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The Scottish Nation
Kinnoul


KINNOUL, earl of, a title in the peerage of Scotland, conferred in 1633, on Sir George Hay, viscount of Dupplin and Baron Hay of Kinfauns, second son of Peter Hay of Megginch, descended from William Hay, second son of Sir David de Haya of Errol, ancestor of the earls of Errol. Born in 1572, he went about 1590 to the Scots college at Douay, where he studied some years under his uncle, Edmund, professor of civil and canon law there, well known as Father Hay, the Jesuit. On his return to Scotland about 1596, he was introduced at court by his cousin, Sir James Hay of Kingask. He was appointed by King James VI., a gentleman of his bedchamber. The commendam of the priory of the Charterhouse of Perth was also bestowed upon him, with a seat in parliament, 18th February, 1598, and the ecclesiastical lands of Errol. Finding, however, that the rents of the same were too small to support the dignity of a lord of parliament, he resigned his seat. He was one of those who attended the king to Perth, 5th August, 1600, when the earl of Gowrie and his brother Alexander were killed, and he received the lands of Netherliff or Nethercliff out of that nobleman’s forfeited estate. He was knighted before 1610, and on 24th December of that year, he obtained from the king a patent for the manufacture of iron and glass in Scotland. On 26th March, 1616, he was appointed clerk-register, and admitted an ordinary lord of session, and 16th January 1622, was constituted lord-high chancellor of Scotland. He was created viscount of Dupplin and Lord Hay of Kinfauns, 4th May 1627, and earl of Kinnoul, by patent, dated 25th May 1633, to himself and his heirs male whatever, being the first of the earls created by the king to grace his coronation in Scotland. Sir James Balfour, lord lyon, states that on the morning of the coronation he was sent by the king to the earl of Kinnoul, to signify his majesty’s pleasure, that he should for that day give precedence to the archbishop of St. Andrews (Spotswood). The chancellor spiritedly replied, that “since his majesty had been pleased to continue him 9in that office which, by his means, his worthy father of happy memory had conferred on him, he was ready in all humility to lay it at his majesty’s feet. But since it was his royal will he should enjoy it with the various privileges pertaining to the office, never a stoled priest in Scotland should set a foot before him while his blood was hot.” This reply being reported to the king, he remarked: “Well, Lyon, I will meddle no further with that old cankered goutish man, at whose hands there is nothing to be gained but soure words.” The earl died of apoplexy in London, 16th December 1634, and was interred, on the 19th of the following August, in the parish church of Kinnoul, in which an elegant marble monument was erected to his memory, with his statue habited in his chancellor’s robes. Arthur Johnston commemorated his virtues in a long Latin epitaph, and an elegy on him by Sir James Balfour may be found in the Denmiln MS. He had two sons. The elder, Sir Peter Hay, predeceased him. The younger, George, second earl, a privy councillor to King Charles I., and captain of the yeomen of the guard from 1632 to 1635, continued faithful to that ill-fated monarch, at the breaking out of the civil wars, and in 1643, refused to sign the Solemn League and Covenant. He died 5th October 1644.

      His only son, William, third earl, attached himself to the marquis of Montrose, and was committed prisoner to the castle of Edinburgh, whence he made his escape, 28th May 1654, and joining the royalist general, Middleton, in the north, was again taken prisoner by the English in the Braes of Angus, in the following November, after three days’ pursuit through the snow. He died in 1677. He had two sons. George, fourth earl, who died in 1687, without issue, and William, fifth earl, who was at the court of St. Germain’s with James VII., after his abdication. On his return, he obtained a new patent in favour of his kinsman, Thomas Hay, viscount of Dupplin, as his heir, and died, unmarried, 10th May, 1709.

      Thomas, viscount of Dupplin, sixth earl of Kinnoul, was the third in descent from Peter hay of Kirkland of Megginch, brother of the first earl of Kinnoul. He was M.P. for Perthshire in 1693, and was created viscount of Dupplin, by patent, dated 31st December 1697. He was one of the commissioners of the union, and supported that treaty in the last Scots parliament. He was afterwards a representative peer. In 1715, on the arrival of the earl of Mar in Scotland to organize the rebellion, on his way north he paid a visit to his brother-in-law, the earl of Kinnoul, at his seat of Dupplin in Perthshire, and the latter was one of the suspected persons summoned by the lord advocate to appear at Edinburgh and give bail for their allegiance to the government. He was committed prisoner to the castle of Edinburgh, till after the rebellion. He died in January 1719. With two daughters, he had three sons, the youngest of whom, the Hon. Colonel John Jay of Cromlix, accompanied the earl of Mar from England to the north of Scotland, when that nobleman left London to place himself at the head of the insurrection. Sent with a detachment of 200 horse to take possession of Perth, he entered that town on the 14th September 1715, and there proclaimed the chevalier. On the 18th he was appointed by Mar, governor of Perth, and to support him, in case of an attack, a party of the clan Robertson were sent to him, under the command of Alexander Robertson of Struan, their chief. After the failure of that rash enterprise he was forfeited by act of parliament, and joining the exiled court in France, he held a post of high confidence in the household of the Chevalier, by whom he was created earl of Inverness. Between him and the earl of Mar an irreconcilable difference existed, and his name often occurs in the Lockhart papers relative to the after conduct of that nobleman. He had married Marjory, third daughter of the fifth Viscount Stormont, sister of the first earl of Mansfield, and to the behaviour of Hay and his lady, who do not appear to have treated the princess Sobieski, the wife of the Chevalier, with due respect, and to their ascendency over the Pretender, were attributed all the intrigues and disagreements that took place in the Chevalier’s household. Finding that, notwithstanding her complaints, James was determined to retain Colonel Hay in his service, the princess, on 15th November, 1725, retired into a convent. By the efforts, however, of some of the princess’s friends, assisted by several influential Jacobites, the chevalier at length reluctantly dismissed Hay from his service.

      The eldest son, George, seventh earl of Kinnoul, was, when Lord Dupplin, chosen, in 1710, M.P. for Fowey in Cornwall, and in the following year appointed one of the tellers of the Exchequer. He was created a peer of Great Britain, by the title of Baron Hay of Pedwardine, 31st December 1711, being one of the twelve created the same day, to secure a majority in the House of Lords, for the Tory administration. On the breaking out of the rebellion in 1715, he was, with the earl of Jersey and Lord Landsowne, taken into custody at London 21st September, on suspicion of favouring the Pretender, but on the expiry of the act for suspending the Habeas corpus bill, on the 24th of the following June, was admitted to bail. In 1729 he was appointed ambassador to Constantinople, where he remained till 1737. He died 28th July 1758. By his countess, Lady Abigail Harley, second daughter of the earl of Oxford and Mortimer, high-treasurer of Great Britain, he had four sons and six daughters. Of his second son, Robert Hay Drummond, archbishop of York, a memoir is given previously. The Hon. Edward Hay, his youngest son, at one time consul-general of Portugal and minister plenipotentiary to the court of Lisbon, died governor of Barbadoes in 1779. Of this island Charles I. made a grant to Sir James Hay, created earl of Carlisle, cousin of the first earl of Kinnoul. His titles expired with his son, when Barbadoes devolved upon the third earl of Kinnoul, who disposed of it to Charles II. in 1661.

      Thomas, eighth earl of Kinnoul, born in 1710, was, when Lord Dupplin, M.P. for Cambridge, of which town he was recorder, and in addition to holding various government offices, such as a lord of the treasury in 1754, joint-paymaster of the forces in 1755, and chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in 1758, was sworn a privy councillor, and succeeded his father the same year. In 1759 he was sent as ambassador extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Portugal, to make satisfaction to the court of Lisbon for the violation of the neutrality of the Portuguese territory by Admiral Boscawen taking and burning, off Lagos, the French ships commanded by M. De la Clue. In 1762 he resigned all his public employments, and retired to his estate. In 1765 he was elected chancellor of the university of St. Andrews, and in January 1768 was chosen president of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge. To him the elegant bridge over the Tay at Perth, completed in February 1772, may be said to have mainly owed its existence, as besides contributing £500 towards the expense of its erection, he strenuously exerted himself in procuring subscriptions. He died at Dupplin, 27th December, 1787, in his 78th year. His only son having died an infant, he was succeeded by his nephew, Thomas Robert, son of his next brother, Robert Hay Drummond, archbishop of York. It is remarkable that three of the six sons of this eminent prelate came to untimely deaths. Peter Auriol Hay Drummond, the third son, lieutenant-colonel of the fifth regiment of West York militia, died in 1799, in consequence of a fall down the staircase of his house. John Auriol Hay Drummond, the fourth son, master and commander, R.N., was lost in the Beaver, prize, off St. Lucia, in a hurricane, in 1780; and the youngest son, the Rev. George William Auriol Hay Drummond, editor of his father’s sermons, was drowned while on a voyage from Bideford in Devonshire to Greenock, the ship having been cast away in a storm, on the night of the 6th December, 1807.

      Robert Auriol Hay Drummond, the archbishop’s eldest son, ninth earl, born 18th March, 1751, signed the protest on the regency bill, 29th December, 1788. He was sworn a privy councillor, 29th April 1796, and on 30th September following, the king appointed him lord lyon king at arms for Scotland, with succession to his son Thomas Robert, Lord Dupplin. Like his grand-uncle, he was president of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, he died April 12, 1804. He had 2 sons and 2 daughters. Sons, Thomas Robert, 10th earl, and Hon. Francis John Hay Drummond of Cromlix, that estate and Innerpeffrey, Perthshire, being settled as a perpetual provision for the 2d branch of the Kinnoul family. This young gentleman, an ensign 2d foot-guards, was drowned, in his 25th year, Oct. 28, 1810, while endeavouring to cross on horseback the river Earn, swelled by a heavy rain. Lady Henrietta, the elder daughter, married, in 1807, Henry Drummond of the Grange, Hampshire, banker in London, M.P. and F.R.S., grandson of Henry, 1st Viscount Melville. Lady Sarah, the younger, married, in 1811, Rev. George Murray, son of the bishop of St. David’s, and nephew of the duke of Athole.

      Thomas Robert, 10th earl, born in 1785, was appointed lord lyon king at arms in 1804, the year of his succession to the earldom; colonel Royal Perthshire militia 1809; lord-lieutenant of Perthshire 1830; F.R.S.A., and F.S.A. Scot. The family seat, Dupplin castle, parish of Aberdalgie, Perthshire, burnt down in 1827, was rebuilt by him, at the cost of £30,000. He married, in 1824, Louisa Burton, youngest daughter of Admiral Sir Charles Rowley, baronet; issue 4 sons and 5 daughters. Sons, 1. George, Viscount Dupplin, born in 1827, lieutenant 1st life-guards, married, in 1848, Lady Emily, 3d daughter of duke of Beaufort, with issue. 2. Hon. Robert, capt. Coldstream guards, died Oct. 1, 1855, from wounds received in the trenches before Sebastopol. 3. Hon. Arthur, born in 1833, commander, R.N., who assumed surname and arms of Drummond of Cromlix and Innerpeffrey, Perthshire, on succeeding, at the death of his brother Robert, in 1855, to these estates. 4. Hon. Charles Rowley, capt. Scots fusilier guards.


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