⁶⁰ Such slights probably helped to determine Hamilton to oppose the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell: and it was reported in early March that Hamilton was among those who ‘hindered the pushing of several things the Junto designed in the House of Peers’.⁶¹ Between 14 and 18 Mar. Hamilton subscribed to five protests against resolutions which furthered the prosecution of Sacheverell, and on 20 Mar. voted Sacheverell not guilty and signed the protest against the guilty verdict. The following day he followed this up with a second vote in Sacheverell’s favour over the question of his future preferment. These votes surprised and angered John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, who included Hamilton among the nine court peers whom he thought and expected would have voted ‘on the other side’.⁶² Sunderland sought to explain Hamilton’s defection: ‘he was convinced that what he [Hamilton] did in that matter was to keep up his interest in Scotland, which was all Jacobite; and if he had lost that by voting on the other side, he would have been insignificant; and this he had often said to him, in such a manner as he could not well contradict’.⁶³

In the months following the prorogation of 5 Apr. 1710 Hamilton continued to feel aggrieved about Argyll’s Garter, as well as a host of other perceived snubs, as he and his brothers failed to receive the honours and offices he felt were due to them.⁶⁴ Thus the uncertain months during which the Whig ministry was dismantled and a new one constituted under Robert Harley were filled with discussions and speculation about which way the disgruntled Hamilton would turn, ‘trusted entirely by no side’, but courted by all because of his important electoral influence.⁶⁵ By mid-August there was speculation that he might insist on taking over from the Whig James Stanley*, 10th earl of Derby, as lord lieutenant of Lancashire and chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster.⁶⁶ Harley appeared to comply, as in early September he included Hamilton in a working list of peers to be given office with a view to bringing them over to the ministry.⁶⁷ Hamilton, and even more urgently and persistently his wife, pressed Harley to hasten these appointments so that he could manage the elections in Lancashire following the dissolution of Parliament. Harley, however, hesitated to make the change and Derby remained in office throughout the autumn elections. ⁶⁸ Hamilton’s electoral influence was felt more immediately in Scotland. Before he left London on 7 Oct. to go north, ‘Mr Harley was two nights with him’, and it was reported that renewed promises had been made of a British peerage, so that he promised to use his electoral interest in Scotland for the new ministry.⁶⁹ Hamilton was one of the peers entrusted with managing the Scottish elections for the court and, with Mar and Argyll, drew up a slate of representative peers suitable to Harley. With the Squadrone boycotting the peers’ election, Hamilton himself was chosen a representative peer once again at the election on 10 Nov. 1710 and was categorized as a ‘court Tory’ by Richard Dongworth, chaplain to the duchess of Buccleuch. ⁷⁰ In another analysis drawn up shortly after the election he was classed as a ‘Jacobite’.

With the Tories, 1710-1712

Hamilton was present in the House when the new Parliament met on 25 Nov. 1710 and attended 71 per cent of sittings in its first session. On 13 Dec. he was rewarded for his efforts in the election by being sworn a privy councillor and made lord lieutenant of Lancashire and ranger of the five forests of Lancashire. Yet despite his services and his continuing importunities, he was not made chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and the queen still refused to grant him a British peerage.⁷¹ There is little evidence of Hamilton’s activity in the first weeks of the session. He was absent the day following his swearing-in on the council, 14 Dec. 1710, and on 2 Jan. registered his proxy with Annandale, which was vacated upon Hamilton’s return to the House on 12 January. John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerino [S], complained in May of Hamilton’s ‘odd conduct this winter’, suggesting that the snobbish duke only socialized with him when he was in the company of Annandale, the true object of Hamilton’s attention. When, on one occasion of conviviality, Hamilton actively sought Balmerino’s approval for his conduct in the debate on the appeal of the Scottish Episcopalian minister James Greenshields on 1 Mar. 1711, Balmerino could only reply that Hamilton had acted better than Atholl.⁷² Since May, Balmerino had found Hamilton surprisingly solicitous of him, but was also perturbed that Hamilton was associating with known Squadrone Members of the Commons, which made him fear that the duke would consequently ‘fall through betwixt stools’. This wooing probably arose from the duke’s continuing campaign to gain either his long-sought British dukedom or, his new target, Queensberry’s office of secretary of state for Scotland.⁷³

From 12 to 31 May 1711 Hamilton was one of the 15 peers who managed four conferences on the amendments to the bill for the preservation of game and on 14 May he received the proxy of his brother Orkney, which he maintained for the remainder of the session. Balmerino also recorded Hamilton’s surprising opposition to the Tory bill to establish a commission to consider the resumption of William III’s land grants, which was narrowly rejected by a tied vote on 20 May.⁷⁴ On 1 June, at the third reading of the Scottish linen bill, Hamilton spoke against the amendment banning exports of unmanufactured linen yarn from Scotland, insisting

that whatever they had promised to Ireland [regarding the export of linen yarn] yet now that we were all one with England charity must begin at home, and that he hoped they would be as careful of our linen manufacture as they were of their own woollen manufacture, especially since our woollen manufacture was destroyed.

This prompted Sunderland to answer that ‘he did own that he would as soon prefer the interest of Ireland to that of any one county in England’.⁷⁵ By the time of the prorogation on 12 June, Hamilton was seen as a firm Tory. On 8 June he was admitted to the high Tory drinking club the Board of Brothers as its only Scottish member and he was listed as a ‘Tory patriot’ that is to say one of those intent on ‘easing the nation of the heavy burden and taxes, by putting an end to the expensive and bloody war’.⁷⁶

By at least 6 June 1711 a warrant had been prepared to make Hamilton a British peer, and by 9 June Balmerino was referring to him as duke of Brandon, even though the patent had not yet passed the seals.⁷⁷ The delay in passing the patent arose from ministerial awareness that both Whigs and Tories were firmly opposed to Hamilton’s right to sit in the House independent of his status as one of the sixteen representative peers, which English peers considered would set a dangerous precedent and threaten a Scottish invasion of the House. Hamilton did have a precedent on his side, since Queensberry had been sitting in the House as the British duke of Dover, and not as a representative peer, since the 1708 Parliament. Even on this point Hamilton’s erstwhile brother-in-law Sunderland warned him that both Tories and Whigs were intending in the next session to question Queensberry’s right to sit under that title. ⁷⁸ Queensberry’s death on 6 July 1711 presented Hamilton with unexpected opportunities, for now Queensberry’s presence for two years in the House as a British duke was an established fact, and it was beyond the English lords to rescind it retrospectively. Hamilton could also now petition for the late duke’s office as Scottish secretary of state, but was again disappointed, as the queen did not immediately appoint a successor.⁷⁹

The patent creating Hamilton duke of Brandon was passed on 10 Sept. 1711, but the political battle was far from over, and became even more partisan after the Tory ministry signed peace preliminaries with France on 28 September. The Whigs saw the Brandon peerage as an easy way to attack the ministry, but were genuinely fearful that it was the thin edge of the wedge, the first of many such creations which would swamp the House with a corps of Scottish peers compliant with the ministry.⁸⁰ Both Hamilton and Mar were anxious and strongly urged Harley, now earl of Oxford, to ensure that the full complement of the Scottish peers be present for the beginning of the session, while the queen considered other measures to be taken to avoid the inevitable confrontation.⁸¹

When the session opened on 7 Dec. 1711, Hamilton did not take his seat, awaiting the issue of his controverted patent. He was thus not present for the votes on the first two days of the session regarding the addition of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause in the Address, and could not bring his own vote, or his proxies, to help Oxford avoid defeat.⁸² Nevertheless, the lord treasurer still included him on a list of ‘loyal peers’ who were to be gratified for their service. Hamilton did what he could to help in bringing the representative peers up to Westminster to assist his claim, but only nine were present in the otherwise well-attended House of 114 members on 20 Dec. when the Lords took his case into consideration, with the queen attending, incognita, and hoping that her prerogative would be upheld.⁸³ The ensuing debate was long, lasting until 8 o’clock, and the queen was said to have remained for its entirety. The case against the patent was opened (with what Balmerino termed ‘sophistical trifling reasons’) by Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford), and followed by his brother Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham. The Whigs, though, were at the vanguard of the campaign against Hamilton’s right to sit, seeking to prove that that 22nd article of the Act of Union, that which determined the election of representative peers, restricted the rights of the Scottish peerage and limited to 16 the number of Scots who could sit in the House. Hamilton’s opponents avoided as much as possible the ministry’s most powerful argument, advanced by Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, which was the example of Queensberry. The Whigs were aware that the judges would most likely support Hamilton’s right to sit and they and Hamilton’s opponents among the Tories were able to defeat a motion that the judges’ legal opinion should be heard. Shortly afterwards the House divided again to resolve, by a majority of five, that no Scottish peer had the right to sit in the House by virtue of a British title created after the Union. Some attributed the outcome to the fact that six representative peers had still not come up to Parliament, and certainly the nine Scottish representative peers present in the House took the resolution as a national insult, all signing a protest against the vote.⁸⁴

The Scottish peers met on 28 Dec. 1711 to discuss their response and on 1 Jan. 1712 presented the queen with a memorial of their grievances, drawn up by Hamilton, Mar and Argyll’s brother, Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S], and signed by all the representative peers and Members, against what they saw ‘as a breach of the Union, and a mark of disgrace put upon the whole peers of Scotland’.⁸⁵ The mood among the Scots was hardening and there was even talk of the dissolution of the Union or their defection from the ministry to join with the Whigs.⁸⁶ Oxford called a meeting of Scottish peers on 13 Jan. and was able to persuade them for the moment to continue to support the ministry pending an address from the queen, delivered four days later, asking the House to reconsider its ruling. The same day Hamilton convened a meeting of Scottish peers at his house, where Annandale alone insisted that there should be a general boycott, while the rest agreed to wait to observe the outcome of the queen’s request. One of the ministry’s suggestions was to replace the current system of 16 elected representative peers with a set number of permanent hereditary peers, chosen by an extraordinary convention of the Scottish nobility. Hamilton supported this proposal, sure that he was bound to be one of those placed permanently in the House. The project foundered over disagreement over the precise number of hereditary peers who were to sit, and the objection, forcefully put by Balmerino, that the project would entail a reconvening of all the estates of the Scottish parliament to obtain approval of this fundamental change in the Treaty of Union.⁸⁷ On 25 Jan. the committee of the whole House resolved that the House could alter the elected status of the representative peers of Scotland, at the ‘request’ of the Scottish nobility, ‘without any violation of the Union’. Mar had originally sought to use the words ‘at the desire and with the consent of the Scots peers’, and Balmerino immediately saw that the revised wording spelled the effective end of this proposal, since it was impossible that the whole body of the Scottish peerage would ever actively ‘request’ such a change.⁸⁸

From the time of the last, inconclusive, meeting of the committee of the whole on 4 Feb. 1712, almost all the Scottish peers joined Balmerino, Annandale, and of course Hamilton himself, in a general boycott of the House. This broke down almost immediately, however, as at another meeting in Hamilton’s house on 8 Feb. seven representative peers resolved to return to Parliament to assist the passage of the Episcopal communion toleration bill.⁸⁹ The following day ten Scottish peers were present in the House, much to Hamilton’s disgust, and by the end of February only Hamilton and Annandale still stood out in their refusal to attend.⁹⁰ Indeed Hamilton, whose case so preoccupied the House, was never recorded as present during the entire session, determined as he was to sit as duke of Brandon, or not at all.

At almost exactly the same time Hamilton brought his long-running dispute with Mohun to the attention of the House. In October 1711 chancery had issued a decree ordering Mohun to pay Hamilton’s wife £15,000, but from November Mohun had sought to obstruct and delay its enactment by convincing the lord keeper to establish a commission to examine witnesses. None were produced and Hamilton decided to proceed upon the report. Mohun, though, warned him through his counsel on 24 Jan. 1712 that he would insist on his privilege. Five days later a petition was presented to the House on Hamilton’s behalf insisting that in his initial proceedings in this matter Mohun had waived his privilege and requesting liberty to proceed with the suit.⁹¹ Mohun gave in his answer on 2 Feb. and six days later counsel was heard before the committee of privileges, which decided on a division that Mohun still enjoyed privilege. On 8 Feb. the House agreed with the committee, the Whigs perhaps enjoying their opportunity to injure Hamilton’s interests on two fronts simultaneously. It was suggested that Hamilton’s cause was not helped by the Scottish boycott, which he himself was encouraging, as Mohun prevailed in the final division by only 3 votes, and those were proxies.⁹²

Despite the frustration of the failure of his patent, Hamilton, true to form, continued to press for further honours and offices. Throughout January 1712 there were rumours that he would be given the office of master of horse, to replace the disobedient court Whig Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset.⁹³ In September he was made vice-admiral of Lancashire, as the ministry eased Derby out of his last remaining local role in the county. Hamilton was also unexpectedly given the post of master-general of the ordnance, at which he was reported to be happy, even though he had not asked for it; one observer commented ‘I wonder how he forgot it, for it is the first he has missed asking for these four years’. ⁹⁴ Most prominently, though, he was nominated a Knight of the Garter on 25 Oct. and at about the same time was appointed, with the approval of the Jacobite court at St Germain, ambassador to France, now that peace between the two countries seemed imminent.⁹⁵

Before he could fully enter into any of these posts, or even be installed at Windsor, Hamilton was challenged to a duel by a drunken Mohun after ‘brutal’ words were exchanged between them during a meeting in the rooms of a master in chancery. ⁹⁶ On the morning of 15 Nov. 1712 the two men fought in Hyde Park and both were killed, Hamilton allegedly by Mohun’s second, General George MacCartney, when already wounded and on the ground. A contemporary verse eulogy saw Hamilton as ‘a hero murdered, by a saucy fool’, while others saw this incident as evidence of a Whig plot to dispose of a leading Tory grandee on the eve of his embarking on an important diplomatic mission to seal the peace between Britain and France. ⁹⁷ MacCartney fled into hiding in the Netherlands, but returned in 1716, after the Whigs had come to power, when he was tried for murder and acquitted.

While his widow and sister-in-law Lady Orkney wrangled over where in England he should be buried, Hamilton’s body, after a temporary burial in Westminster Abbey, was transported back to Scotland in 1718 for interment with his ancestors at Hamilton.⁹⁸ He was succeeded in his titles by his nine-year-old son James Hamilton, 5th duke of Hamilton [S] and 2nd duke of Brandon. During her son’s long minority the dowager duchess of Hamilton, joined by her maternal aunt Lady Charlotte Orby and her first cousin John Elrington, continued the legal case against Mohun’s heirs and executors, thus perpetuating the dispute between the two men well beyond their untimely deaths.

Although in some respects unsuited to the responsibility, Tweeddale was acknowledged as the leader of the Squadrone Volante (or Squadrone for short). By the time of the Union, however, he had become an armchair general, and in the Parliament of Great Britain he tended to watch from a distance while the next generation did the hard political work. His greatest strength was the reputation he cultivated as a man of principle, who took office reluctantly and only for the public good (even if this was not always strictly true); but he lacked an instinctive understanding of the political scene, could be indecisive, and was sometimes liable to ‘pets’ if he did not get his way.⁴ Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, in a character sketch published by Spring Macky, was highly complimentary: Tweeddale was, he wrote, ‘a great encourager and promoter of trade, and the welfare of his country. He hath good sense, is very modest, much a man of honour, and hot when piqued; is highly esteemed in the country’.⁵ At the other end of the political spectrum, the Jacobite George Lockhart^‡ was predictably hostile, but in a patronizing way. In his view, Tweeddale

never obtained any other character than that he was a well-meaning but simple man; and I have the charity to believe, he was forced against his will by his friends and those he trusted (who made a mere tool of him) to enter into many of the bad measures he pursued: so I may safely say, he was the least ill-meaning man of his party, wither thro’ inclination or capacity.⁶

Tweeddale’s family background was Presbyterian, of a moderate stripe. His grandfather was an ‘Engager’, while he and his father were both active in local government under Charles II. As Lord Yester, he commanded a militia regiment against Argyll’s uprising in 1685, and supported James II’s government on the Scottish Privy Council. Having adapted to the Revolution, he and his father reinvented themselves as Williamites: the family, however, had relatively little political interest and so Yester was sent to London by his father in December 1688 to wait on the prince of Orange and cultivate contacts with English politicians. ⁷ He was also expected to promote an Anglo-Scottish union, a project which the 1st marquess of Tweeddale had long advocated.⁸ But he seems to have been out of his depth at the English court, and was soon advising his father to join him in London.⁹ It was not easy to secure an audience with the new king, and concerning union, Yester warned his father that ‘the changes and steps ... made here must give a quite different prospect of affairs’. He had been told ‘by several’, including William Hamilton 3rd duke of Hamilton [S], that ‘it will be expected we should follow the example of England, beginning at settling of the government in his person and, thereafter, to come to the union, relying upon his care for the effectuating thereof’. ¹⁰ Eventually, Yester admitted that, while he had initially been of the opinion that the union ‘should be the first step’, now, ‘as matters are like to go, I see no possibility for it till after there be some settlement or other, and therefore hardly know how to carry when I speak to any about it.’¹¹ His reading of the situation was correct: William did not intend proposals for union to interfere with the settlement of Scotland, and the scheme quickly foundered. ¹² When Yester left London it seemed that the family were not in particularly good odour at court, for Hamilton told his wife that the king ‘has no mind for Tweeddale, who is in great dissatisfaction, for it seems he has spoken very freely to him, but it has not taken.’¹³

Two years passed before there was a revival in Tweeddale’s fortunes, during which time father and son intrigued against the administration of the Melvilles and flirted with radical Presbyterian critics of government.¹⁴ In December 1691 Tweeddale was appointed lord chancellor of Scotland. Three years later he was promoted in the Scottish peerage and named commissioner to the Scottish parliament. His father’s role in government enabled Yester to make important contacts with Presbyterian and Whig politicians like Secretary James Johnston^‡, whose friendship would count for much later in his career.¹⁵ Unfortunately, Tweeddale incurred William’s displeasure by his management of Parliament–mishandling the enquiry into the massacre at Glencoe, prolonging the session beyond the time set in his instructions and allowing the passage of acts to establish the Company of Scotland–and was replaced in 1695. Tweeddale sent Yester south again to present his case to the king, but to no avail, as his son still floundered in the treacherous waters of court politics.¹⁶

On his return to Scotland Yester was chosen as one of the directors of the Company of Scotland, and in that capacity was closely involved in the ill-fated attempt to establish a Scottish colony on the Isthmus of Panama at Darien, which brought the Company into direct conflict with the interests of English chartered companies and heightened his own estrangement from William’s government.¹⁷ He succeeded as second marquess in 1697, and the following year married his own son to the widowed sister of the James Hamiliton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], with whom he was co-operating in opposition.¹⁸ When the Scottish Parliament met in 1700, Tweeddale and Hamilton strove to pressurize the king to assist the colony at Darien, and did much to consolidate the strength of the ‘country party’, as the opposition came to be called.¹⁹

Presumably because of his recent history of opposition, Tweeddale was not named as one of the Scottish commissioners to treat for a union with England in 1702. He continued in opposition, and was one of the more obdurate of the country party leaders in refusing to have any dealings with the head of the court party, James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S].²⁰ But in the spring of 1704 his political allies George Baillie^‡, John Leslie*, 9th earl of Rothes [S], and John Ker*, 5th earl (later duke) of Roxburghe [S], were involved in discussions with the queen and her English ministers about setting up a new ministry in Scotland. On 4 Apr. John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, wrote to Tweeddale expressing the hope that the recent promotion in the army of his younger son, Lord John Hay, would ‘be a step to incline your Lordship to come yourself into her Majesty’s service and concur in the measures she has declared for settling the Protestant succession in Scotland.’²¹ A month later the ministerial reconstruction was complete and Tweeddale was named commissioner to the Scottish parliament in the administration of the ‘New Party’ (later the Squadrone).²² He was said to have taken with him some 35 members of the ‘country party’, ostensibly out of a principled commitment to the Hanoverian succession.²³

The experiment, though, proved a disaster. During the session which began 11 July 1704, with Queensberry standing aloof, Tweeddale was comprehensively outmanoeuvred by his former country party allies.²⁴ His principal instruction was ‘the settling of the succession to the crown of Scotland in the Protestant line’, but he faced strong opposition, led by Hamilton.²⁵ When he not only failed in this task but seemed unlikely to secure a vote of supply, he first blamed ‘the ferment the nation is in’ and pleaded with the English ministers to be allowed to make concessions, ‘particularly that of regulating the constitutions of parliaments’, and then asked leave to resign.²⁶ Encouraged by the queen’s approval he tried again for a supply, abandoning conciliation and adopting a high-handed approach, characteristic of his lack of political skill, which provoked Hamilton into offering a motion to ‘nominate commissioners for a treaty and … make conditions and regulations of government for securing the independency and sovereignty of this kingdom previous to all other issues of business except a supply of two months’ cess’. The court responded with a recommendation for seven months, upon which Hamilton proposed to re-enact ‘the Act of Security as it passed the last Parliament only with the alteration of that clause about the communication of trade’.²⁷ Tweeddale’s answer was that ‘if they would proceed to the supply he would write for powers to her Majesty concerning an act of security’. In return he managed to get a six months’ cess.²⁸ He was then faced with the prospect of persuading the queen and lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, to make good the bargain. In relation to the Act of Security, he assured Godolphin that he would ‘be very cautious that there be nothing in it prejudicial to her interest.’²⁹ The queen agreed, but, as Godolphin reported, ‘hopes you will think it reasonable and necessary either to leave out the clause preceding that for the communication of trade in … the last Act, or at least soften [it] … that it may give no offence in England.’ (The Act of Security, as it had passed in the previous session, included a declaration that it would not be in the power of the estates ‘to name the successor of the crown of England to be the successor to the imperial crown of this realm’ without ‘a free communication of trade, the freedom of navigation, and the liberty of the plantations be fully agreed to, and established by the parliament of the kingdom of England, to the kingdom and subjects of Scotland’. ³⁰) Tweeddale declined to follow this instruction, on the grounds that ‘if we had endeavoured to have altered [the act] in the least they would have taken that occasion to have added clauses which would have marred all’, telling Godolphin he hoped ‘her Majesty will not think I have gone too far without a positive instruction for it, which, indeed I ought to have had, but have ventured it thinking it fit for her service, as did all I advised with, and therefore that she will approve and allow of what I have done’.³¹ Instead, Godolphin transmitted the queen’s order to end the session as soon as possible, ‘since there is no reason to expect the Parliament will in this session make any step that is real and sincere towards the settling of the Protestant succession.’³² Nevertheless, under threat of not receiving Scottish revenue, Godolphin in August persuaded the reluctant queen to give her assent to the act of security.

Despite their failure in managing parliament, Tweeddale’s followers were given a sheaf of places in government, he himself becoming lord chancellor. The following year he asserted that he had taken office reluctantly and only to serve the queen.³³ Meanwhile Tories in the English House of Lords announced their intention to enquire into his management of the Scottish Parliament, and on 23 Nov. 1704 John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, drew the attention of the House to the Scottish act of security, and questioned how the Scottish parliament had come to agree to it, given the instructions Tweeddale had received. He suggested that the rejection of the Hanoverian succession and passage of the act of security were partly owing to Tweeddale’s weakness and partly to the fact ‘that the succession itself was never sincerely and cordially intended, either by the ministry there, or by those that managed the Scots affairs here’.³⁴ The Lords then ordered an inquiry by a committee of the whole House. The queen was present incognito when the committee sat for the first time on 29 Nov. and Godolphin spoke in Tweeddale’s defence.³⁵ The behaviour of the Whig Junto during the debate appeared to show that they were seeking to use the episode as a means of putting pressure on Godolphin, and at the next meeting of the committee, on 6 Dec., John Somers*, Baron Somers, accused the Scots of unreasonably objecting that their fortunes had declined since the union of the crowns and proposed ‘that for the bringing them to an understanding of their true interest some laws might pass here for the cutting off all their trade with England.’ Godolphin supported this proposal, to which committee and House agreed.³⁶ Five days later, Junto lords moved that the queen issue a new commission for union, the previous attempt having been managed by ‘the … wrong hands’.³⁷ A package of measures was agreed to force the Scots towards union by tightening up trading restrictions and denying them the privileges enjoyed by subjects in England, Ireland and the plantations, until a treaty was concluded.³⁸

To make sure that the Scots responded by appointing commissioners to negotiate a union, John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], was chosen as commissioner to the Scottish parliament that was to meet in 1705. Tweeddale, who was already disconcerted by attempts to reconstruct the ministry and had refused to switch offices to become president of the council, at first refused to pass Argyll’s patent.³⁹ Not surprisingly, when Argyll reached Edinburgh in April he insisted that the Squadrone be turned out en masse, which was done in June, Tweeddale losing his office and his seat on the council.⁴⁰ The Squadrone did not, however, go into full-scale opposition, and seem to have adjusted to the likelihood of union.

For his part, in the parliamentary session of 1705, Tweeddale was a relatively unobtrusive, though not entirely silent, presence. He was not appointed to the union commission the following year even though his support for the project had been made explicit by January 1706.⁴¹ Thereafter he became less enthusiastic about the Union as negotiated, and was in fact the last member of the Squadrone to agree to vote for the treaty in parliament.⁴² Possibly he was thrown off balance by the death of Lord John Hay, who perished of a fever in August 1706 while serving with his regiment in Flanders. The Squadrone were still ‘the marquess of Tweeddale’s party’, however, and as part of the political bargaining over the Union, he was chosen on 13 Feb. 1707 to be one of the 16 representative peers in the first Parliament of Great Britain.⁴³ On a personal level, he was actively pursuing arrears of salary, and undoubtedly using his party’s support for the Union to advance his case: he was paid £1,000 in 1707 but a year later was still owed £2,500.⁴⁴ In the analysis of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], of 1707 he was listed as ‘sicut’ [as] James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S].

Tweeddale did not join his Squadrone colleagues Roxburghe and Marchmont on their journey to London in April 1707, and was still in Scotland at the beginning of August, when Roxburghe informed him that the queen had ‘asked me twice about your Lordship’s coming up.’s⁴⁵ In response he travelled south, and took his seat in the Lords on 23 Oct. 1707 where he attended 91 per cent of the session’s sittings.⁴⁶ His only noteworthy contribution to proceedings came on 5 Feb. 1708, when he and three other Squadrone peers voted for the bill abolishing the Scottish Privy Council, although it may be an indication of his failure to make an impact at Westminster that in an account of the debate Joseph Addison^‡ was unable to identify Tweeddale. ‘I am informed’, wrote Addison, ‘that the dukes of Montrose and Roxburghe with my Lord Sutherland [John Gordon*, 16th earl of Sutherland [S]], and another Scotch peer whom I have forgotten were for passing the bill.’⁴⁷

Tweeddale did not stand in the 1708 election, though he attended and voted his party’s line.⁴⁸ Later that year he sent his eldest son Charles Hay^†, styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S]) to London and over the next two years was kept informed of events by Yester and other members of the Squadrone. During the 1708–9 session his friends in the Commons were mobilized to support his interest against a private bill brought in by William Morison^‡ for improving the harbour at Prestonpans in Haddingtonshire.⁴⁹ Yester suggested on 20 Apr. 1710 that Tweeddale should press for the inclusion of ‘your Lordship’s family’ in a rumoured creation of British peerages for Scots. Whether Yester intended the peerage for his father or (more usefully) himself is unclear, but in any case nothing came of it.⁵⁰ Along with the rest of the Squadrone he boycotted the peers’ election in November of that year, though he remained a force in elections to the Commons for his own county.⁵¹

Tweeddale died on 20 Apr. 1713 at Yester House, reportedly ‘of a fall’, and was buried at Yester.⁵²

A Perthshire laird, hailing from a cadet branch of the staunchly Royalist earls of Kinnoull, Hay came of age politically under the protection of the Murrays of Atholl, entering the Scottish administration in 1696 with John Murray*, earl of Tullibardine [S], later duke of Atholl [S]. But although he remained close to Tullibardine he soon found alternative patrons, first Tullibardine’s great rival James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], and much later the English Tory politician Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, to whom he became connected by marriage. Hay retained residual ‘cavalier’ sympathies throughout his political life but the traces of these loyalties became fainter the more he engaged with government. The turning point in his career was the return from Jacobite exile of his distant cousin, William Hay, 6th earl of Kinnoull [S], in about 1699.⁴ Hay, who had been raised to the Scottish peerage as Viscount Dupplin in 1697, probably through Tullibardine’s influence, petitioned the English treasury in 1699 for recognition of his own claim to a right of inheritance in an annuity of £1,000 (derived from the profits of the customs in Barbados) which had been granted by Charles II in perpetuity to the earls of Kinnoull in recognition of their loyalty to his father and himself.⁵ Although Tullibardine was now out of office, and in opposition to Queensberry’s court party, the petition was accepted. The following year Dupplin went one step further, and requested payment of the not inconsiderable amount of arrears which had accumulated since the 1680s.⁶ This too seems to have been accepted, although instalments of these arrears were paid only occasionally. The annual payments, however, were made on a regular basis.⁷ In 1704 the earl of Kinnoull, having surrendered his titles, received a regrant of the earldom for life, with a reversion to Dupplin.

When Tullibardine returned to office in 1702 Dupplin may have re-established their former close relationship, for he certainly received an expensive present from Atholl (as Tullibardine had since become) in May 1704 and he did not suffer as a consequence of the ministerial experiment of 1704, which saw Queensberry replaced as commissioner, and responsibility for managing the Scottish parliament entrusted to the ‘New Party’ (or ‘Squadrone Volante’).⁸ But during the session he sided with the Queensberryites, alongside his new son-in-law, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar, who had married Dupplin’s daughter in 1703. Although he lost his place on the Scottish Privy Council in December 1704 with other cavaliers, he was now regarded as a member of Queensberry’s ‘old court party’.⁹ As such, he gave his full support to the Union and was named a commissioner to the treaty negotiations, during which he was one of the very few Scottish commissioners who never wavered in their support for a fully incorporating Union.¹⁰ As the parliamentary session of October 1706 approached, he was asked by the court to use his influence with Atholl to bring him to support the treaty, but in vain.¹¹ Having been prevented from attending parliament during the early stages of the ratification process because of an illness to his second son and then his own illness, he arrived in Edinburgh before the end of the year and thereafter voted consistently for the treaty.¹² He hoped that this loyal service would result in his being named as a representative peer in the first Parliament of Great Britain, but Mar could not persuade Queensberry to allocate Dupplin one of the court party’s places, even when volunteering himself to stand aside for his father-in-law.¹³

In the preparations for the 1708 elections Dupplin was again used by Mar and Queensberry as an intermediary with Atholl, with mixed results.¹⁴ He was also one of the peers who stood bail for Atholl in the following summer, following the duke’s arrest on suspicion of involvement in the unsuccessful Jacobite rising.¹⁵ Included on the court slate for representative peers, he attended the election, voting a straight court line, but was disappointed in his hopes of a seat, gaining 42 votes.¹⁶ This was a particular blow to the court, as James Douglas*, 4th duke of Hamilton was quick to point out.¹⁷

Dupplin had already established a correspondence with English political figures such as the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, and his personal affairs (including, presumably, ongoing solicitations for the payment of his pension) ‘obliged him to be in London almost every winter’.¹⁸ These Westminster connections increased considerably in weight and significance after Dupplin’s cousin died in May 1709 and he succeeded to the earldom of Kinnoull and after August when his son and heir George Hay*, now styled Viscount Dupplin [S] (later Baron Hay), married Robert Harley’s daughter Abigail. The match had been some time in the making, and the Hays were already integrated into Harley’s social circle.¹⁹ But for the time being it was also important to keep on good terms with Queensberry and Godolphin, especially as it was necessary to secure the continuance of the customs annuity, which the treasury duly recognized in September 1709 as vested in him as 7th earl.²⁰ During the early months of 1710 the new earl used his son (who himself now took the courtesy title of Dupplin) as a conduit for much of his correspondence with Harley: thus in February Harley was told that Kinnoull was ‘perfectly recovered of his gout, very earnest to hear the event of what you’re all doing at London, and he’s as desirous of a peace as ever’.²¹

After the fall of Godolphin Kinnoull openly identified with Harley’s new ministry, on whose behalf he worked, with Mar, in preparations for the 1710 elections. His friendship with Atholl was again important, in brokering a deal between Atholl, Hamilton, and Queensberry’s interest. ²² He was himself included in their joint list and attended the election on 10 Nov. 1710 to cast his vote and two proxies (for two men with extensive English interests, Henry Alexander, 5th earl of Stirling [S], whose sister was married to Sir William Trumbull^‡, and William Cheyne^‡ 2nd Viscount Newhaven [S], the latter having sat in the Commons until the Union). He was easily returned.²³ He was then listed by the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain as a ‘court Tory’ with an income of ‘near £4,000’ a year.²⁴ Another analysis of the representative peers drawn up soon after the election classed him as a ‘Jacobite’.

Kinnoull’s career in the British Parliament was distinctly lacklustre, constrained by poor health and his reluctance to leave Scotland. After the peerage election, Kinnoull wrote to Harley of his intention to leave Edinburgh on 13 Nov., so as to ‘be with you against the Parliament sit down’.²⁵ Although not recorded in the Journal as present, he took the oaths on 27 Nov. 1710 and was appointed to the committee on the Address. On the following day, although again not noted as present, he was named to the committee of privileges. His first listed attendance was on 4 Dec., when he signed a proxy in favour of the earl of Mar, as he did again on 7 and 12 Jan. 1711. He was listed as present on 12 Jan., and thus probably voted in favour of a resolution which blamed the former Whig ministers for the military setbacks in Spain in 1707, as it was reported that in this division ‘all the Scots went one way’.²⁶ On 3 Feb. he was named to the committee to draft the representation on the war in Spain. His most consistent period of attendance was in the second half of May when he was present for 12 sittings, but thereafter he did not appear until 12 June, the day of the prorogation. In all, he was present on 36 days, 32 per cent of the total.

Dupplin wrote to Harley (now earl of Oxford and lord treasurer) on his father’s behalf on 10 July 1711, explaining that Kinnoull was disappointed that he had not been accorded a central place in the management of Scottish affairs. He had hoped to be made lord clerk register, and to be able to influence the direction of Scottish policy:

he would not at all meddle in Scotch affairs by halves, if a thorough measure for the interest of the crown (which by his notion is the only way Scotland can reap advantage by the Union) were not gone into, and pursued without respect to private recommendations, without fear of disobliging or desire of obliging anybody or any party.

However,

at some certain times I have found him in quite another humour, that he desired nothing in the world so much as to go home and plant his trees and live easily in the country. What had he to do to be chosen one of the 16 to come to London and make himself a show with his gout? And a world of such splenetic fancies, which I took not at all to be what he really desired, but only to proceed from the delay he found was like to be in doing anything in Scotch business.

At the same time, if Oxford called his bluff,

He’ll be very dissatisfied, and will never make good what he so often declares, that no man desires more to live a private life at home at his ploughs than he does. He’ll be worse than he was winter was a twelvemonth, when I assure you there was no bearing of him, not by his children or servants, even though he was in this pleasant country way of living he talks of.²⁷

No office was forthcoming, nor did Kinnoull’s renewed petition to the treasury about February 1711 for arrears of his annuity (which he estimated at over £17,000) elicit a concrete response, but he seems to have been mollified by encouraging letters from Oxford, and as the next session approached he was making professions of loyalty and offering Oxford advice on the management of Scotland.²⁸ He was also taking it upon himself once more to act as a go-between with Atholl.²⁹ Oxford was also using him as a general political agent in Scotland, to manage various cavalier interests and to distribute government pensions to clan chieftains.³⁰

As late as 27 Nov. 1711 Mar was vexed about the non-appearance of the Scottish peers in London for the session prorogued on that day to 7 December. Mar wrote to his brother Hon. James Erskine^‡ Lord Grange SCJ, to hurry the peers along: he had himself written to Kinnoull ‘in case he be not come off, but if he be, send it to him by the post to be left at some stage so that he may get it and send you with the draught of a proxy’.³¹ On 3 Dec. Kinnoull wrote from Edinburgh to both Oxford and his son, Dupplin, sending ‘as many proxies as could be got ready’, many peers being delayed by the need to settle the commission of trade. Kinnoull sent his own proxy, signed on 3 Dec. in favour of Mar, but it did not arrive in time.³² In consequence he missed the debates of 7 Dec. on ‘No Peace without Spain’ and of 20 Dec. on Hamilton’s right to sit in the Lords by virtue of his British peerage as duke of Brandon. Sloth was the explanation given by a political enemy, James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], for the absence of the Scots in general, but Montrose’s correspondent testified on 31 Dec., that Kinnoull had been ‘very bad of the gout’.³³ Another factor delaying his arrival may have been resentment at the non-payment of his pension arrears, for Oxford’s papers contain a ‘case’ endorsed with the date 12 Jan. 1711[-12] outlining Kinnoull’s pretensions. Subsequently, in June 1712, the treasury ordered an instalment to be paid (covering 1689-90).³⁴ But although Kinnoull failed to attend Parliament throughout January 1712 a group of Scots peers did meet at his London residence to consider how to respond to the Lords’ vote in the Hamilton case.³⁵ Whatever his views on the Scottish boycott of the House, he was present on 23 Feb., and, although he registered his proxy with Mar two days later, he attended on the 26th and again on the 28th for debates on the Scottish toleration (Episcopal communion) bill, to support the Commons’ amendments (although he was not listed in the Journal as having been present).³⁶ On 29 Feb. he was added to the committee for privileges. He also voted on 28 May in support of the ministry on the ‘restraining orders’ ‘given to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. After attending on 6 and 7 June, he registered a proxy on the 12th in favour of his fellow Episcopalian William Livingston*, 2nd Viscount Kilsyth [S]. Then after attending again on 13 June, he registered another proxy two days later once more in favour of Kilsyth. In all, the Journals provide evidence of him attending on only five days of the session, though this must surely have been an under-estimate, when placed against the evidence of contemporary accounts of debates.

In June 1712 it looked as if Kinnoull’s ambition to be lord clerk register was about to be fulfilled, but by the beginning of July William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], had emerged as the favourite to replace David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S], who, in the event, retained the post.³⁷ By 14 Aug. Kinnoull had returned to Scotland to assist the election of James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], as a representative peer, and also to smooth ruffled feathers over the ‘hard treatment of the peers’.³⁸ Peace-making was easier said than done, however, and at the end of December he felt obliged to send Oxford a lengthy letter of advice about Scottish affairs, drawing attention to the ‘abundance of discontents ... both in matters of Kirk and state’, because of a lack of ‘government and order’.³⁹ On 9 Feb. 1713 Oxford wrote to Kinnoull to sympathize over the return of his gout, and to hope that he would soon begin his journey to London for the new session.⁴⁰ Kinnoull was duly present when the session began on 9 April. Around this time he was listed, in a document drawn up by Swift and amended by Oxford, as a likely supporter of the court. In the crisis provoked by the attempt to extend the malt tax to Scotland he found himself in a difficult position, and while his son sided with the ministry, Kinnoull (who had recently received further payments of pension arrears) seems at first to have regarded discretion as the greater part of valour, and to the surprise and dismay of those pressing hardest for Scottish resistance was absent from London when the crucial meeting was held (on 26 May) which resulted in a motion to dissolve the Union.⁴¹ Upon his return, however, he was present on 1 June to support the motion, and subsequently he voted against the ministry over the malt bill, signing the protest against the passage of the bill on 8 June. He was nonetheless forecast as a supporter of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. Overall, he was present on 14 days of the session, 21 per cent of the total.

Once the session was over Kinnoull wrote to Oxford on 2 July 1713 to recommend not only that ‘the malt tax be set to rights’, but also that the Campbell brothers, John, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], and Archibald*, earl of Ilay [S], prime movers in the attack on the Union, be ‘turn[ed] out of all they can be turned out of’.⁴² Re-elected unopposed with the other peers on the court list in 1713, on a list of the returns, Kinnoull was classed as a Jacobite. 

On 30 Jan. 1714 Findlater in Edinburgh informed Oxford that both he and Kinnoull would be ‘detained all the next week’ because of the marriage scheduled for 4 Feb. between Kinnoull’s daughter and his heir, James Ogilvy^†, the future 5th earl of Findlater.⁴³ Kinnoull did not resume his seat in the Lords until 15 Mar., his one and only appearance in that session, even though in May he received two years’ payment of his arrears, amounting to £2,000.⁴⁴ On 17 Mar. he entered his proxy in favour of Findlater. In May he was included in a forecast as likely to support the schism bill. On 1 June Findlater noted from London that both he and Kinnoull were ‘very well and extraordinary good friends and both wearied of this place’.⁴⁵ Kinnoull sat for one day (4 Aug.) when Parliament reconvened after the queen’s death, but on 5 Aug. registered his proxy, again with Findlater. 

Kinnoull was not elected to Parliament in 1715. In late August of that year he was arrested on rumours of Jacobite military preparations in Scotland and confined to Edinburgh castle. Agitation by his friends on the grounds of his poor health and his loyalty to the Hanoverian regime eventually resulted in his release in March of the following year.⁴⁶ While Lord Dupplin (also Baron Hay in the British peerage) stood by George I and inherited in due course both the earldom and the customs annuity, two other sons of Kinnoull fought for the Pretender. The youngest escaped to France, and was eventually created earl of Inverness [S] in the Jacobite peerage. In 1716, in financial difficulties in Dunkirk, he had appealed to Mar for help, noting that ‘to apply to my father is altogether vain. You know his humour too well to think that, considering the part I acted with relation to his estate, he won’t be extremely piqued at me, which must have some time before he get over it.’⁴⁷

Kinnoull died (perhaps inevitably of gout) at Dupplin House on 5 Jan. 1719.

Home inherited his father’s religious and political sympathies, and also his debts. The leader of the ‘cavalier’ faction in the Scottish Parliament, the 6th earl of Home had been Episcopalian in his religion and uncompromisingly Jacobite in his politics.¹ He had been vehemently opposed to settling the succession to the Scottish crown in the house of Hanover, and to a union which would have made the Scots ‘slaves to the English nation’, and from 1703 onwards had worked closely in the Scottish Parliament with James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], keeping the cavaliers together behind Hamilton’s opportunistic leadership.² The Jacobite George Lockhart^‡ observed much later that his death in 1706 had been a great loss to ‘the royal family’ and ‘the country party’.³

The 7th earl reached his majority shortly before the 1710 election. Some indication of his political leanings was given in a letter of 19 Sept. to John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], which noted that ‘he seems very right as to the queen’s measures. I know Duke Hamilton’s people reckon him theirs, but it is likely they are mistaken, and he would never be his (as I think) if he knew Duke Hamilton’s carriage about Mr [George] Baillie^‡’.⁴ This was a reference to Home’s attempt to run a candidate for Berwickshire in the general election, to upset the interest of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], and unseat Baillie, a Squadrone Whig. However, not only did his candidate, George Winram, later described as ‘manager’ of Home’s affairs, appear too late, Marchmont having already secured promises in advance from a majority of voters, but there was also some confusion over the extent to which Home’s campaign enjoyed the backing of government. In a mysterious episode, which has not been satisfactorily elucidated, Hamilton gave voters the impression that he had been requested by ministers to secure Baillie’s election.⁵ On 9 Oct. Home was recommended by his father-in-law, Lothian, to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, as ‘a faithful servant to her majesty’, and his name was also suggested to Harley by Mar, for inclusion on the court slate for the representative peers.⁶ Home was present at Holyroodhouse for the representative peers’ election on 10 Nov. 1710, where he was chosen with the rest of the court contingent.⁷ It has been suggested that he owed his inclusion on the court list at least in part to Hamilton’s influence, but in view of the evidence from the Berwickshire election this must remain an open question.⁸ Notes on the list of successful candidates made by the Episcopalian clergyman Richard Dongworth described Home as an ‘Episcopal Tory’ with an annual income of ‘not £1,500’, making him the second poorest of the newly chosen representative peers.⁹ The unvarnished view of Daniel Defoe was that he was a professed Jacobite.¹⁰ An analysis of the representative peers drawn up shortly after the election was in agreement with him.

Prior to the election in Scotland, Home had been granted a patent as sheriff of Berwickshire in place of Marchmont. He had a hereditary claim to the office, and had allegedly importuned the queen for it, but the appointment was part of Mar’s electoral management in Scotland.¹¹ Restoration to the shrievalty added significantly to Home’s local influence and prestige, and during the following parliamentary session he sought to capitalize by securing the removal of the Berwickshire sheriff’s court from Greenlaw, Marchmont’s town, to Duns. Legislation was required to repeal an act of the Scottish Parliament, and Home sought a private bill in the Lords to that end. At length, after considerable lobbying on each side, Home was prevailed upon to abandon the attempt before any legislation was introduced, possibly on financial grounds, and the next parliamentary election for the county was again held at Greenlaw.¹²

Home was absent when the Parliament began on 25 Nov. 1710, taking his seat on the 28th, the day after the queen’s speech. He attended on 69 days of the session, 61 per cent of the total and was named to 11 committees. According to John Bridges, at the turn of the year he had arranged to purchase for £3,000 the Scottish Fusiliers, a regiment which Thomas Meredith^‡ had been forced to sell, but the regiment went instead to Charles Boyle*, 4th earl of Orrery [I] (later Baron Boyle).¹³ From Home’s attendance record and the comments of political observers, some of his activities in the House can be discovered. It seems likely, given his attendance on 9 Jan. 1711, when ‘the Scots did the business’, that he helped to provide the ministry’s majority (59-45) in the committee of the whole when the Whigs sought to resume the House rather than vote on the resolution (subsequently passed) that Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, had given a ‘a faithful, just and honourable account’ of the councils of war in Valencia. Similarly, in the committee of the whole on the 12th, Baillie noted that ‘all the Scots went one way’ when the committee voted 68-48 to agree that the previous ministry had been responsible for ordering an offensive war in Spain and thus for the failures of the campaign, again suggesting that Home, who was listed as present that day, had supported the ministry. ¹⁴

Until the end of January 1711 Home had missed only 11 sittings of the House; henceforth his attendance became more sporadic. He was absent seven times in February, but did attend on 1 Mar., when the Lords considered the appeal of the Scottish Episcopalian minister James Greenshields against a sentence passed against him by the Edinburgh magistrates for using the Church of England liturgy. Once Greenshields’s counsel had been heard, a motion to adjourn was defeated, with Home likely to have been one of the Scots voting in the majority, as he was not one of the five ‘Scots Lords for the delay.’¹⁵ The House then resolved that the sentence be reversed. This was an issue on which Home felt strongly: not only did he hail from an Episcopalian family; he was evidently a man with a deep personal interest in matters theological.¹⁶ He missed seven sittings in March, was absent on five out of nine occasions in April, which increased to nine out of 22 in May, and attended only two of the seven sittings in June. 

The expenses of attending Parliament placed a great financial strain on the already hard-pressed Home.¹⁷ On 19 Oct. 1711, well before the session, Mar wrote to his brother Hon. James Erskine^‡), Lord Grange SCJ, to urge Home to attend the House in time for the Hamilton peerage vote.¹⁸ On 29 Nov. Grange reported that Home was expected to depart for London on 1 Dec., commenting ‘how he has got credit I do not know, but he has borrowed 100l. sterling for his journey. You know the narrowness of his circumstances, and it will be extremely hard if the ruin of his family be hastened by his serving the queen.’ Grange reassured Mar that Home had ‘a great inclination … to be much in your interest, and I doubt not but you will improve it.’¹⁹ Thomas Hay*, 7th earl of Kinnoull [S], wrote to the lord treasurer Oxford (as Harley had become), on 3 Dec. suggesting that Home should be in London ‘before the Parliament sit down’ and noted that, according to his son George Hay*, styled Viscount Dupplin [S], the future Baron Hay, Home

is as discreet as any. He says, the devil take him if it were not his circumstances that he has an old family to preserve, if he had but as much money as to maintain him in London he would serve the queen without asking a farthing, he has so good will to the work. He spent a great deal last time and I believe some taken on upon tick, and I am told it was with the greatest difficulty imaginable that he could get credit for one hundred pounds or two; and I believe really that he has but one along with him.²⁰

A proxy exists signed by Home on 1 Dec. 1711 in favour of Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S]. Tantalizingly, an undated letter to Oxford, marked only as ‘Thursday at 3’, and possibly written on 6 or 13 Dec., stated that Home was expected in town that night. ²¹ However, he missed the crucial vote on the peace on 7 Dec., eventually taking his seat on 17 December. His pattern of attendance was much the same as in the previous session. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as likely to support Hamilton’s claims to sit as a British peer and on the 20th, on the question of permitting Hamilton to sit in the House as duke of Brandon, he voted in the minority against the motion disenabling the duke. He also signed the protest that this resolution not only violated the royal prerogative and the Treaty of Union, but also infringed the rights of the peers of Scotland and was inconsistent with the liberty previously granted to James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], to sit in the Lords as duke of Dover. On New Year’s Day 1712 Home was one of 20 Scottish peers who submitted a ‘memorial’ to the queen against the Lords’ ruling.²²

Home was present on 2 Jan. 1712 when the ministry secured a further adjournment. Writing to James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], Baillie warned: ‘I’m told the Scots peers were with the majority but will be no more so unless redressed’, a reference to the sense of grievance over the Hamilton case.²³ When no progress was made, the Scots peers boycotted the House. Thus Home, along with all his fellow representative peers, was absent on 8 Feb., the day on which the Lords gave a first reading to the Episcopal communion (Scottish toleration) bill, which otherwise he would certainly have supported. He did, however, attend the following day, and was among the ten representative peers present on 11 Feb. to hear a petition requesting permission to the commissioners of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to lay before the Lords their opinion of the bill. The same ten peers also attended on 13 and 15 Feb. for the second reading, the proceedings in the committee of the whole on the bill, and the third reading. On 26 Feb. the Lords considered further amendments to the bill from the Commons, in the presence of only six representative peers. Baillie told Montrose that Home and his fellow Scots ‘were for agreeing with the Commons’; this was confirmed by a correspondent of the Presbyterian minister Robert Wodrow, who noted that ‘all present voted for it’.²⁴

On 8 Apr. 1712 Home attended, along with 11 other representative peers, for the first reading of the bill restoring to patrons their ancient rights of presenting ministers to churches vacant in Scotland. Home had a personal interest, since he was involved in a tussle with a local presbytery over his right to patronage in a parish.²⁵ On 20 May he was present when the bill to examine the grants made by the crown since 1689 was rejected on third reading; it was reported that ‘all our Scots Lords except Argyll [John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S]] and Ilay were for the bill.’²⁶ On 28 May he backed the ministry against a Whig attempt to overturn the ‘restraining orders’ given to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. All in all he was present on 63 days of the session, 59 per cent of the total, and was named to five committees.

On 20 Nov. 1712 Mar requested Lord Grange to press upon Home that he was expected to attend the opening of the parliamentary session, noting that ‘I’m sure it is for his interest to come up immediately tho’ his stay should be short.’²⁷ Significantly, perhaps, the day before a warrant had been signed to appoint Home general of the Mint in Scotland: the emoluments were a modest £300 p.a., but for someone in Home’s financial straits they were a lifeline.²⁸ He was present for further prorogations of Parliament on 13 Jan. and 17 and 26 Mar. 1713, but was absent when the session started on 9 Apr. 1713. He resumed his seat on 4 May and was expected to support the Tory ministry (according to a list drawn up by Swift shortly before the session began), and in particular to vote for the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French Commercial Treaty. His possession of office meant that the events of the session would prove acutely embarrassing for him. On 5 June the House debated whether to give a second reading to the bill extending the malt tax to Scotland. John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], acting on behalf of the Scottish peers and in concert with the Whigs, moved that the second reading be delayed and that instead, on 8 June, the Lords should consider the state of the nation with regard to the Union. After three hours of debate the ministry carried its point by a whisker on a division. Supporters of the motion blamed their defeat on Dupplin (voting in the House as Baron Hay) having given his vote ‘for the court’. Despite being sent for, Home had arrived at the House too late for the division. Balmerinoch charitably accepted his explanation that he ‘meant no ill’ and had in fact been delayed by a bad hangover: he ‘had got his bottle overnight’. ²⁹ On 8 June Home signed the protest after the passage of the third reading of the malt bill. He was present on the last day of the session, 16 July, having been present on 36 days, 54.5 per cent of the total, and been named to four committees.

An undated letter from Home to Oxford laid out the claims Home felt he had upon royal bounty. No family in Scotland had ‘suffered in the service and support of the crown’ more than his, he wrote, rehearsing a long tradition of unrequited loyalty. During the civil wars the Homes had sold land in order to advance money to the crown, and although repayment had been promised at the Restoration it had not been made. Home thought it reasonable that the queen should grant him compensation, and though he admitted ‘that it is not incumbent on her to pay her grandfather’s or uncle’s debt’, he did believe ‘that if rightly informed of this matter, she would show such regard to their memory as in some measure to reward the services of a family who have suffered so much in defending and supporting her royal progenitors’.³⁰

By the end of the session Home was so impoverished that, according to a paper drawn up by Dupplin for the lord treasurer in preparation for the next election of representative peers, he needed some ‘money to carry him away [to the election at Edinburgh], he having a place of but £300.’³¹ Oxford agreed to meet the cost of his journey, and a warrant for the payment of £300 ‘royal bounty’ was issued on 18 Sept. 1713.³² However, it seems likely that Home cast his vote by proxy in the peerage election of October 1713, for on 5 Nov. he wrote to Oxford of his ‘very pressing’ affairs in Scotland ‘having three lawsuits on which the welfare of my family depends’, and on the following day referred to his ‘sudden resolution’ to go for Scotland on 11 November. That very day, the countess of Home sent Oxford a letter, telling him that she could not afford to accompany her husband and feared falling ill on the road (she was heavily pregnant). She presented a history of Home’s financial mismanagement, noting that as he had only just turned 21 when first chosen as a representative peer, he had not had time to regulate his finances before coming to London, ‘and not knowing the way of living here both spent his own money and what you were pleased to bestow upon him: not one farthing came to me but a trifle of some clothes that it is not worth the naming’. As to Oxford’s most recent gift, ‘I only got five guineas of it, he having so many necessary affairs of his own which I know nothing about. Therefore, if your Lordship will be infinitely good to assist me’. She ended her appeal with one final request, ‘for God’s sake the concealment of this trouble’.³³

Home’s financial difficulties ensured that he was not even a candidate in the 1713 election of representative peers. He received further payments of royal bounty in December 1713 (£150) and May 1714 (£300).³⁴ He lost his post in the Scottish Mint with the death of the queen, and the Berwickshire shrievalty was returned to Marchmont after the Hanoverian succession. This brought his affairs into a truly desperate condition.³⁵ In May and June 1715 he sought to organize a shire meeting to address the king against the hardships Scotland had suffered on account of the Union, against the opposition of Marchmont.³⁶ By the end of August he was confined in Edinburgh Castle, while his brother John joined the rebels and was taken prisoner at Preston.³⁷ Home was released on 24 June 1716, but his health and spirit had been broken by imprisonment, and, although his Jacobite kinsman George Home of Whitfield tried to persuade the exiled Jacobite court of his ‘chief’s’ continuing loyalty, Home does not seem to have given any indication of this himself.³⁸ Home died in 1720.

‘Faction and division’: Annandale before 1705

Although Annandale never tired of asserting that devotion to the Presbyterian Church, the Glorious Revolution and the Protestant succession were his guiding stars, these protestations were belied by the switchback course he followed in politics, which often seemed to privilege egotism over principle. Intense ambition, shading into a self-righteous sense of entitlement, gave rise to fits of ill temper and long-sustained grudges. It was by no means uncommon for him, in pursuit of advantage or of a vendetta, to reverse his position on major issues. In consequence, contemporaries as diverse as Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, and the Jacobite George Lockhart^‡ regarded him as not only untrustworthy but dangerous. Burnet observed that Annandale was ‘extremely carried away by his private interest’, and although making ‘a fine figure in the Parliament house’, was ‘not much to be trusted’.⁵ According to Lockhart, he was ‘a man ... framed for business, extremely capable and assiduous’ but possessed of ‘a proud, aspiring temper, and, when his affairs and politics went right, haughty to a great degree’. Annandale ‘had gone backwards and forwards so often, and been guilty of such mean, ungentlemanly compliances to procure the favour of that party which he designed to engage, that no man whatsoever placed any trust in him. Even those of the Revolution party only employed him as the Indians worship the devil, out of fear.’⁶

Annandale’s mercurial character was well illustrated by the political gymnastics he perpetrated before, during and after the Revolution. According to the Jacobite Colin Lindsay, 3rd earl of Balcarres [S], ‘When the Presbyterians got their indulgence, he declared himself of their party, but soon tired of them’ and approached King James’s administration in Edinburgh in 1688, saying that ‘it was his youth only had misled him’.⁷ He was named to James II’s Scottish Privy Council, and in October 1688 was commissioned in the cavalry regiment commanded by James Graham of Claverhouse. However, he then left Scotland for London, where, according to Balcarres, he pledged loyalty to both sides.⁸ Once William’s invasion had succeeded, he became a staunch Williamite, took a military commission from the new regime and was named to William’s Scottish Privy Council. But he did not consider himself to have been sufficiently rewarded, complaining of ‘the usage [he] had met with from the prince of Orange’, and joined the radical Whig ‘Club’ in the Scottish Parliament headed by his brother-in-law, Sir James Montgomerie. James Douglas*, styled earl of Drumlanrig, and later 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], whose family were Annandale’s principal local rivals, and who knew him well, was exasperated: Annandale, he wrote on 14 Apr. 1690, ‘is now arrived to that height, that it’s impossible to be in any judicature or society with him. He is absolutely given up to faction and division; and, I believe, by his hot humour, he must think to atone for his other faults.’⁹ In December 1689, after the king had given short shrift to the Club’s proposals for constitutional reform, Annandale followed Montgomerie into Jacobite conspiracy. Balcarres considered that Annandale himself had been the prime mover in the Montgomerie plot, ‘as he was always the most forward in whatever party he took himself to’¹⁰. When the plot was exposed, Annandale at first ‘hid himself, distrusting his own courage’, until fellow-conspirators surrendered, upon which he made a full confession in return for a pardon.¹¹ He was then restored to the Privy Council, and with surprising speed completed his political rehabilitation in 1693 when after urgent solicitation on his part he was made an extraordinary lord of session, and then, through his friendship with James ‘Secretary’ Johnston^‡ (another survivor of the Montgomerie plot), secured high office in the Scottish ministerial reconstruction of 1693–5 which advanced Whiggish interests. ¹²

The replacement of Johnston’s party by a succession of magnates in the mid-1690s frustrated Annandale’s advancement. His splenetic mood was deepened by the rise of the 2nd duke of Queensberry (as Drumlanrig had become in 1695) to leadership of the ‘court party’. His relationship with Queensberry had always been uneasy; now they became bitter rivals, both locally and nationally, even when ostensibly co-operating in government. ¹³ For a time Annandale flirted with the ‘country party’ headed by James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S]. However, even after he had returned to his responsibilities he remained a disturbing presence in the ministry. The loss of the £1,000 he had invested in the Darien scheme added to his discontents, although throughout his career he was never short of money, unlike almost all his contemporaries in the Scottish peerage.¹⁴

Despite Lockhart’s opinion that, as long as he was ‘kindly dealt with’ Annandale would ‘go along with the prevailing party’, his behaviour in Parliament after 1702 was marked by a degree of unpredictability, as far as the court (and in particular Queensberry) was concerned, and a tendency to play to the gallery on popular issues relating to the security of the Presbyterian Church or the rights of the subject.¹⁵ When John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S], and his allies, the so-called ‘New Party’, replaced Queensberry in 1704 they at first pushed for the removal of Annandale as a potential trouble-maker, but their wish was not granted and he does seem to have been prepared to work with them, while at the same time anxious to preserve his reputation as an advocate of constitutional liberty and the Protestant succession, which prompted him to protest against a clause in the act of security which he claimed would prove an obstacle to settling the succession.¹⁶ This was not particularly helpful to Tweeddale, but lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin reassured Annandale that the queen was ‘entirely satisfied of your Lordship’s conduct in relation to her measure, tho’ it has not had the success she hoped and desired, and which she believes it might have had if her other servants would have all concurred in it as your lordship has done’.¹⁷ This was probably the zenith of Annandale’s career: he was said to exercise a dominating influence in government, ‘hectoring’ Tweeddale, the nominal chief minister, and was freely tipped for promotion to lord chancellor.¹⁸ He was so full of self-confidence that he boasted to the lords of session that the next meeting of Parliament would last no more than eight days, since all that would be proposed would be a treaty of union and the grant of taxes, both requests which ‘he was sure no Scotsman would refuse’.¹⁹ He was admitted to the Order of the Thistle; and in March 1705, in the ministerial reconstruction which brought in John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] as parliamentary commissioner, secured the post once held by his mentor James Johnston as secretary. At Argyll’s insistence, he was also named as commissioner to the General Assembly of the Kirk, having previously occupied that position in 1701.²⁰

Against the Union, 1705-7

Under this new dispensation things did not work out as well for Annandale as he might have expected, partly through his own fault. Behind the scenes, he tried to use his influence with Godolphin to push through more changes, entirely eliminating the New Party (soon to be known as the Squadrone) from government, but without success.²¹ He also turned on Argyll, who, he told Godolphin, ‘is so much in people’s hands that are for measures which I do not understand to be the queen’s, that what may be the consequence I hope shall not be imputed to me’.²² Annandale was opposed to the policy of prioritizing a union treaty, and was determined that the succession should be settled without compromising Scottish sovereignty. He put this point of view to Godolphin, and persuaded the English ministry to recommend a two-pronged strategy involving both union and provision for the succession.²³ However, when the queen’s letter to this effect was read to the Parliament, Annandale (on 6 July 1705) proposed that members consider ‘such limitations and conditions of government, as shall be judged proper for the next successor in the Protestant line’. No mention having been made of a union it was left to others to propose it.²⁴ During the ensuing debate Annandale (or so he told Godolphin) ‘used my best endeavours to advance the treaty’, but he also felt himself obliged, in order to preserve his character as a patriot, to indulge in rhetorical flourishes, on one occasion declaring that, ‘if England could not be brought to reasonable terms, he would go sword in hand into the field and force them to it’.²⁵

After the passage of the act naming treaty commissioners, it was announced in September 1705 that John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], was to replace Annandale as secretary of state as part of arrangements made for the re-entry into government of Queensberry and his ‘old court party’. In compensation, Annandale was offered the presidency of the council. The explanation was that the queen ‘feared the misunderstanding between the commissioner [Argyll] and your lordship might obstruct business and occasion divisions amongst her servants’.²⁶ He at first declared that he would not accept the presidency until he had seen the queen himself. He was reported to be ‘very angry’, and intent on ‘vindicat[ing] himself, and to know of the queen a reason why he was so summarily transported’. ²⁷ On 6 Oct., not long before his departure, Annandale made a preliminary approach to George Baillie^‡, one of the leaders of the Squadrone, explaining that ‘I am as much my own master now, and at my own disposal, as you are, which I assure is not a little agreeable to me, considering the set I was yoked with, and the measures they were prosecuting.’²⁸ After his royal audience in October Annandale told Baillie that ‘I have seen the queen ... and gave up fairly’. He also suggested the possibility of co-operation with the Squadrone, but understanding that his motives might be questioned, pledged that whatever ‘condition or capacity I am in, I shall be true to the Revolution interest, the Protestant succession, and a faithful friend and servant to yourself’.²⁹ Baillie was sceptical, telling John Ker, 5th earl (later duke) of Roxburghe [S] on 24 Jan. 1706: ‘I ... could guess that he designs to be in again, and is not without hopes of succeeding. This must be done by Queensberry’s assistance’.³⁰ These suspicions had some foundation, for Annandale was still in contact with Queensberry’s lieutenants, though he made it clear that he would not ‘give my concurrence and assistance to a set of men who have treated both the queen’s interest and me as they have done, unless I have as good a share in the government, and upon as honourable terms as I had formerly’.³¹ Queensberry, however, was adamant that he would have to accept the presidency or nothing. When the protracted negotiations threatened to put a stop to all public business, the queen sent a messenger to Annandale in March to ‘tell him she had kept the place she had offered him all this time vacant to give him time to consider of it, but now she thought it fit that that place should be filled, therefore had sent him to get his last and positive answer’. Annandale demurred, leaving Mar to comment, ‘so there’s an end of the affair, and my lord says he is now going home’.³² Annandale did not return to Scotland, however. Instead he went to Bath, visiting James Johnston on the way and fuelling rumours of more conspiracies.³³ By July, with the treaty negotiations well under way, there was talk in Edinburgh that ‘the queen had sent for Annandale ... and told him she would have him and her servants good friends before they went to the Parliament’.³⁴ There was some truth in this, as Mar reported ‘secret negotiations’ on the part of the lord justice clerk (Adam Cockburn, Lord Ormiston). Annandale’s ‘pretensions’ were evidently ‘to the Guards, which he is not likely to succeed in’. He finally returned to Scotland in Sept., in the process causing considerable commotion in unionist circles by visits to English Tories, who were hostile to the idea of a union.³⁵

He may also have met the Junto lord Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, the secretary of state with responsibility for Scottish affairs, but his prime purpose seems to have been to stir up opposition to union among English politicians, and by the time he reached Scotland there was little prospect that he would be able to work with the Squadrone, though he continued to make them promises of goodwill.³⁶

Annandale had still not publicly announced his view of the treaty, and had supposedly been making ‘great court’ to the Squadrone, who supported it, but when the Scottish Parliament met in October 1706 the signs were not encouraging. ³⁷ He was one of the three lords who refused to sup with the commissioner, Queensberry, as was customary at the beginning of the session, prompting Mar to observe that he ‘appears yet to be very cross, and unless he see us very strong will, I believe, be against us’.³⁸ When the treaty was laid before parliament for the first time, Annandale ‘laughed at every article ... as it was read’.³⁹ Some were still prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, and Mar wrote on 13 Oct. that Annandale, ‘has not yet declar’d his opinion as to the grand affair, tho’ he has spoke against it to several in private’.⁴⁰ In fact, he had sent Sunderland a message promising to support the Union, giving an assurance that he ‘acted from a principle, and ... would continue to be for the measure whether he was obliged by the court or not’.⁴¹ When the 15th article was read on 23 Oct., relating to the compensation to be paid to the Company of Scotland, he ‘said that it was not then a very proper time to insist on it, but he thought that company should not be dissolved at the passing of the act in the Parliament of England for the money of the equivalent as is agreed in the treaty, and that we could not forfeit that company without citing every member’. This was precisely the type of delaying tactic that opponents of the treaty were employing.⁴² Then, at the reading of the 18th article on 28 Oct. he ‘averr’d very strenuously’ that an incorporating union was inconsistent with the Claim of Right, an intervention which convinced Mar that Annandale had committed himself against the treaty.⁴³ When it came to approving the first article, he made a long speech against on 2 November.⁴⁴ He did vote for the second article on 15 Nov., concerning the succession, although with the reservation that including the nomination of the house of Hanover in a clause of the act was in effect to ‘put a slur on’ the successor.⁴⁵ And over the third article he entered a protest on 18 Nov. that an ‘incorporating union is contrary to the honour, interest, fundamental laws and constitution of this kingdom’, as opposed to a federal arrangement or ‘the succession with limitations’.⁴⁶ He was now joining the opposition to the Union on every vote, though protesting his determination to see the succession safeguarded, and grounding his arguments, wherever possible, on his concern for the Kirk, and the rights of the subject.⁴⁷ Mar was of opinion that Annandale had ‘now pulled off the mask entirely ... His only company is the Jacobites of the opposing party’.⁴⁸

After the Union, 1707-8

Not surprisingly, given his unqualified opposition to the Union, Annandale was not chosen to sit in the first Parliament of Great Britain, and during the 1707–8 session he continued to snipe at the Union, deploring the measures promoted by the Squadrone in relation to the Scottish Privy Council and the militia, which he publicly declared, with heavy irony, to be the inevitable consequences of ‘the happy Union’.⁴⁹ In the peers’ election of 1708, however, his candidacy was much stronger, thanks to the alliance which had been conjured up in the meantime between Hamilton and the Squadrone. He was, it seems, happy to forget the Squadrone’s recent transgressions for the greater good of a combined front against Queensberry. Annandale was present at the election on 17 June, where he polled for his confederates on the Hamilton-Squadrone list but did not receive enough votes himself to secure election.⁵⁰ He entered protestations against proxies presented by George Gordon, earl of Aberdeen [S], and the Queensberryite David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S]. The Squadrone drew up a memorial of the various protests arising from the election, including Annandale’s, which was sent for comment to the Junto. ⁵¹ On 3 July Sunderland wrote to Annandale to congratulate him on the part he had acted ‘in this late struggle ... in Scotland’. Sunderland acknowledged that he and Annandale had differed over the Union, but was sure ‘we shall agree in making it as complete as possible, and as happy to the whole united kingdom. And tho’ your lordship is not return’d one of the 16 I don’t doubt but upon the protestations we shall do you right by bringing you into the House.’ He hoped that Annandale and his friends would come to London ‘that we may be appris’d of the whole state of this affair ... among you, and of the irregularities committed by the subaltern ministry there and their dependants, which if made out, as I hope they will be, will effectually rid you of that tyranny’.⁵²

Annandale responded enthusiastically, assuring Sunderland that ‘no man living will make it more his business to make this present union and settlement happy to this nation then I shall’. He added, ‘when we were in a separate state I was very well satisfied our happiness depended entirely upon your lordship and our other friends in conjunction with you, and then you had all my assistance’. Now, he was certain ‘we have no other resource, and whatever I am able to do in this part of the nation shall be directed that way ... when I have the honour to be in the House of peers, you shall find me entirely and heartily in your measures’.⁵³ Annandale felt that the Squadrone, and Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S] in particular, were not acting with sufficient urgency in preparing their case, and took matters into his own hands in late July 1708 when he tried to obtain the necessary supporting documents from the office of the lord clerk register (Glasgow), only to encounter prevarication and delay.⁵⁴ Eventually, Marchmont reported the Junto’s views on the protestations, which were a mixture of encouragement and caution.⁵⁵ In particular it was noted that a ‘dispute touching the validity of elections being entirely a new thing in the House of Lords, it is hard to say what will be the method taken’, so it was important that ‘everything that relates to the question of elections ought to be ready’ by the opening of the Parliament. The best way to proceed would be that the ‘lords who suppose themselves concerned immediately upon the consequence of the judgment of the peers touching the protestations, may petition the House’, because ‘every petitioner might have authentic copies of the whole proceedings annexed to his petition’. It was also essential ‘to the honour of the House of peers, and the public good’, that measures be taken to prevent similar action in future by providing ‘proof of any endeavours by threats, promises, force or other undue contrivances, to take away or elude the freedom of elections’.⁵⁶

On 18 Nov. 1708 two days after Parliament assembled, Hamilton presented to the Lords a petition from Annandale, John Sutherland*, 16th earl of Sutherland [S], Marchmont and William Ross^†, 12th Lord Ross [S], arguing that ‘at the election of the sixteen peers ... your petitioners were duly elected, by a greater number of legal votes than’ William Kerr*, 2nd marquess of Lothian [S], David Wemyss*, 4th earl of Wemyss [S], Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], and Glasgow. They had protested against these irregularities at the election but were unable to secure redress, and, furthermore, had been refused copies of the documents necessary to prove their charges, ‘contrary to the known laws and usage of all the courts and public assemblies in Scotland; which laws are, by the Treaty of Union, reserved’. It was also objected that Queensberry himself had not been eligible to vote in the election, because by that time he had been made a British peer (as duke of Dover).⁵⁷ Successive delays in the proceedings culminated in an adjournment until after the Christmas recess, so that the examination of the case only began on 10 Jan. 1709 when a committee was appointed to consider the petition. The report was delivered on 17 Jan. and considered five days later. On 28 Jan. Annandale’s objection against Aberdeen’s proxy was dismissed, a decision which surprised Roxburghe, who noted that the petitioners had ‘both Whig and Tories ... of their side.’⁵⁸ In a subsequent debate, on a related issue, the Whig Junto appeared to resurrect the arguments Annandale had made. The Queensberryites were nonplussed that Whigs should have opened the door to such a man: as Mar wrote, ‘Anna[ndale] having promised to both parties but deepest to the Tories they went all into it, even those who had formerly been with us and the Junto Whigs would not seem to differ amongst themselves, tho’ several of them were sorry for it’; indeed the Junto were, he thought, ‘ashamed of the end of this great struggle they had occasioned and at the end only to turn out a man that had always been firm to the Revolution interest and bring in a man [Annandale] of whose uncertainty everybody is apprised of’. Queensberry’s followers tried to pull back the lost ground when the House went into committee on 1 Feb., but though the Junto still ‘pretended to be sorry for Annandale’s coming in ... they would not join with us in this, all the Tories would have been for Annan[dale] and none of our Whigs would join us either so we were forced to let it alone’. The committee had been instructed to recalculate the votes in the election in accordance with the Lords’ resolutions of 29 Jan., so although Annandale’s total fell by two to 44 it was now one vote higher than Lothian’s. Mar concluded that ‘the Junto have done themselves a world of disreputation’, and predicted that both Whigs and Tories ‘will be disappointed of their new man, else I’m deceived, for he will make his first offers to the court, if he has not done it already’. ⁵⁹

In the Lords, 1709-13

Annandale took his seat on 3 Feb. 1709. He only missed two sittings of the House before Parliament was prorogued on 21 Apr. (attending 61 per cent of the total number of sittings in the session, 97 per cent of sittings after his arrival). Together with other Scots, he opposed the bill which changed the law of treason in Scotland to bring it in line with that of England, acting as a teller in one division and entering a protest on 28 March.⁶⁰ Surprisingly, he was not recorded as having attended the House during the following session, though a letter to Hamilton suggests that he may have been dealing with family problems, as he referred to his ‘mad wife and a rebellious, obstinate and disobedient son prompted by his mother to the last degree of foolery and madness’.⁶¹ Annandale and his eldest son had been at daggers drawn for some time, for in 1708 James Johnston^‡, styled lord Johnston (later 2nd marquess of Annandale [S]) had appealed to Argyll to intercede on his behalf, on the grounds that his father’s ‘humour increases to such a degree against me as makes it worse than death to think of living any longer with him’.⁶² In addition, the absence of any tangible reward from either the Junto or the Squadrone had alienated Annandale from both groups, and so he shifted his political alliances once again.⁶³

Re-elected in 1710 on a ministerial ticket (through his connection with Hamilton), he was described as ‘Episc[opal] Tory, rather court’ in the list of peers and Members prepared by the duchess of Buccleuch’s Episcopalian chaplain.⁶⁴ This was a reference to his current political rather than religious persuasion. He had spent a good deal of time in canvassing peers of a ‘cavalier’ persuasion, and during the election campaign he was described by one Scottish Tory as ‘as right as one could wish’.⁶⁵ Another analsysis drawn up after the election had him as ‘for the succession, against the Union’. He first attended on 27 Nov. 1710 for the queen’s address from the throne. In the Lords he aligned himself with Scottish Tories and in January 1711 joined the attack on the previous ministry over the conduct of the war in Spain.⁶⁶ He also helped to prevent delay in considering the petition of the Scottish Episcopalian minister James Greenshields. He was nevertheless appointed again as commissioner to the General Assembly, a responsibility which meant that he did not attend the House after 20 Apr., having until then only missed two sittings. Despite his absence, he still managed to have attended 68 per cent of the whole session. He reassured William Carstares, the influential Presbyterian minister and principal of Edinburgh University, that he would not have undertaken this responsibility had he not been convinced of the ministry’s goodwill towards the Kirk, and in his correspondence with the queen and her chief minister, Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, he emphasized both the loyalty of Presbyterians, and, of course, his own contribution to maintaining that loyalty and dispelling anxieties that political enemies had ‘industriously dispersed’ among the ministers and elders. This was also an argument for preferment, if only to ‘fortify his authority’. ⁶⁷

In July 1711 Annandale was reported to be ‘out of humour with the ... ministry’, a state of affairs that continued into the autumn: Oxford was informed in October that ‘there are three things, any one of them will coop [sic] his distemper ... either the castle [the constableship of Edinburgh Castle] or register [lord clerk register] will do, but he does not like the privy seal so well’.⁶⁸ There was also the vacant stewartry of Kirkcudbright, which he had requested during the summer.⁶⁹ Instead, all he was offered was a place on the new commission of chamberlainry and trade (albeit first place in the commission), but he considered this to be below his dignity. ⁷⁰ He reminded Oxford that

I had the misfortune the very year before the Union to be so summarily turned out from being secretary for Scotland, and of being ill used by the late ministry, that I was put under a necessity of refusing to accept of the president of the council’s post, because then I could not be serviceable, and therefore, I must beg leave to say that unless the queen have commands for me in some settled and fixed post in her service, I cannot see how I can propose to be useful to her interest and service.⁷¹

Nonetheless, he continued to collect the salary till a replacement was found and even petitioned in May 1712 for it to be increased.⁷²

Annandale was included by Oxford on a list of probable supporters in December 1711, but still did not come to Parliament until 14 Jan. 1712 despite the ministry’s best efforts. On his arrival, he reacted with particular vehemence against the Lords’ ruling that Hamilton did not have the right to sit by virtue of his British peerage as duke of Brandon. ⁷³ At a meeting of Scottish peers on 17 Jan. Annandale was ‘very warm and singular in his opinion’. In respect of the proposed Scottish boycott of the House of Lords he said that he himself ‘did not incline to go the House till he saw some things effectually done to repair us by the ministry’, but since there had been ‘very earnest and positive assurances from them’ he thought ‘we were bound to assist in the meantime and enable those from whom only we could expect relief both to perfect our redress and the queen’s just measures about the peace’.⁷⁴ A week later, however, he announced that ‘he sees no good is to be done and therefore he will not return’, a position to which he adhered when the other Scottish peers gave way, stating his view that ‘the court was trifling with us’.⁷⁵ He maintained resistance single-handed, staying away from the House for the rest of the session, and attending less than five per cent of sittings.⁷⁶ In addition to the national grievance over the Hamilton case, and what must have been acute disappointment at not receiving high office while enemies like Mar prospered, he may also have felt that the legislative measures taken that winter to benefit Scottish Episcopalians had betrayed promises he had given to the General Assembly the previous year. So when Oxford optimistically proposed that he might return as commissioner in 1712, he

used the freedom to tell the queen, that he would very willingly serve her majesty in that capacity, but when he had the honour to represent her majesty last year, by her allowance, he had given such assurances to the ministers of their absolute security as to their constitution, that he was ashamed to look them again in the face, considering what encroachments had since fallen out upon them.⁷⁷

Not only did Annandale stay away from Parliament for the remainder of this session, he embarked upon an extensive European tour, which in April 1712 took him to visit the peace negotiators at Utrecht, and thence to Italy, France, Germany and Switzerland, and kept him away from Parliament for the next session as well.⁷⁸ He did not stand for re-election in 1713, still being abroad; indeed, he only returned to Britain in September 1714, when he reaped the benefit of his recent cultivation of the favour of the Hanoverian court with appointment to national and local office. ⁷⁹ He was then re-elected as a representative peer. The remainder of his parliamentary career will be dealt with in the second part of this work.

Annandale died at Bath on14 Jan. 1721, after a short illness, leaving his second wife six months’ pregnant, and was buried at Johnstone, Dumfriesshire.⁸⁰

Enemies and friends alike paid tribute to Marischal’s vigour, his abilities as an orator, and his fidelity to principle, but at the same time acknowledged the waywardness of character and addiction to pleasure which impaired his capacity for decisive action and ultimately destroyed his health. To Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, (in a character sketch incorporated by Spring Macky into the published edition of John Macky’s ‘Characters’) he was

very wild, inconstant and passionate; does everything by starts, hath abundance of flashy wit; and by reason of his quality, hath good interest in the country; all courts endeavour to have him on their side, for he gives himself liberty of talking, when he is not pleased with the government. .... he is a thorough libertine, yet sets up mightily for episcopacy; a hard drinker.’⁴

A similarly mixed assessment came from the more sympathetic pen of George Lockhart^‡, for whom Marischal was a ‘worthy Scots patriot’ who had shown ‘zeal for [his] country’s service’ by opposing the Union. He

was master of a quick and lively spirit, a great vivacity of wit, an undaunted courage, and, in short, a soul capable of doing great things; but his misfortune was, he could not seriously apply himself to business, being loose and irregular in his measures, and too bent upon pleasures.⁵

Even his wife complained that she could not get him to concentrate on either public or private affairs, to the detriment of his family’s interests.⁶

The Keith family had a long tradition of loyal service to the crown. Hereditary Earl Marischals (marshals) of Scotland since the twelfth century, they had been raised to the peerage in the mid-fifteenth century. Keith’s uncle and father, in turn the 6th and 7th earls, had both fought for the Stuarts in the wars of the 1640s and 1650s. His father had taken the Covenant in 1637, but was later an Engager, fighting for Charles II at Worcester in 1651. After the Restoration he had enhanced his royalist credentials by marrying the daughter of 2nd earl of Kinnoull. She was later present at the birth of the prince of Wales in 1688 and gave a deposition that the birth was genuine. However, the earl himself, despite having commanded a regiment in Scotland under James II, readily accepted the Revolution. He was given a commission by William III to garrison one of his castles, and was named to the Scottish Privy Council in May 1689.⁷ A year later, however, William dismissed him from the council and further stopped the valuable pension of £500 p.a. which the family had enjoyed since the time of King James VI and I.⁸

The ill treatment meted out to his father did nothing to improve the disposition of the 8th earl towards the Williamite regime once he inherited the title in March 1694. He grew up to be a strong Episcopalian and Jacobite, predilections which were intensified by his marriage in about 1690 to Lady Mary Drummond, the wedding taking place during her father’s imprisonment by William III and before he joined James II in exile. From the time Marischal took his seat in the Scottish Parliament in 1698, he was a consistent opponent of government. His kinsman James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], laboured for some years under the mistaken impression that he could bring Marischal over to administration, even obtaining for him in 1701 a place on the Scottish Privy Council and in 1702 the temporary restoration of his father’s pension.⁹ Following Queen Anne’s accession Marischal was one of the ‘cavalier’ lords who followed James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], in seceding from the Scottish Parliament in protest at the failure to call a new election. He later accompanied Hamilton in May 1702 to London to request a dissolution.¹⁰ Upon his return to Edinburgh at the end of the month a newsletter reckoned him as one of ‘our great men that were in the last reign reckoned of the country party’, along with Hamilton and John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S].¹¹ In the following year, remaining ‘in Hamilton’s interest’, he found himself approached by James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S], who was seeking to broker a coalition between Hamilton and Queensberry. Marischal declared himself willing to do whatever the queen might ask of him, but was reluctant to ask for any particular office.¹² It was proposed that his father’s pension be restored, ‘on positive assurance … of adherence to her Majesty’s measures’, but this did not materialize.¹³ He remained a vocal member of the country opposition, and was described in 1705 as one of the ‘chief heads of the discontented party in Scotland’, ‘the mouth of the country party’, and ‘next to Hamilton the Hector of the House’. He spoke frequently against the Presbyterian Kirk, against settling the succession in the house of Hanover, and against truckling to the English over matters of trade and commerce.¹⁴

Marischal had been in direct contact with the Jacobite court in 1704, writing to James II’s widowed queen to pledge his ‘inviolable services’. But although he insisted that her son’s supporters in Scotland ‘augment in number daily, and desire, with impatience, to have an opportunity to give proofs of their loyalty’, he noted the lack of arms and money at their disposal. These necessities, and foreign troops, he argued, would be required to do the exiled king’s business.¹⁵ In the meantime, he believed that the Scottish parliament could be kept from settling the succession in the house of Hanover, and he for his own part worked to prevent it.¹⁶ When the Jacobite agent, Colonel Nathaniel Hooke, came to Scotland in the summer of 1705 he naturally turned to Marischal for help, presenting a warrant from James which admitted Marischal to the Order of the Thistle.¹⁷ Marischal claimed to have six hundred armed followers ready to rise, and according to Hooke, Marischal and his nephew, Charles Hay, 13th earl of Erroll [S], had presented Hamilton with an ultimatum, that they would abandon him if he did not grasp the opportunity for restoring the Stuart line. At the same time, when asked by Hooke to travel back to France, Marischal would not give a direct answer, but played for time.¹⁸

Marischal was a staunch opponent of the Union in the Scottish parliamentary session of 1706-7. He led the opposition to the second article, which settled the succession, and strongly protested against the 22nd article, trying in vain to preserve the rights and privileges of his own hereditary office of marshal. During the proceedings he and other Jacobites argued consistently for the imposition of limitations on the monarchy, presumably for tactical reasons to ‘clog’ the bill ratifying the treaty.¹⁹

Hooke’s second embassy in 1707 involved further meetings with Marischal, some at Inverugie Castle and some in London, at which the earl again professed loyalty. It is at this point that we hear for the first time of Marischal falling seriously ill, possibly a consequence of his penchant for heavy drinking. ²⁰ According to Lockhart, Marischal and others who dealt with Hooke (including Hamilton and Erroll) found themselves denounced as ‘cowards and lukewarm’ by those more impatient for action.²¹ Despite his promises to Hooke, Marischal failed the Jacobite cause in 1708, when a French naval squadron attempted to land 6,000 troops on the north-east coast of Scotland. He had been busy making preparations for a rising in support of the invasion, but, as Lockhart reported, he ‘omitted to answer the signal of a ship which was sent by agreement to the coast near his house’, and as a result the landing was aborted. ²² Marischal then surrendered himself to government, and after a period of confinement in Edinburgh Castle, where he suffered a head wound when Erroll threw a bottle at him during a quarrel, was conveyed under guard to London to be tried for taking part in the failed rebellion.²³

While Marischal was en route to the English capital, Hamilton, in order to procure his own release, made his unlikely alliance with the Junto and Squadrone for the forthcoming election of the representative peers. Hamilton and his brother George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], on their journey back to Scotland in order to muster support for their new allies, were able to meet Marischal and several other prisoners on the road to London. Orkney found Marischal ‘extremely surprised’ at Hamilton’s new alliance. Orkney was also ‘extremely vexed’ that before leaving Scotland Marischal had assigned his proxy to the official who had supervised his arrest and confinement in Edinburgh Castle, the commander-in-chief in Scotland, David Melville*, 5th earl of Leven [S]. On the Hamilton brothers’ strenuous urging, Marischal agreed to cancel that proxy and reassign it to the duke. Hamilton, writing to his Junto ally Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, attributed this misdirected proxy to the fact that Marischal and his colleagues had been ‘most grossly imposed upon and have had a thousand lies told them’ by the court party. He was insistent that Marischal and other prisoners be released so they could travel back to Edinburgh in time to vote for the Hamilton-Squadrone ticket.²⁴ Marischal himself did not get back in time to take part in the elections of 17 June 1708, but Hamilton used his proxy to vote for the Squadrone slate of candidates. Acknowledging the importance of Marischal’s contribution, Hamilton requested Sunderland’s protection for the earl, since ‘he allowed me to make use of his proxy notwithstanding of his not being of our sixteen, though I had promised it’²⁵ At the same time, Marischal exploited his territorial influence and his office as hereditary sheriff of Kincardineshire to secure the return to the Commons of the Episcopalian crypto-Jacobite Sir David Ramsay^‡, 4th bt.²⁶

Two years later, on 10 Nov. 1710, Marischal was himself elected a representative peer in the elections at Edinburgh, at which he was this time present. His inclusion on the government list for that election had been agreed in advance by Hamilton (his principal sponsor), together with John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], and John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S].²⁷ Richard Dongworth, chaplain to the duchess of Buccleuch, listed him as an ‘Episcopal Tory’ and gave the annual value of his estate at ‘not £2,000 and encumbered’. ²⁸ To Daniel Defoe, moreover, Marischal was one of several elected peers who were all ‘professed Jacobites ... known to aim in all they do at the Pretender’.²⁹ Another analysis of the representative peers drawn up shortly after the election also classed him as a ‘Jacobite’. Marischal first took his seat in the new Parliament on 18 Dec. 1710, almost a month into proceedings. He swore the requisite oaths that day, at the same time as John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], and these two Scottish peers in January 1711 ‘were very earnest to complain of the hard usage of themselves and other prisoners’ arrested in 1708. They went to the queen and ‘proposed that there might be enquiry made by Parliament who were informers against the lords and others who were carried prisoners from Scotland to London on pretence of a plot against the government’, but were dissuaded from taking the matter further.³⁰ Marischal attended a committee of the whole on 9 Jan. 1711 on the conduct of the war in Spain in 1707, at which the successful passage of a motion that Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, had ‘given a very faithful, just and honourable account of the Councils of War in Valencia’ was attributed to the votes of the Scottish peers.³¹ Three days later he was present again when the committee resolved that the defeats at Almanza and Toulon in 1707 had been caused by the actions of the Whig ministry, and that advice given at the time by Peterborough would have prevented these setbacks had it been followed. Both resolutions were accepted, again with ‘all the Scots’ voting in favour.³²

Marischal’s relatively low attendance – he came to just under a half of the sitting days of the 1710-11 session – and infrequent committee appointments may possibly be attributed to bouts of ill health induced by heavy drinking. For from the winter of 1710-11 he associated regularly with William Johnstone*, marquess of Annandale [S], William Livingston*, 3rd Viscount Kilsyth [S], John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], and others in convivial gatherings recorded in the diary of the English Whig peer Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville).³³ On 5 Feb. 1711 Marischal, Annandale, Kilsyth, and Balmerinoch, along with Alexander Montgomerie*, 9th earl of Eglinton, were the five Scottish representative peers (out of 13 recorded as present that day) who registered their dissent from the rejection of the bill to repeal the General Naturalization Act. George Baillie^‡ reported to his wife that when the appeal of the Episcopal minister James Greenshields against the judgment of the Edinburgh magistrates was considered on 1 Mar., 12 of the 16 Scottish representative peers present that day, including Marischal and the other protesters of 5 Feb., voted to defeat a motion to delay proceedings through an adjournment.³⁴ Within a year one of Marischal’s own chaplains, an Episcopalian clergyman named Patrick Dumbreck, sought to take advantage of that judgment to set up a ‘meeting house’ in Marischal’s mansion in the city of Aberdeen, in which he ‘reads the English prayer book’, a provocation which brought Dumbreck and his patron into direct conflict with the synod of Angus and attracted the attention of the town magistrates.³⁵ On 9 Mar., in the aftermath of the attempt on the life of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, Marischal was named as one of the managers for a conference dealing with the safety of the queen’s person. He received the proxy of Other Windsor*, 2nd earl of Plymouth, on 17 May, which he retained until his last day in the session, 12 June, the day of prorogation. 

Marischal took the opportunity in 1711 to approach Oxford (as Harley became in May), with whom his mother’s family were closely connected, to request a troop of dragoons for one of his sons. ‘As to my own circumstances’, he added,

I came with great pleasure to serve the queen’s interest in Parliament notwithstanding difficulties from my health and my affairs. The session has been long and my expense much greater than I expected. If your lordship’s kindness represent the difficulty of this case to the queen, I doubt not her goodness will make it as easy to me as possible. As to serving the queen in any post or capacity, I leave that to the queen’s goodness and wisdom and your lordship’s friendship. I doubt not that the losses of my family by the Union will be considered. The most essential parts of my office of Earl Marischal rendered impracticable; its dignity, power and figure as well as profits in effect extinguished. I cannot but hope to receive some proportionable equivalent.³⁶

Marischal was forecast as a supporter of the Oxford ministry for the following session of 1711-12, but his arrival in time for the opening of the session was delayed by illness.³⁷ His proxy with Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], was registered on 8 Dec. 1711, but Loudoun does not appear to have used this at the time of the vote on Hamilton’s right to sit under his British title of duke of Brandon, for Baillie later placed Marischal among the six representative peers whose absence on 20 Dec. ensured the failure of Hamilton’s claim.³⁸ Marischal first appeared on 15 Feb. 1712, but it was not long before he fell ill once again, and his presence was recorded only 15 more times before his last sitting on 15 May. Two days later his proxy was registered with his friend Kilsyth, on 21 May he was said to be ‘so ill that he cannot live many days’, and on the 27th he died in London. ³⁹ His place among the Scottish representative peers was taken by the 4th earl of Findlater (as Seafield had become), who resumed his seat, having first sat there as a representative peer throughout 1707-10, at the prorogation of 13 Jan. 1713.

After Marischal’s death, his widowed countess sought help from Harley for her two sons.⁴⁰ The elder, George Keith, 9th Earl Marischal [S], had seen considerable military service and in 1714 was finally given a guards troop. Both he and his brother participated in the ’Fifteen, the earl commanding a wing of the Jacobite army at Sheriffmuir. Both were attainted, and what was left of the family estates forfeited.

Intelligent, urbane and cosmopolitan, Roxburghe was showered with compliments by his contemporaries.⁷ Even a political enemy, George Lockhart^‡, praised him as ‘perhaps ... the best accomplished young man of quality in Europe, and had so charming a way of expressing his thoughts that he pleased even those against whom he spoke’.⁸ In Scotland, he was ‘esteemed by all one of the finest speakers in our parliament’.⁹ He was also a noted bibliophile.¹⁰ It was largely because of his presence and intellect that he was able to rise quickly to leadership of the Scottish political faction known as the Squadrone Volante, or Squadrone for short, ahead of others of his own generation like John Leslie*, 9th earl of Rothes [S], his brother Thomas Hamilton^† 6th earl of Haddington [S], and James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S]; and superseding elder statesmen like Tweeddale, Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], and George Baillie^‡ of Jerviswood. At the same time, there were significant weaknesses of character—principally a high degree of self-regard, issuing in affectation and complacency— which in someone of Roxburghe’s inexperience made him prey to the wiles of more established political figures, by whom he could be outmanoeuvred in times of crisis.¹¹

Doted on by his mother, Roxburghe was indulged in his upbringing, and lacked neither confidence nor a sense of entitlement. When he took his seat in the Scottish parliament (in 1703), he joined Tweeddale in the ranks of the ‘country party’ opposition, but quickly stepped from his uncle’s shadow, with some powerful (if occasionally overcooked) oratorical performances, and played a prominent role in the ‘New Party’ (as the Squadrone were first called), which took over parliamentary management in 1704 from the court party headed by James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S]. According to a Queensberryite, the Squadrone were ‘Whigs in their principles ... keeping firmly in their view the succession of the crown in the house of Hanover’, but at the same time ‘in their hearts they were known to have ... preferments and places in the chiefest degree of veneration’.¹² Queensberry’s dismissal had followed a denunciation of him to the queen by a deputation from the opposition, including Roxburghe, for alleged involvement in the ‘Scotch Plot’. However, when pressed by the queen at the same interview on the settlement of the succession, Roxburghe had prevaricated and requested time to consult the Scottish electorate, his party ‘having no instructions about this from their constituents’. ¹³ This response was of a piece with earlier statements of Whiggish principle: the previous year he had proposed that the Scottish Parliament should not adopt the successor designated in the English Act of Settlement, ‘unless ... there be such condition of government settled and enacted as may secure the honour and independency of the crown of this kingdom, the freedom, frequency, and power of Parliament, and the religion, liberty, and trade of the nation from the English or any foreign influence’.¹⁴ When the Squadrone took over responsibility for managing Parliament in Edinburgh, with promises of office (in Roxburghe’s case that of secretary of state) it was on the tacit understanding that the succession would be settled.¹⁵ But Roxburghe stuck to his guns and voted on 13 July 1704 for the proposal made by James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], not to ‘proceed to the nomination of a successor, until we have a previous treaty with England, in relation to our commerce, and other concerns’.¹⁶ Hamilton was impressed, but more jaundiced observers such as Lockhart and the arch-patriot Andrew Fletcher were prominent in voicing their irritation with Roxburghe’s behaviour. Roxburghe and Rothes subsequently confronted Fletcher over his denunciation of them as ‘the greatest rogues’ and who ‘ought to be despised of all men that in the last parliament stood up for the good of their country now deserted it’.¹⁷ Eventually Hamilton too came to the conclusion that he could not trust Roxburghe, who after the session was duly appointed secretary, albeit jointly, with James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]).

Over the winter of 1704–5 Roxburghe found himself at the centre of discussions with the English ministers, lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, Baron ( later earl of) Godolphin, and John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, over proposals to be made to the Scottish Parliament at its next meeting. It proved to be a rapid political education. He was at first alarmed by the evident English preference for union over a separate settlement of the succession: ‘I am persuaded that an union will be impossible, and that if the succession be brought about, it will be out of fear of an union’. But by March 1705 he was prepared to countenance the idea, pushed towards a greater willingness to accommodate the English ministry by the knowledge that John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (later earl of Greenwich in the English peerage), who was to serve as commissioner to the parliament, was ‘doing all he can to get the New Party laid aside’. ¹⁸ At this stage Roxburghe was working with Seafield in efforts to sustain the Scottish administration (and according to Seafield, was ‘very ready to follow my advice’), while others of the Squadrone were becoming suspicious that what was intended was the restoration of Queensberry’s ‘old party’. Roxburghe became increasingly perplexed, complaining at a lack of communication from Godolphin, and at times considering himself to be no more than a ‘cipher’.¹⁹ Gradually he realized that union would be proposed in spite of his colleagues’ reluctance. He told Baillie that he had been ‘truly confounded, for a treaty is destruction for Scotland, and the New Party knows it, and yet may be forced to go along’.²⁰

Roxburghe was considering how the Squadrone could be persuaded to back union in the forthcoming parliament when he received the unexpected news that he and his colleagues had been dismissed. Frustrated and angry, he temporarily lost his equilibrium, and during the 1705 session fell into another altercation with Andrew Fletcher which resulted in a challenge and would have ended in a duel had it not been interrupted by the arrival of a cavalry detachment (following last-minute efforts by Roxburghe’s second to put the bout off on the grounds that Roxburghe had a bad leg).²¹ He now decided that he could not stand out against his colleagues and joined the opposition to union.²² On 31 July, following private discussions with Hamilton, he voted for the motion ‘to proceed ... to trade, limitations, and regulations’, rather than going immediately to a discussion of a union treaty, as the court had proposed.²³ Godolphin responded with soothing words and vague promises in an attempt to win back Squadrone support, stating how much the queen’s service would depend on Roxburghe and his friends, and requiring them only to support the treaty, not to join with Queensberry.²⁴ He was not entirely successful, but in Roxburghe’s case there is evidence that his words had some effect, notably in the division over the selection of commissioners, in which Roxburghe abstained, dividing from some in the Squadrone and enabling the court view to prevail to leave nomination to the queen.²⁵

On 2 Sept. 1705 Seafield reported a conversation with Roxburghe, who was about to go to Bath for his health. ‘He satisfied me that he had done all he could in his present circumstances with regard to the treaty, for some of the party did not vote, and earl of Marchmont and some others joined with us, whom he thought he could have influenced.’ According to Seafield, Roxburghe promised further assistance, and let slip that he had ‘a desire to be employed’.²⁶ At the same time, in a letter to Baillie, Roxburghe seemed to indicate a reluctance to commit to union. He also said that he was unwilling to meet Godolphin: ‘I have had no word from the lord treasurer, nor do I think it our business to concern ourselves with the lord treasurer, the Whigs, or the Tories’. He gave the impression of a man wrestling with his conscience. Eventually he announced to Baillie his conclusion (presumably couched in terms that were likely to persuade). Irrespective of the Squadrone, union would be approved by parliament: ‘the motives will be trade with most, Hanover with some, ease and security with others, together with a general aversion at civil discords, intolerable poverty, and the constant oppression of a bad ministry, from generation to generation, without the least regard to the good of the country.’ The choice was either union or a Jacobite restoration and ‘there is this to be considered, too, that after an union is fixed, Scotland may probably get the balance in their hands in the English parliament’.²⁷

Although Roxburghe was ready to support the Union he believed it was better for the Squadrone to avoid public commitment, telling Baillie that it was ‘the New Party’s interest to follow rather than lead in this affair’.²⁸ Soon afterwards he left Bath for London, where he saw the queen and Godolphin, who ‘pressed much my Lord Roxb[urghe] to be for the Union and pressed him to say so much’. His answer was that ‘he would know it when it came to be proposed… and would then declare himself for what he should think for the good of the country’. It is possible that his lukewarm response contributed to the decision that the Squadrone would not be represented amongst the Scottish commissioners to the union negotiations. Advised by Baillie of the disadvantages of this course of action—the Squadrone would be left with a choice of opposing the Union or assisting ‘the establishment of the old party’—Roxburghe and the former Scottish secretary, James Johnston^‡ (with whom he was working closely) decided to enlist the help of the journalist George Ridpath, an outspoken critic of union, to undermine the reputations of the Scottish commissioners during the treaty negotiations.²⁹ According to Lockhart, Roxburghe admitted his prime concern was to ‘be revenged of the duke of Queensberry’, which he believed could be more easily accomplished with a union.³⁰ Once this smear campaign was under way Roxburghe’s main concern was that the Squadrone should appear unanimously in favour of ratification when the Scottish Parliament met, which in certain individual cases required much effort.³¹ All doubts were resolved on 15 Oct. 1706 when an attempt was made to delay consideration of the treaty until the Parliament had received the opinions of the shires and burghs. Roxburghe argued boldly that the articles must be dealt with first and to his relief was supported by party colleagues.³² Throughout the debates he gave the court ‘all the assistance they could desire’, speaking and voting a solid unionist line, and doing what he could in the counties in which he had influence to prevent the preparation of local anti-treaty addresses.³³

In particular, the debate on 2 Nov. 1706 on the first article was a personal triumph. John Hamilton, 2nd Lord Belhaven [S], in a celebrated speech prophesying the disasters that would afflict Scotland if the treaty were passed, included a pointed reference to the Squadrone: ‘methinks I see Caledonia, like Caesar, slaughtered in the senate house, saying, “Vos mei filii Squadrone Volante”’. In the course of ‘a noble and elegant speech for an incorporating union’, Roxburghe told Belhaven that what he had foretold was fact

but the only reason was the want of an union, seeing by it all these grievances would be redressed, and all these distempers remedied; all our differences and animosities cemented; our trade set upon a right foot; our liberties and privileges, which are now so precarious, secured, and our wealth and strength increased.

Roxburghe then questioned Belhaven’s sincerity. He ‘had entertained the House with his visions and dreams but if he would ingenuously tell his real reasons why he was against an union … he would by that make more proselytes to the cause than his speech could enemies’.³⁴ Two days later Roxburghe wrote to Godolphin to:

beg leave to acknowledge the honour your lordship has been pleased to do me in taking notice of any small assistance I have been able to give in the affair of the Union, and that her Majesty should be pleased to take notice on it is what I can make no suitable acknowledgement of ... Indeed, I am fully satisfied that this Union will not only save her Majesty from a great deal of trouble, but will even add to her glorious reign.³⁵

The Squadrone expected that their leaders would be suitably rewarded, and there was talk of promotions in the peerage.³⁶ Roxburghe himself was said to have requested a place for himself as a lord of session.³⁷ On 25 Apr. 1707 he was raised to a dukedom (three and a half years after it had been rumoured that he was to be made duke of Beaumont), and subsequently was paid £500 in respect of non-existent arrears of salary.³⁸ But by this time the Squadrone had fallen out with Queensberry over the choice of the first 16 representative peers to sit in the united Parliament. Queensberry was understood to have promised that ‘all the lords of the New Party should be chosen’, but Marchmont and Haddington were omitted. The Queensberryite, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], explained that the electoral arithmetic meant that only three of the five Squadrone lords could have been returned, and, even though he was chosen, Roxburghe ‘carried but very scrimply’, so that if the duke had ‘put more of the New Party in his list … it had disobliged more of our people and consequently made them against the … whole list, by which the whole New Party had been excluded’.³⁹ Such logic did nothing to mollify the Squadrone, who were henceforth at daggers drawn with Queensberry. Roxburghe, in London for the summer, could see no point in showing resentment openly, since the ‘old party’ still enjoyed the backing of Godolphin and Marlborough, and the Junto were offering no more than ‘civilities’.⁴⁰ But he hoped that the Squadrone, if they acted ‘upon their principles … may be able to make a much greater figure in [the] Eng[lish] Parliament’.⁴¹ In an analysis by Marchmont of 1707 he was listed as ‘sicut’ [as] Montrose.

The Union and 1708 Parliaments

Roxburghe took his seat in the Lords on the first day of the Parliament, on 23 Oct. 1707. He was gratified to be at the centre of affairs in England, where he had always cultivated a wide circle of friends.⁴² Among the Squadrone lords he was always the strongest advocate of close association with the English Whigs, and in his personal life had looked to wed an English heiress.⁴³ This project too he brought to fruition later that winter, when he married the well-connected daughter of the Tory earl of Nottingham, whose hand he had been seeking since at least 1705, when he first entered into marriage negotiations, presumably without disclosing that he was receiving mercury treatment for syphilis.⁴⁴ Nottingham had been reluctant initially to countenance the match but later came to revise his opinion.⁴⁵ Roxburghe affected to be wearied by ‘bustling at court’, but the reality was otherwise.⁴⁶ He attended regularly throughout his first session, being present on approximately 70 per cent of all sitting days. He also frequented the Commons gallery when Scottish disputes spilled over into the lower House; for example on 29 Nov., during the debate on a proposal by Baillie and other Squadrone Members of the lower house to abolish the Scottish privy council, in the teeth of opposition from Queensberry’s followers.⁴⁷ Roxburghe then organized support for the bill in the Lords.⁴⁸

The conflict over the council marked the beginning of open warfare against the ‘old party’ and by the time Parliament was dissolved Roxburghe was seeking to forge an electoral pact with Hamilton, who was in custody on suspicion of involvement in the abortive Jacobite invasion. On 25 Apr. 1708 Roxburghe was visited by Hamilton’s brother George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], with a message that Hamilton would join with the Squadrone in the forthcoming election if the Junto ‘will bid him’ but would otherwise close with Queensberry. Roxburghe promptly visited John Somers*, Baron Somers, who consulted his friends and sent to Hamilton to inform him ‘what are the proper means for him to take in order to be liberated, which the Whig lords are to connive at, but dare not appear openly in, because of appearances’.⁴⁹ The Junto were convinced that this coup would ‘carry the election of the 16 peers’, and ensured that all the Squadrone lords were in the list agreed with Hamilton. The Junto lord Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, the secretary of state with responsibility for Scottish affairs, went further and dispatched letters north, intended to be ‘shown publicly’, as proof that this alliance enjoyed ministerial, and by extension royal, favour. The recipients were Hamilton and Roxburghe, to whom other Squadrone lords were referred.⁵⁰ Roxburghe attended the peers’ election personally.⁵¹ He was also actively involved in campaigning for his brother’s election to the Commons, though ‘Billy Ker’ proved unsuccessful on this occasion.⁵² When the result of the peers’ election seemed clear, Roxburghe sent Sunderland a list of those who had been chosen, including himself, and departed for London to confer with the Junto. Roxburghe’s return, and that of his associates, was a hard-fought affair. At least one of his own votes seems to have been owing to the importunity of his father-in-law, Nottingham, who used his interest with Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds, to secure the vote of Peregrine Osborne*, styled marquess of Carmarthen (Viscount Osborne of Dunblane in the Scots peerage).⁵³ On his arrival in London Roxburghe found Somers absent but he wrote to his disappointed brother to assure him that he would ensure the treasurer (Godolphin) and the Whigs would ‘do what they can to have justice done else some will repent it when the Parliament sits down’.⁵⁴ The subsequent discussions in London were encouraging, and he told Baillie that there was nothing ‘that the New Party can propose for the good of Scotland that the Whig lords will not, I believe, go into’.⁵⁵

Roxburghe was present in the Lords at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708, after which he continued to attend on 73 per cent of all days as he and his friends (abetted by Hamilton) pushed to increase their numbers by challenging the elections of four court party peers. Shortly after the opening of the session, Roxburghe’s wife gave birth to an heir. William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth, stood proxy for Nottingham as godfather, with William Ker standing as the other.⁵⁶ Any pleasure resulting from the birth of a son, however, was put into the shade by political problems. The Junto’s failure to secure changes in the Scottish government gave rise to tension, and on 14 Dec. Roxburghe and other members of the Squadrone, together with Hamilton, had a lengthy conference with representatives of the Junto, to whom they complained, ‘that since the Union everything was done to make Scotland uneasy, and laid down that general that if the same spirit ruled in the administration of the government that had done formerly there was no good to be expected’. The Whigs seemed to agree, but without firm commitments, and suspicion remained. On 21 Jan. 1709 Roxburghe supported Hamilton’s successful objection against Queensberry’s participation in the peers’ election after he had received a British title (as duke of Dover). There followed a scare over the election of Roxburghe and other Squadrone lords, when on the 28th the House resolved that ‘a peer of Scotland, who took the oaths within the castle of Edinburgh, was thereby qualified to give his vote at the election of the sixteen peers’, thus validating a number of court proxies.⁵⁷ However, ‘the matter was compromised betwixt the Junto and treasurer [Godolphin]’, and the next day the Junto, supported by Godolphin, successfully proposed that ‘all proxies on both sides should be sustained where the nullities were not already determined by the House’.⁵⁸ When the votes were recalculated Roxburghe’s total was reduced by four, but was still enough for him to retain his seat. 

Queensberry’s appointment as third secretary of state on 3 Feb. 1709 was a further disappointment. Roxburghe, writing to Tweeddale, recounted that, at the turn of the year, ‘the Whig lords was very pressing to have Queensberry’s post taken away’ but that their failure to ‘name a person’ had permitted Godolphin to stall, and eventually to persuade the queen to agree to Queensberry. Whig demands for preferments for the Squadrone to counterbalance his influence in Scotland were answered by the nomination of Montrose to replace him as lord privy seal while Roxburghe and Argyll were sworn as British Privy Councillors. It was also rumoured that Roxburghe might be granted an English office, such as the lord chamberlainship.⁵⁹ The omission of Hamilton threatened a rupture between the allies, but Godolphin would not hear of Hamilton’s advancement. Neither Roxburghe nor Montrose, perhaps pointedly, answered the summons to appear at council on the day that Queensberry was given the seals. Roxburghe reported that he ‘did all that was possible to prevent the New Party’s being distinguished from Hamilton, but there was no help for it. [The] treasurer knew the consequences of such a division, and so managed it very dexterously’. Despite this Roxburghe was hopeful that Godolphin’s scheme would fail, since ‘Hamilton is still in good terms with the New Party, but enraged at the Whig lords and treasurer’.⁶⁰

The tension between the Squadrone and the Junto did not subside immediately and there was considerable unease amongst the Scots in March 1709 when English Whigs brought in a bill ‘for improving the union of the two kingdoms’, by extending the English treason laws’ to Scotland. The Squadrone expressed objections privately, and when the bill came to the Lords Roxburghe supported an unsuccessful attempt, in a committee of the whole on 19 Mar., to prevent the insertion of ‘the titles of the English laws. A week later he protested against the rejection of an amendment that the accused be given list of witnesses five days before the trial, and signed another protest when the bill passed its third reading.⁶¹ One of his concerns was that Scottish judges would be unfamiliar with English laws ‘which if people are to rebel this summer may prove very heavy to them ... in my humble opinion the doing of this thing in such a hurry is the most vexatious of the whole’.⁶² The Commons then added two clauses, that forfeitures should not apply to heirs, and that those accused should receive a list of witnesses ten days in advance.⁶³ These were considered by the Lords on 14 Apr. and rather than oppose outright the Junto offered an amendment that the clauses should not take effect till after the death of the Pretender. Roxburghe voted against, but the addition was accepted and the bill returned to the Commons, which altered the date of implementation until three years after the Hanoverian succession, a change that was in turn accepted by the Lords. ⁶⁴

The effects of the recent tension between the Squadrone and the Junto lingered into the summer and relations between Roxburghe and Baillie were compromised by Baillie’s earlier criticism of the Junto for failing to oust Queensberry. Baillie was alarmed when Roxburghe and Montrose began ‘to take umbrage at my way, and to think it does them hurt’.⁶⁵ On 30 July 1709 Roxburghe wrote to Montrose from Edinburgh that he ‘had a letter from my lord president [Somers], and another from my Lord Sunderland desiring to know if Mr. Baillie would freely and heartily enter into measures and that if he was disposed, that care should be taken to show that greater equality was meant for the future by doing somewhat to distinguish him.’ Eventually an insistent Roxburghe managed to bring Baillie round. But there were further problems, and Roxburghe became intimately involved on behalf of the Squadrone in negotiations between the Junto and Godolphin. The treasurer was willing to sacrifice Queensberry and replace him with Seafield, a step Roxburghe welcomed since it accomplished his main aim—to dish Queensberry—and would leave the duke’s successor, Seafield, dependent on the Squadrone. With Queensberry out of office, the next election in Scotland would be wide open.⁶⁶ It required great efforts to convince the Whigs but in the 1709-10 session of Parliament (of which Roxburghe attended three quarters of all sitting days) there was no repeat of the antagonism between the Squadrone and the Junto. However, apart from supporting Sacheverell’s impeachment, Roxburghe did not contribute significantly to proceedings.

In June 1710 Roxburghe advised that his colleagues should write ‘five or six lines of a compliment’ to the new secretary of state, Dartmouth, whom he considered to be ‘an honest and moderate man’.⁶⁷ Despite this cautious welcoming of one of the new appointments, the extent of the changes clearly worried the Squadrone. Fearing the worst after the ministerial revolution of 1710, the Squadrone decided to boycott the peers’ election in October, though only after Roxburghe and Montrose had been sent on a futile ‘embassy’ to Mar, who was managing the election for the court party, with a proposal to join interests that they did not even take seriously themselves.⁶⁸ Out of Parliament, Roxburghe remained politically active. While his brother William, who had been returned for Berwick, tacked towards the Tory administration, Roxburghe remained ‘obstinately honest’; loyal to his Whig principles and his Whig allies.⁶⁹ Much of his energy was expended in a family dispute with the burgh of Dunbar, and in trying to assist William’s army career. But his marital connections ensured his continuing participation in high-political intrigues, and in the autumn of 1711 he was used by the Junto as an emissary to Nottingham (with whom he always got on well in spite of political differences) in the lead-up to the campaign in the Lords against the peace.⁷⁰ Roxburghe was in London himself in December 1711 and January 1712, endeavouring to stir up Scottish parliamentary opinion over the Hamilton peerage case, and signed the petition presented to the queen on New Year’s Day from Scottish peers protesting their rights.⁷¹ In the summer of 1712 the Squadrone were engaged in ‘frequent meetings’ in Edinburgh. Roxburghe hosted ‘a great confluence of the Squadrone’ at his lodgings there, and throughout 1712 and 1713 was busy preparing for elections in Scotland, though in the event the Squadrone decided to repeat their abstention from the peers’ election.⁷² During the 1714 session Roxburghe and the other Squadrone leaders sent a confidential letter to their followers, acknowledging the need to broaden their ‘bottom’ in Scotland, by working with other opponents of the Tory ministry, including disgruntled ex-Queensberryites, and with Argyll, while emphasising the importance of maintaining a ‘distinction’ from Argyll and avoiding ‘too intimate a concert’.⁷³

Roxburghe’s fidelity to the Hanoverian succession was rewarded by George I, one of whose first actions as king was to appoint him keeper of the great seal of Scotland. Roxburghe thus began a lengthy career in government, which will be dealt with in the second part of this work. He also showed his commitment to the Hanoverians in the field, raising and arming a contingent of troops to counter the Jacobites in 1715 and serving himself as a volunteer at Sheriffmuir.⁷⁴

Roxburghe died at Floors Castle on 27 Feb. 1741, just over a month after the death of his brother William, and was buried with his ancestors in the church at Bowden, Roxburghshire.⁷⁵

According to the character sketch by Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, inserted into Spring Macky’s published edition of his father’s memoirs, Lothian was a Presbyterian by family tradition and political preference rather than by religious belief: ‘laughs at all revealed religion, yet sets up for a pillar of Presbytery, and proves the surest card in their pack; being very zealous, though not devout’.⁴ Certainly his wife was notably pious, and between 1704 and 1712 he served regularly on the commission of the General Assembly (the executive body appointed to govern the Kirk between sessions) and was a member of the Scottish SPCK. Whatever religious enthusiasm may have been evident in his early life, though, did not last: The eminent Presbyterian minister Robert Wodrow, noted in 1725 that Lothian’s son and heir ‘is reckoned religious; may it hold, as, alas, his father’s did not’.⁵

Lothian’s commitment to the Revolution could not be impugned, however. He had been ‘active … against King James’, and subsequently raised a troop of horse for William, serving in the army in Scotland throughout the king’s reign. The family were closely allied to the Argylls: Lothian had contracted to marry his first cousin, Lady Jean Campbell (out of a sense of duty, it was said), at the very time that her father was in prison in Edinburgh awaiting execution.⁶ After 1689 he attached himself to the political interest of his brother-in-law, Archibald Campbell, duke of Argyll [S], and then to his nephew John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll, who succeeded as head of the family in 1703.⁷ By the spring of that year he was identified with those members of the Scottish Parliament who were determined to uphold ‘the Revolution settlement and the Presbyterian government’, and was happy to push for the enactment of limitations on the powers exercised by the crown.⁸ But the following year he followed Argyll in the vote on the succession, and Lieutenant-General Ramsey, commander-in-chief of the army in Scotland, advised the English lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, that Lothian was ‘entirely for her majesty’s interest and service’.⁹ He was accorded the distinction by the court party in 1705 of introducing into the Scottish Parliament the proposal for a treaty of union, and immediately sought to capitalize by beginning what turned out to be a lengthy campaign of solicitation for a vacant command in the Scots Guards.¹⁰

Lothian was invested with the Order of the Thistle at Edinburgh in November 1705, but this honour was clearly insufficient to assuage his strong sense of entitlement while the Guards colonelcy remained unfilled.¹¹ Worse still, he was omitted from the union commission agreed in 1706, a decision he interpreted as a deliberate personal insult: he wrote in high dudgeon to John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], on 14 Mar., announcing that he would be resigning his commission as colonel of dragoons (which he had temporarily entrusted into Argyll’s hands) and would only be prepared to return if given the Guards regiment. He would not, he said, waste time by:

enumerating the affronts I have met with at this time which I never could have imagined. As I had the honour to be among the first that offered my service at the late happy Revolution, so, my lord, I have the misfortune to be the first who after 17 years’ service is obliged to quit the service, being so publicly disgraced in the way of my treatment; and I must say to your lordship, I cannot see wherein I have deserved it. For I can say I did my endeavour to serve the queen to my power faithfully and honestly.¹²

This was immediately perceived by his friends as a false move. The principal of Edinburgh University, William Carstares, tried to smooth things over with Mar, who wrote to Carstares on 25 Mar.:

You are very justly concerned for what my Lord Lothian has done, as you may be sure we are all. He has done himself a vast deal of harm by it; and I’m afraid the queen will not easily pass it over. It does harm also to others of his friends in their affairs. His commission is not yet given up to the queen, though this day we were forced to tell her of it, it became so public. I fancy the duke of Argyll will give it up one of these days; for he sees not how Lothian can retreat … I am afraid Lothian has lost himself and his pretensions, which were very good: but I hope he will still continue of the principles he professed, and by good and faithful service, regain this step.¹³

In the event, Argyll, together with Mar’s political chief, James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], were able to calm the situation, and prevent the ultimatum from being delivered to the queen. By the time the Scottish Parliament met in the winter of 1706–7 to debate the treaty, Lothian had been brought round by Argyll to vote a strongly court line in favour of union. As a reward, he finally received his Guards commission, and, at Argyll’s earnest request, was included in the first cohort of representative peers to sit in the united Parliament.¹⁴ In the following year he was promoted from major- to lieutenant-general. In an analysis by Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], of 1707 he was described as ‘for the Revolution but may be influenced by the court and Argyll’.

He took his seat in the Lords on 23 Oct. 1707, alongside Argyll’s brother, Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S]. He attended for 71 per cent of sittings in this Parliament and 25 per cent in the following session 1708-9 (in which his participation was foreshortened), and in total was named to fewer than 10 committees. There is no evidence that he registered his proxy. His only distinctive contribution in the 1707–8 Parliament occurred on 7 Feb. 1708, when he signed a protest against the Squadrone-inspired bill to abolish the Scottish Privy Council. He was also present on 11 Mar., when the queen refused the royal assent to the Scottish militia bill. The announcement that day of a French fleet having set sail for Scotland prompted his departure to join his regiment, and the following month he was present at a meeting at Edinburgh where an address was drawn up ‘asserting her majesty’s right against the prince of Wales and all pretenders whatsoever’.¹⁵

Lothian attended the first election of representative peers on 17 June 1708, where he was one of the successful candidates on the court slate.¹⁶ Although his name was included on the certified list of 16 peers presented to the Lords on 8 July there were already indications that he might lose his seat once protests were considered.¹⁷ Five days previously a ‘scheme showing who will be concerned in the votes protested against’ was sent to John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe [S], making it clear that if the various objections were upheld Lothian’s votes would be significantly reduced.¹⁸ Two days after Lothian had taken his seat, on 18 Nov. 1708, a petition was presented by William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], John Gordon*, 16th earl of Sutherland [S], Marchmont, and William Ross^†, 12th Lord Roos [S] against the election of Lothian and three other court peers. While the petition was being considered Lothian voted on 21 Jan. 1709 in the minority in support of Queensberry’s right to participate in the peers’ election even though sitting in the Lords by virtue of an British title (duke of Dover).¹⁹ His own fate was decided a week later. The outcome was something of a shock, resulting from of an unexpected agreement between Godolphin and the Whig Junto, by which it was decided that ‘all proxies on both sides should be sustained where the nullities were not already determined by the House’.²⁰ The consequent recalculation of votes cost Lothian his seat, and prompted Mar to complain that the Junto were now content ‘only to turn out a man that had always been firm to the Revolution interest’.²¹ According to Godolphin’s confidant, James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), the treasurer had been prepared to help Lothian until convinced that this would be impracticable.²²

In 1710 Lothian followed Argyll in switching his political allegiance to the Tories. By October he was writing to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, for help in getting a Guards company for his son-in-law (a request which he had previously made of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough) and asking for Harley’s instructions on how to proceed in the election for representative peers.²³ He was present at the election on 10 Nov. 1710, but was not included on the list agreed in advance by Mar with Argyll and James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] (later duke of Brandon).²⁴ In June 1711 he again approached Harley (now earl of Oxford) for an opportunity to serve the queen. He claimed to have heard that more British titles were to be given to Scottish peers and asked to be one of the number, basing his request on the ‘gracious answer’ which the queen had made to him in 1709 when he had complained to her of the ‘hardships’ he had suffered by being unjustly turned out of the Lords.²⁵ He was still rehearsing his grievances a year later.²⁶ In August 1713 he again asked for Oxford’s directions for the peers’ election, but the treasurer was forewarned about Lothian’s ‘ill principles’, and instead he was ordered to sell his regiment to David Colyear*, earl of Portmore [S].²⁷ The sum of £6,000 purchase money may have sweetened the pill, for he was writing to Oxford in amicable terms as late as November 1713, but it is likely that he followed Argyll into opposition.²⁸

Lothian was elected again as a representative peer in 1715 (on the court list agreed by Argyll and the Squadrone).²⁹ His later career will be examined in the second part of this work. He died on 22 Feb. 1722 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

The Melville family were strongly identified with ‘Revolution principles’ and a Protestant succession, but in the long run family and local rivalries proved just as important in determining Leven’s political allegiances and parliamentary conduct. With the benefit of hindsight, the Jacobite George Lockhart^‡ expressed mixed feelings about him: Leven, he wrote,

in the beginning of his life was so vain and conceity [sic], that he became the jest of all sober men; but as he grew older, he overcame that folly in part, and from the proudest became the civilest man alive. He was a man of good parts and sound judgment, but master of no kind of learning… He was born and bred an enemy to the royal family, and therefore cheerfully embraced, and significantly promoted, everything against its interest. However, he was no ways severe, but very civil to all the cavaliers.⁴

Leven, who had inherited the title from his cousin, Catherine Leslie, suo jure countess of Leven, and taken her surname of Leslie, had accompanied his father into exile in the United Provinces, where Melville had gone to avoid arrest after the exposure of the Rye House Plot. Leven then travelled in Germany and, through the favourable recommendation of the Hanoverian court, secured a commission in the army of the Elector of Brandenburg. In this capacity he was able to assist the prince of Orange in diplomatic negotiations with the Elector.⁵ He raised a regiment of Scots in Germany and the United Provinces to accompany William’s expedition to England in 1688, sailing over with the prince and commanding the Orangist garrison at Plymouth, and in the following March was sent as the new king’s envoy to the Scottish convention. In Edinburgh he raised another force of troops and played a crucial role, first in pacifying the capital, and then in the campaigns against the Jacobite army, distinguishing himself at Killiecrankie. After the surrender of Edinburgh Castle he was appointed its constable.⁶ His father’s position in the Scottish government gave him the opportunity to advance his own military career, which he did with a single-minded egotism, manifest in the pursuit of petty quarrels with those he considered competitors.⁷ He was active in the Highland War and took his regiment to Flanders in 1692-3, seeing action at Steenkirk and Landen.⁸

The two Melvilles continued in office throughout William’s reign, Leven following in his father’s wake, although by 1700 their relations with James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], the head of the court party, were ambivalent, poisoned in part, perhaps, by the presence in Queensberry’s counsels of their enemies the Dalrymples, and also by Leven’s personal losses in the Darien fiasco (he had subscribed £2,000 to the Company of Scotland, which he could ill afford).⁹ Melville sniffily declared in 1700 that he and his son had been ‘so long out of the king’s service’ that they were unqualified to give advice on policy.¹⁰ After the death of the king, Leven and Melville were among those representatives of the Presbyterian and ‘Revolution’ interest dismissed from office at the behest of George Mackenzie, Viscount Tarbat [S] (later earl of Cromarty [S]) in order to accommodate the Episcopalian interest. Queensberry did nothing to keep them in, although Leven was appointed to the union commission of December 1702.¹¹

Leven did not immediately benefit from the return to power of his erstwhile friends in the ‘Revolution interest’, Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S] and John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), as part of the ‘New Party’ administration of 1704, for another key member of the New Party (or Squadrone Volante, as it became known) was John Leslie*, 9th earl of Rothes [S], his deadly enemy in both family affairs and Fife politics. Rothes insisted that Leven be excluded.¹² Indeed, Leven seemed to think that he was a particular target of the Squadrone during the alarms over the so-called ‘Scotch Plot’, an experience which drew him closer to Queensberry.¹³ He did, however, continue to give his support to a settlement of the succession in the house of Hanover, and the securing of an Anglo-Scottish union.¹⁴ Political reliability on these crucial issues, together with the personal connections he was forging with leading figures in the English ministry, resulted in his being promoted to the rank of major-general, and subsequently reinstated as constable of Edinburgh Castle in October 1704, through the intervention of the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of )Godolphin.¹⁵

Queensberry’s friendship proved of further benefit to Leven after the duke recaptured control of the Scottish administration.¹⁶ In February 1705 James Johnston^‡ had noted that Leven was ‘not satisfied, but will needs have more than he has, and he’ll get it’.¹⁷ Leven became master of the ordnance in Scotland in May 1705, and when the commander-in-chief of the army in Scotland, Lieutenant-General George Ramsay, died in September 1705, Leven quickly put in for the vacancy, as ‘the eldest major-general’.¹⁸ He pledged to serve Godolphin and John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, though it was observed that at the same time he ‘makes a great interest with the Whigs’, and was quick to acknowledge the role of both Godolphin and Marlborough in procuring him the post.¹⁹ Against Queensberry’s advice, who feared that concentrating three important (and lucrative) military posts in a single person would unduly restrict opportunities for patronage, Leven (who had insisted on retaining his existing posts) was confirmed early in 1706 as commander-in-chief as well as constable of Edinburgh Castle and master-general of the ordnance.²⁰

As a Scottish commissioner Leven took part in the negotiations to unite Scotland and England, despite military commitments, his contribution reflecting a genuine zeal for the idea of union. He also lost no opportunity to explain to English listeners that Scots Presbyterians, contrary to rumour, were equally enthusiastic, while Episcopalians were to a man against union and against providing for a Hanoverian succession.²¹ Leven’s links with the Kirk establishment proved helpful to the unionist cause, as he did what he could to reassure Presbyterian interests in Scotland.²² When the Scottish parliament met he duly voted to ratify the treaty, and during the session acted in his military capacity to calm the Edinburgh streets.²³ During the debates he wrote often to the English secretary of state Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, from whom he received lavish praise for ‘your lordship’s conduct, [and] the true sense your lordship has shown for the interest of your country’.²⁴ Similarly, Leven was also cultivating, or being cultivated by, English politicians of a different stripe. The Junto lord John Somers*, Baron Somers, wrote in October 1706 to thank him ‘for the honour of your letter… and yet more, for your promise to let me know, from time to time, what passes’.²⁵ According to Johnston around the same time, Leven ‘whom they incline to is quite out of favour with them: he smelt a rat and would not meddle’.²⁶ In January 1707 Marlborough also acknowledged the value of Leven’s correspondence, through ‘which I am heartily glad to find you have made so good a progress in the Union’.²⁷

Leven was now firmly anchored in Queensberry’s inner circle, and the duke’s political lieutenant, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], observed in relation to the selection of the first cohort of representative peers in the united Parliament, that Leven ‘could not be left out’. Similarly, he was among those members of the Scottish administration whose presence was judged to be necessary at London once the Union had been approved in Edinburgh, but he was soon obliged to return to Scotland to help maintain order there.²⁸ Marchmont described him in 1707 as ‘for Revolution by principle’ and as able to influence Patrick Moncrieff^‡ in the Commons.

In May 1707 Leven succeeded his father in the earldom of Melville but it was as earl of Leven that he took his seat in the Lords on 23 Oct. 1707. He was present on 74 days of the session, 69 per cent of the total, and was named to 18 committees. He acted as a teller on 29 Jan. 1708, on the question of whether to agree to the resolution that the complaints had been duly proved against Captain William Kerr. On 5 Feb., in a debate on the bill to complete the Union, he supported an unsuccessful attempt to delay until October the proposed abolition of the Scottish Privy Council.²⁹ He acted as a teller again on 7 Feb. in the committee of the whole on whether to add a proviso to the bill and following the passage of the bill later that day, he signed the protest against it as a violation of the Union. He last attended on 4 Mar., his departure from London being prompted by news of an impending French invasion of Scotland. As Adam de Cardonnel^‡ wrote on 5 Mar. ‘Leven, who commands the forces in North Britain, is sent down post’.³⁰ Though this scare quickly petered out, his handling of the crisis gave rise to some controversy. Wemyss had to step in to defend Leven’s supposed ‘lingering upon the road’ to Scotland, and then Leven was seemingly attacked for his public criticism of the failure of Admiral Sir George Byng^†, the future Viscount Torrington, to pursue the French squadron.³¹ On 15 Apr. Leven was sent a warrant to dispatch to London those Scots suspected of involvement in the invasion plot.³² Although he treated his prisoners well, the arrests antagonized some cavaliers, who suggested, incorrectly, that Leven had been partly to blame for the order, and were encouraged to do so by malicious insinuations from the Squadrone and the English Whigs.³³ Nevertheless, on a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain compiled in about May 1708 he was classed as a Whig.

Leven was active in the general election of June 1708, on behalf of the court party against the combined interest of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], and the Squadrone, against whom he was especially bitter: he opposed Squadrone candidates in Buteshire and Perthshire, as well as Fife, and worked to bring some cavalier lords to support the court list of representative peers.³⁴ He attended the peers’ election, voting for all the candidates on the court list.³⁵ Immediately afterwards, an objection was raised against his presenting the proxy of William Fraser, 12th Lord Saltoun [S], and in relation to Commons elections he was also accused of corrupt practices, principally intimidation.³⁶ On 8 July 1708 he was included on the list of duly elected peers presented to the Lords. On 27 Aug. he received another warning about the Junto: ‘their spleen at you is particular, and they continue in assuring their party of their strict enquiry into our election with a very particular manner’.³⁷

Leven was in Edinburgh on 14 Oct. 1708 when he wrote to Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland about troop movements, but by the 29th he was at Stamford en route to London, having left Newcastle on the 25th.³⁸ Thus, he was in London for the start of the new session on 16 November. He was present on 58 days of the session, 63 per cent of the total and was named to 12 committees. Once the Lords began their inquiry into the peers’ election in January 1709 it was rumoured that ‘Leven is to be turned off’. Undeterred, he stood out against the Junto, supporting on 21 Jan. Queensberry’s right to vote in the peers’ election despite having received a British title (as duke of Dover) after the Union. When counsel was heard on the question of whether a peer of Scotland who took the oaths within Edinburgh Castle was qualified to vote in the peerage election, those appearing for the petitioners alleged that the sheriff had right to hold a court there, and therefore the votes of peers so sworn were invalid, whereas Leven intervened to say that as constable he always thought that the sheriff had jurisdiction. The House voted 56-52 on Leven’s side.³⁹ Leven’s own return was never in danger, even after the recalculation of votes reported on 1 Feb. reduced his vote from 54 to 46. George Baillie^‡ wrote on 26 Mar. that ‘all the Scots were against’ the bill for improving the Union, which extended the English treason laws into Scotland, and Leven was present that day.⁴⁰ On his last day of attendance of that day. he was said to have opposed the bill, but neither of the two protests against the bill on 28 Mar. bore his signature. By 13 Apr. he was back in Edinburgh.⁴¹

Leven resumed his seat at the start of business on 15 Nov. 1709, attending on 74 days, almost two-thirds of the total and being named to 15 committees. Both Rothes and Hamilton courted his interest in the by-election for Dysart Burghs, the writ for which was issued after a long delay on 17 December. Hamilton eventually secured Leven’s interest and his candidate was returned in January 1710.⁴² On 20 Mar. Leven voted Dr Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanour. He was present for the last time on 4 April. Soon after his return to Scotland he wrote to inform Godolphin that ‘all the Jacobites in Scotland expect the Pretender in the month of May’.⁴³

Leven’s candidate had defeated Rothes’s nominee in Fifeshire in 1708, but in the changed circumstances of 1710, both men sought agreement. However, George Hay*, styled Viscount Dupplin (later Baron Hay and 8th earl of Kinnoull [S]) confidently asserted to Harley that ‘both of them will be disappointed for the [Lord] Lyon [Sir Alexander Areskine^{‡, 2nd bt.}] will carry it’, and he proved correct.⁴⁴ In the peerage elections, there were again rumours that devotees of the old court party, like Leven, would combine with the Squadrone, but in the event Leven joined the new ministry.⁴⁵ Certainly, Baillie on 28 Oct. 1710 seems to have suspected that Leven was making court to the new ministry.⁴⁶ If this was a ploy to secure a place on the court list, Leven was disappointed; as Mar wrote on 7 Nov. it was ‘impracticable’ to place Leven, John Dalrymple*, 2nd earl of] Stair [S], David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S], or Henry Scott^†, earl of Deloraine on the court list list ‘without eminently hazarding some of those coming in upon us’, and so he was excluded from the pro-government slate for the peers’ election in November, which was settled by Mar with Hamilton and John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S]. Evidently Leven was one of several ‘old party’ men whom neither the Scottish Tories nor Argyll could stomach, as it was rumoured that ‘orders’ had been ‘sent down’ to include Leven, Glasgow, Stair and James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), but that Argyll and Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S], ‘would not hear of it’.⁴⁷ Nevertheless, Mar had predicted on 9 Nov. that Leven, like most of the disappointed, ‘will come into our voting list’, and indeed he duly attended the election on 10 Nov. and voted a court line.⁴⁸ Richard Dongworth noted that ‘it was wondered that’ Leven ‘deserted’ his ‘old friends and appeared and personally voted for’ the court slate, while Defoe, writing to Harley on 18 Nov., attributed the success of the election to the ‘cowardice not goodwill’ of Leven and others in not closing with a proposal from Stair.⁴⁹

Leven was still in office, but a target for Tory place-hunters. On 14 Dec. 1710 Ilay noted to Harley that Leven, Glasgow and Seafield were ‘all in town, making their court; the first two are supported by Queensberry’.⁵⁰ Leven remained in London, William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, paying him a visit on 27 Dec. to discuss the case of the Scottish Episcopalian minister James Greenshields, who had appealed to the Lords against the judgment against him by the Edinburgh magistrates for using the Church of England liturgy. Leven also visited Nicolson on 10 Jan. 1711, with Nicolson returning the visit on the 17th, again probably with reference to Greenshields’s’ case. On 16 Mar. Nicolson recorded that, while walking in St James’s Park, ‘Lord Leven seized me and told me of prayers in the Jacobite meeting-houses at Edinburgh on Sunday sennight “for a person going on a dangerous voyage”’, which was understood to be a reference to the Pretender.⁵¹

Leven remained useful to the ministry because of his contacts with the Presbyterian clergy, and was praised by John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], for his contribution, as an elder, in the General Assembly in April 1712.⁵² In June 1712 William Kerr*, 2nd marquess of Lothian [S] noted that ‘the duke of Argyll is to succeed the earl of Leven in his command here’, and in due course he was dismissed from his posts, although not long after he had voted, at the request of the lord treasurer Oxford as Harley had become, for the 4th earl of Findlater (the former Seafield) in a by-election for a vacancy in the representative peers.⁵³ Leven appealed to the treasurer for protection from further indignities, such as the loss of his command of Edinburgh Castle, but received only vague promises. At the same time his financial troubles multiplied: in July 1713 he was pleading privately to Oxford for assistance in staving off creditors, and he formally petitioned for reimbursement for money he had been obliged to spend as governor of Edinburgh Castle, including £2,000 for ‘procuring intelligence’, and for a further £1,500, as an ‘allowance’ of £300 previously promised by the queen to be added to his salary as master of the ordnance.⁵⁴ He was also one of the creditors on the Equivalent, and in January 1714 was pressing his claims there as well.⁵⁵ Perception of his vulnerability encouraged Presbyterian suspicions that he might be adopted again as a court candidate in the peers’ election of 1713, he ‘being entirely brought over to the Court’, but this was never a plausible prospect.⁵⁶

After the death of Queen Anne Leven was anxious to re-emphasize his Hanoverian credentials: he participated in the proclamation of George I in Edinburgh and hurried south to greet the new king. He was favourably received as the king remembered encountering him at the Brandenburg Court.⁵⁷ But he was not elected again. In 1715 he unsuccessfully sought ‘a mark of royal favour’, and without such financial help faced such severe hardship, with debts of over £400,000 Scots, that in 1716 he made all his estates over to his elder son.⁵⁸ In 1717 he came under suspicion of Jacobitism, which he vigorously denied, although his material needs were so acute that he may occasionally have been tempted to dabble in correspondence with Jacobite agents.⁵⁹ In 1722 he was canvassed by Scottish Tories in advance of the peerage election.⁶⁰

Leven died on 6 June 1728.

Not only did Rothes possess a famous Covenanting lineage, he was himself a staunch Presbyterian, regularly attending the General Assembly of the Kirk as an elder (and twice in Anne’s reign being mooted as a possible commissioner to the assembly).⁵ But it seems that when he entered politics in 1700 his enthusiastic involvement with the ‘country party’ headed by James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] (later duke of Brandon), induced some Jacobite observers to infer that he was sympathetic to their cause.⁶ Thus his decision in 1704 to follow his father-in-law (and former guardian) the marquess of Tweeddale into the ‘New Party’ administration was a particular blow to a Jacobite like George Lockhart^‡, who could not contain his contempt for a man that did profess ‘great regard for the [Stuart] royal family ... with repeated oaths and asseverations, but, alas ... had neither enough of sense nor honesty to resist the first temptations’: he wrote that Rothes was ‘false to a great degree, a condemner of honour and engagements, extremely ambitious, vain and conceited (though of very ordinary parts and accomplishments), extravagantly proud and scandalously mercenary’.⁷ The facts of Rothes’s political career, however, paint a rather different picture: he seems to have been a man with a strong religious faith and a firm attachment to constitutional principles (somewhat affectedly so in his youth), although at the same time he was subject to the gravitational influence of family loyalties, which determined both his uncritical adherence to the Squadrone faction presided over by his father-in-law, and his dogged pursuit of ancestral family rivalries in local politics, notably with the Melvilles in Fife.⁸

Through an entail executed by his mother, who had inherited as countess of Rothes in her own right, John Leslie, barely of age, succeeded to her title on her death in 1700, while his younger brother Thomas took their father’s earldom of Haddington. But in political terms the more significant family connection had been cemented by his marriage three years earlier. It was under the umbrella of the Tweeddale interest that he enlisted in the opposition to the Scottish administration presided over by James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S]. He joined Hamilton, Tweeddale and their adherents in seceding from the Scottish Parliament in 1702 in protest at the failure to call fresh elections on the king’s death.⁹ When a new Parliament met in May 1703 he was a vocal proponent of measures to restrict the power of the crown and preserve the independence of Parliament, first proposing an act to deny Queen Anne’s successor the right to declare ‘peace and war without consent of Parliament’, and later in the session following his cousin James Graham*, 4th marquess (later duke) of Montrose [S], in speaking out in favour of an assertion of Scotland’s traditional liberties.¹⁰

Following the revelations at the end of 1703 about the so-called ‘Scotch Plot’, Rothes was sent with his close allies John Ker*, 5th earl (later duke) of Roxburghe [S], and George Baillie^‡ to ask the queen for a recall of Parliament in Scotland.¹¹ In a lengthy audience on 8 Mar. 1704 he defended the loyalty of the Scottish people, and implored the queen to ignore advice to maintain an army in Scotland upon English pay. In reply, Anne affirmed her intention that ‘Parliament should sit very soon’ in order to settle the succession, and that evidence would be presented relating to the Scotch Plot.¹² The nature of the response helped persuade Rothes to support the settlement of the succession, but more important was the appointment of Tweeddale as commissioner to the Parliament. Some 35 members of the country party, including Rothes, crossed over with Tweeddale, earning themselves the title of the ‘New Party’, or more pejoratively, and more permanently, the ‘Squadrone Volante’ (subsequently shortened to Squadrone). Their agreement to vote for succession in 1704, having opposed Queensberry’s efforts to do so the previous year, was viewed by some as opportunistic, and the uncompromising patriot Andrew Fletcher was quick to condemn Rothes and his colleagues for deserting the country party: they were ‘the greatest rogues and ought to be despised of all men that in the last parliament stood up for the good of their country’.¹³ As well as prompting a confrontation between Fletcher, Rothes and Roxburghe in an Edinburgh coffee-house, this accusation may have influenced Rothes’s conduct in Parliament, to the extent that, while supporting his father-in-law’s interest, he also found opportunities to reassert his principles. In proposing a settlement of the succession he again did so on the basis of imposing limitations on the monarchy, and later he intervened in the debate on Hamilton’s proposal for a commercial treaty with England to secure the avoidance of a vote that the administration considered disadvantageous by arguing that the Scots should first ‘secure the sovereignty and independence of the kingdom’.¹⁴ The upshot was effectively to postpone discussion of the succession. Informing the English lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, of this setback, James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later earl of Findlater [S]), made the best of it, and emphasized that Rothes and the other ‘Revolution men’ who had opposed Hamilton’s projected treaty, had ‘acted their parts very fair’.¹⁵

Rothes’s attachment to the Squadrone secured him the prestigious post of lord privy seal (at a salary of £1,000 a year) and a seat on the Scottish Privy Council in the ministerial reconstruction that followed the 1704 session, although at the same time lessening his reputation for integrity and thus weakening his power-base in Fife where he ‘very much lost his esteem and interest amongst the gentry’.¹⁶ However, the Squadrone’s success was short-lived, and the replacement of Tweeddale as commissioner early in 1705 by John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], caused serious problems for the party. Tweeddale had alienated Argyll by refusing (in his capacity as lord chancellor) to pass Argyll’s commission, so his removal from the lord chancellorship was soon determined; he was offered Rothes’s post, which angered both men, to the extent that Lockhart believed Rothes likely to abandon his recent ‘apostasy’ and return to his ‘primitive faith’.¹⁷ Roxburghe was not so sure, however, fearing that Rothes would be persuaded to stay with the ministry by the blandishments of Argyll, Seafield, and another of Rothes’s cousins, the presumptuous Commons Member John Cockburn^‡, an outcome that would fatally divide the Squadrone.¹⁸ Rothes’s dismissal as lord privy seal in June thus came as relief to his friends, but his subsequent actions showed that Roxburghe was mistaken about his malleability.¹⁹ Although Rothes was required to subordinate his personal political agenda to the outcome of negotiations between the Squadrone and Seafield (acting for the court) over supporting union, he made his own priorities clear. Sent as an emissary to Montrose to persuade him to join with the Squadrone, he argued that the only way for Scotland to be ‘saved’ was the settlement of the succession accompanied by limitations on the powers of the new monarch, and gave some idea of what he had in mind when he proposed to Parliament that under a new reign the officers of state and judges should be nominated by it and not by the crown.²⁰ Nevertheless, despite occasional wobbles, he followed his party colleagues in supporting a treaty of union, and presumably was particularly gratified when they voted as a party in favour of according Parliament rather than the queen the nomination of commissioners.²¹ In January 1706 it was reported that he was not personally convinced of the wisdom of union, but would allow his decision to be ‘determined by the new party’.²² The delicate position that the Squadrone now found itself in was underlined by the fact that in May 1706 Rothes thought it best to resist an offer, originating from Queensberry, of a place as lord of the treasury, even though this risked him being depicted as difficult; but a little while later he welcomed payment of his arrears of salary as lord privy seal.²³

Symbolically, Rothes and his father-in-law travelled to the first session of the Union Parliament in Queensberry’s coach, and once there they duly voted for the ratification of the treaty.²⁴ In fact, Rothes voted consistently in favour of the Union, to the extent of seeking to prevent the acceptance of anti-treaty petitions to Parliament once the first article had passed.²⁵ He also used his position as a member of the commission of the General Assembly of the Kirk to push through a moderate address on the treaty, although he ran into difficulties when opposing the attempts of radical Presbyterians entirely to separate church and state and at one stage walked out when subjected to personal attacks.²⁶

Once the Union had been approved tensions between the Squadrone and the court resurfaced. The first issue concerned the choice of representative peers to the Parliament of Great Britain, which was the subject of negotiations with Queensberry. It was agreed that Rothes was to be included, yet John Lindsay*, 19th earl of Crawford [S], was elected in his place, ‘the only difference between the commissioner’s [Queensberry’s] list and that which was carried’. Baillie thought the court guilty of not making ‘their people vote for such of the Squadrone as were in their own list … several of them were suffered to be absent, which made Rothes lose it’. In fact, so convoluted were the voting strategies that Rothes was excluded by accident. ²⁷ Rothes also blamed the court, however, and was reportedly ‘in great wrath’.²⁸ Although noting that the ‘New Party is very angry’, Queensberry’s political ally John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], had no sympathy for them:

it is entirely their own fault, for none of us failed them but stuck close to the commissioner’s list (where three of them were) except such who were in the list whom they first left out in their nomination … So upon the whole I’m sure the New Party have no reason to blame the commissioner nor the queen’s servants for my Lord Rothes’s disappointment; for not one of them failed them but those whom they failed first.²⁹

Rothes had to wait over a year for another opportunity to secure a seat in the Lords. In the meantime he remained in Scotland, pursuing his own and the Squadrone’s political interests there.³⁰ In February 1708 he was involved in the general election campaign in Fife. His personal enmity towards David Melville*, 5th earl of Leven [S], was complicated by local opposition to the Union and, of the two magnates, Rothes had been more overt in his support for the Treaty; as a result his candidate lost the seat.³¹

Rothes’s next chance to be elected a representative peer came in June 1708. He attended the election and was one of the candidates in the list drawn up jointly by Hamilton and the Squadrone in opposition to Queensberry. Rothes received 50 votes, enough to guarantee his election. At the same time he registered his protest against proxies presented by Queensberry and Seafield in favour of court candidates, on the grounds that neither was eligible to vote, Queensberry because of his recent British peerage (as duke of Dover), and Seafield as a judge of the exchequer.³² Rothes reached London in October 1708, and by the middle of November was in discussion with Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, about the controverted Commons election for Dysart Burghs, where he had neither sponsored a candidate of his own, nor supported Hamilton’s interest, much to Hamilton’s disgust.³³ On 16 Nov. he took his seat in the Lords, where he attended for 72 per cent of sittings during this first session, but was not particularly active, being named only to nine select committees. 

During his first weeks in the House Rothes watched with interest the first steps taken towards enquiring into the peers’ election. On 20 Nov. 1708 he told Tweeddale that Seafield ‘has found it convenient to lay down the chief baron’s place’, which had been the basis of his protest against Seafield’s right to participate in the election. He also noted with irritation the objections that were being raised by Scottish Members of the Commons against the eldest sons of Scottish peers sitting in the lower House, complaints which he considered ‘very unreasonable’ and the work of ‘the fools of the Parl[iament]’ such as George Lockhart. A fortnight later he wrote that the Commons had ‘incapacitated our sons to be their members which I think is pretty hard upon us, but we are obliged to the 45 Scots for it, for the English would never have made any scruple about it’. His correspondence with Tweeddale also mentioned difficulties between the Squadrone and the Junto. In his view, the Squadrone were ‘not persons that will be led by the nose, and that [the Junto] know, but taking the argument the ordinary way of this world, which is from interest, it would appear that [the Squadrone] and [the Junto] will quickly be at one’. He was present on 11 Dec. at the London home of William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, where a meeting was held to resolve differences. Sometime later, on 20 Jan. 1709, he explained to Tweeddale that ‘I think the appearance is better than I have seen it since I came here for there is the greatest probability that we’ll carry our elections and I hope other things shall go well also, but all these things are uncertain till they be done’.³⁴

The enquiry into the peers’ election had finally started in earnest and on 10 Jan. 1709. Rothes was named to the Lords’ committee to consider a petition from a number of defeated candidates from the Squadrone’s list. A week later came the report, confirming the number of votes cast for each peer in the election, together with a list of the protests, amongst which were Rothes’s objections against the proxies presented by Queensberry and Seafield. By the 18th Rothes was hopeful that both protests would go ‘very right’.³⁵ On 21 Jan. he voted against Queensberry’s right to participate in the election as a British peer created since the Union, but when the House considered his protest against Seafield’s proxy, the question was ‘passed over’.

The recalculation of votes cast in the peers’ election, according to the resolutions of the House, reduced Rothes’s total from 50 to 47, enough for him to retain his seat. He was, however, dissatisfied with other aspects of the proceedings, and suspicious of Godolphin’s intentions.³⁶ Queensberry’s appointment as the third secretary of state two days later reinforced his belief that Godolphin had duped the Junto, even though he was far from happy at the Junto’s recent behaviour. He was especially resentful that he himself had received no ‘marks of favour’.³⁷ On 15 Mar. 1709 he wrote to Tweeddale that ‘our affairs ... are worse and worse; all the good things that we are to get is a bill making the laws relating to treason the same in Scotland as they are now in England without so much as enumerating them’. Moreover, when the Squadrone opposed the treason bill and the militia bill (the purpose of which, in Rothes’s view, was ‘to establish the d[uke] of Q[ueensber]ry and his creatures lieutenants’) they were told by the Junto that this course of conduct was difficult to understand, and another example of the Squadrone’s criticising ‘all the good things that are done to make the Union entire and complete’. At the third reading of the treason bill in the Lords on 28 Mar. Rothes protested against the refusal to add a rider allowing defendants to receive five days before their trial a copy of the indictment against them and a list of witnesses. He also protested against passing the bill. His annoyance was so great that, uncharacteristically, he was recorded as attending only seven times between 30 Mar. and 21 April.³⁸ He left London shortly after Parliament was prorogued and was absent throughout the following session of 1709-10, without registering his proxy. 

Having boycotted the peers’ elections in 1710 and 1713, the Squadrone were obliged to oppose the Tory ministry from the sidelines. Rothes kept in close touch with his party colleagues, visiting Roxburghe at Floors Castle in June 1712, from where they went on to a ‘great confluence’ of the Squadrone in Edinburgh.³⁹ He also continued active in the General Assembly of the Kirk, and in electoral politics in Fife and its boroughs, where the real enemy was now the Tory, or as he termed it, the Jacobite interest. In order to stop Tory advances in Fife he was desperate enough to come to terms with his old enemy Leven, ‘to lay aside private quarrels and to unite at this juncture against the common enemy’, but even working together the two magnates could not prevail.⁴⁰

With the accession of George I the Squadrone (now led by Roxburghe and Montrose) came into their own. In the early days of the new regime Rothes was tipped to become lord clerk register, but in fact his reward was more modest: vice-admiral for Scotland, and commissioner to the General Assembly of the Kirk, a position for which he had been touted previously, and in which he was able to exploit his reputation for personal piety to the government’s advantage.⁴¹ He also took a leading part in military actions in Fife in the Fifteeen, and was given a raft of local offices, including the governorship of Stirling castle.⁴² The remainder of his political and parliamentary career will be examined in the second part of this work. 

Rothes died at Leslie House on 9 May 1722, after an illness prolonged enough to enable him to prepare what his deputy-governor at Stirling described as ‘a Christian, sedate and courageous death’. Having ‘recommended religion’ to his children, he summoned his two chaplains and ‘declared the grounds of his faith and hope of salvation’. After a prayer he then died ‘in the greatest serenity and peace’.⁴³