CRANSTON,
a surname derived from the lands of Cranston in the counties of
Edinburgh and Roxburgh, anciently possessed by the ancestors of the
noble family of that name. A parish on the eastern verge of
Edinburghshire now bears the name of Cranston. In the charters of the
twelfth century it was written Cranestone, the Anglo-Saxon Craenston,
– signifying the territory or resort of the crane, a bird which, when
armorially carried, as by all families of the name of Cranston, is the
emblem of piety and charity. Their motto, however, seems to be the
reverse of this, as it is, “thou shalt want ere I want.” In a charter
of King William the Lion to the abbacy of Holyroodhouse, Elfric de
Cranston is witness. He is also witness to a convention betwixt Roger
de Quincy and the abbot and convent of Newbottle in 1170. In the reign
of Alexander the Second, Thomas de Cranston made a donation to the
monastery of Soltray, of some lands lying near Paiston in East
Lothian, for the welfare of his own soul, and those of his ancestors
and successors; and in that of Alexander the Third, Andrew de Cranston
is witness to a charter of Hugo de Riddel, – knight, the proprietor of
the district, from whom one portion of it acquired the name of
Cranston-Riddel – to the abbacy of Newbottle. Hugh de Cranston was one
of the Scottish barons who swore fealty to King Edward the First in
1296. Radolphus de Cranston, dominus de New Cranston, son and heir of
Andrew, lord of Cranston, made a donation to the abbacy of Newbottle
27th May, 1338, and confirmed to the monastery of Soltray,
totam illam terram in territorio meo de Cranston, quem habui ab
antecessoribus neis, betwixt 1330 and 1340; in which confirmation his
son, John de Cranston, is particularly named. From King David the
Second, Thomas de Cranston got a charter of the lands of Cranston.
In the year
1582 Thomas Cranstoun of Morristoun, or Murieston, descended from
Cranstoun of that ilk, was one of the jury on the trial of George Hume
of Spott, indicted for being concerned in the murder of Lord Darnley,
when Hume was acquitted. In 1591, John Cranstoun of Morristoun
granted, with his wife, Barbara, a reversion of the lands of Toderick.
In the following year Thomas Cranstoun, younger of Moriestoun, and his
brother John Cranstoun were amongst the persons summoned on a charge
of treason, and forfeited, for assisting the turbulent earl of
Bothwell in his nocturnal attack on the palace of Holyroodhouse, and
Thomas Cranstoun was denounced rebel for not appearing to answer for
the same. William Cranstoun, the son of the above Thomas Cranstoun and
Barbara his wife, married Sarah, daughter and heiress of Sir John
Cranstoun of that ilk, the first Lord Cranstoun, afterwards noticed.
On June 11, 1600, Sir John and his son William were indicted for the
reset of the said Thomas Cranstoun, a declared traitor, and on 19th
June they produced the king’s warrant that proceedings should be
stayed against them, when they were commanded to their lodgings. John
Cranstoun did not receive a remission of his forfeiture till 1611.
Another
family of the name, the Cranstouns of Corsbie in Berwickshire, were at
one period of some consideration on the borders. In 1530, Jasper
Cranstoun of Corsbie was one of the Berwickshire barons who were
proceeded against for neglecting to fulfil their bonds “to keep good
rule within their respective bounds,” as was also John Cranstoun of
that ilk. They found surety to stand their trial, when required, and
also submitted themselves to ‘the king’s will.’ On June 20, 1548,
Cuthbert Cranston of Dodds found George Lord Hume security for himself
and fifteen others to underlie the law for treasonable assistance
afforded to “our old enemies” of England, and on 9th
October following Cuthbert Cranston of Mains found caution to answer
for the same crime. Cuthbert Cranstoun of Thirlestanemains and Thomas
Cranstoun of that ilk were among thirty-two border barons who
subscribed a bond at Kelso, 6th April 1569, for preserving
the peace of the borders, against the thieves of Liddesdale, Eskdale,
Euesdale, and Annandale, the Armstrongs, Johnstones, Elliotts, &c. On
November 9, 1570, Sir William Cranstoun of Dodds, commissary of
Lauder, found security to underlie the law for the slaughter of James
Brownlee. In Birrell’s Diary, under date October 20, 1596, there is
the following entry: “Gilbert Lawder slain at Linlithgow by the
Cranstouns.” In March 1612, Alexander French of Thorniedykes and James
Wight, his nephew, were found guilty of the slaughter of John
Cranstoun, brother of Patrick Cranstoun of Corsbie, and beheaded on
the Castlehill of Edinburgh; and on 3d September 1613, Gilbert
Cranstoun, uncle of the said Patrick, was tried and found guilty of
stealing a gray stallion from the stables of his nephew, and of
various other acts of theft, and of shooting George Home of Bassendean
in the thigh, committed in September 1609, and hanged for the same on
the Castlehill of Edinburgh.
Of this name
were several ministers eminent in their day. The first minister of the
parish of Liberton, Mid Lothian, after the Reformation was Mr. Thomas
Cranstoun, who had previously been minister of Borthwick. He entered
to his stipend, (which only amounted to two hundred merks, or eleven
pounds two shillings and twopence,) at Lammas 1569, and was translated
to Peebles at Whitsunday 1570. Mr. John Cranstoun was minister of
Liberton from 1625 to 1627.
In August
1563, a serious disturbance took place at Edinburgh, in consequence of
the queen’s domestics at Holyrood, during her absence at Stirling,
being found attending mass at the chapel there. Patrick Cranstoun, “a
zealous brother,” as Knox styles him, entered the chapel, and finding
the altar covered, and a priest ready to celebrate mass, he demanded
of them how they dared thus openly to break the laws of the land? The
magistrates were summoned, and peace restored with difficulty.
In the reign
of James the Sixth, Mr. Michael Cranstoun was minister of Cramond.
Calderwood characterizes him as a timeserver, but he seems to have
been decided in his opposition to the measures of the court regarding
the church. With other ministers he was ordered to be apprehended for
the treasonable and seditious stirring up of the tumult and uproar in
Edinburgh, on the 17th December 1596, his share in that
memorable affair being that he read the history of Haman and Mordecai
to the people assembled in the Little Kirk, while certain
commissioners appointed by them went to King James, who was then
sitting in the Tolbooth administering justice; in consequence of which
he entered in ward, but did not log continue in it, as his majesty’s
fury was chiefly directed against Mr. Robert Bruce, and the other
ministers of Edinburgh.
In the same
reign, Mr. William Cranstoun was minister of Kettle in Fife, of whom
Calderwood relates that on the 18th August 1607, on the
meeting of the Synod of Fife, when the king sent four commissioners to
force Archbishop Gladstanes on the synod as moderator, Mr. William
Cranstoun, moderator of the previous synod, walking in the session
house, which was within the kirk, at his meditation, and finding
himself troubled at the closeness of the air, went up to the pulpit,
not knowing that any other was appointed by the commissioners to
preach, and while sitting in the pulpit, a messenger came to him with
a letter, which he put in his pocket without reading it. A little
while after another messenger was sent, in the lords commissioners’
name, to bid him come down. He answered that he came to that place in
the name of a greater Lord, whose message he had not yet discharged,
and with that named a psalm to be sung, because he saw the people
somewhat amazed. They one of the bailies went and whispered to him
that he was commanded by the lords to desire him to come down. He
replied, “And I command you in the name of God, to sit down in your
own seat, and hear what God will say to you by me.” The bailie obeyed
At last, when he was commencing his prayer, the conservator of the
privileges of the merchants in the low countries, being a councillor,
went to him, and desired him to desist, for the lords had appointed
another to preach. “But the Lord,” said Mr. Cranstoun “and his kirk
have appointed me, therefore, beware how ye trouble this work;” and
immediately proceeded with his prayer and preaching. [Calderwood’s
History, vol. vi. page 674.] For his conduct on this occasion he
was afterwards put to the horn. On the 10th of May 1620,
John Spottiswood, archbishop of St. Andrews, held a court of high
commission in that city, when he deprived this aged and worthy
minister of his charge.
_____
CRANSTOUN, Lord,
a title in the peerage of Scotland, possessed by a family of the same
name, descended from Thomas de Cranyston who, in the reign of King
David the Second, had a charter from the earl of Mar, of the barony of
Stobbs, within that of Cavers, in the shire of Roxburgh. His supposed
grandson, Thomas de Cranstoun, scutifer regis, was a personage
of considerable influence in the reign of James the Second. Along with
Sir William Crichton, the chamberlain, and William Fowles, keeper of
the privy seal, he was in May 1426, sent ambassador to Eric, king of
Denmark, Norway and Sweden, to adjust the debt due to him for the
relinquishment of the Hebrides to King Alexander the Third, which they
amicably settled. He was afterwards much employed in negociations with
England. He had letters of safe conduct, with Lord Crichton,
chancellor, and others, commissioners for treating of peace, 3d April
1448; again in 1449, 1450, and 1451. In the latter year he was one of
the conservators of the truce with England, and in 1453 he and William
de Cranstoun, his son, were conservators of the truce; again in 1457
and 1459; and in the latter year Thomas de Cranstoun was one of the
wardens of the marches. He died about 1470. On a pillar on the north
side of where the altar stood in the church of St. Giles, Edinburgh,
are his armorial bearings. He had two sons, the younger of whom was
ancestor of the Cranstouns of Glen.
William de
Cranstoun, the elder son, is designed of Crailing in a charter to
William Lord Crichton, 7th April 1450, in his father’s
lifetime. On 2d March, 1451-2, he had a charter to William Cranstoun
of Cralyn. He appears among the barons in parliament, 18th
March 1481-2. He died in 1515. William de Cranstoun had two sons, John
and Thomas. John, the elder son, married Janet Scott, and died in
1552. His eldest son, Sir William Cranstoun, had a charter to himself
and Elizabeth Johnstone his wife, and John Cranstoun, their son, of
the lands of New Cranstoun, in the county of Edinburgh, 30th
May 1553. On the 25th June 1557, dame Janet Bethune, Lady
Buccleuch, and several persons of the name of Scott were accused of
going to the kirk of St. Mary of the Lowes, to the number of two
hundred, ‘bodin in feire of war,’ (that is, arrayed in armour,) and
breaking open the doors of the said kirk, in order to apprehend the
laird of Cranstoun, for his destruction, and for the slaughter of Sir
Peter Cranstoun. On July 14, 1563, William Cranstoun of that ilk,
James his brother, and another, found caution to underlie the law at
the next court at Selkirk, for art and part going to the steading of
Williamshope, belonging to Alexander Hoppringill of Craigleith, and
hamstringing and slaying three of his cattle. By his wife, who was the
daughter of Andrew Johnstone of Elphinstone, Sir William Cranstoun had
two sons, John and Thomas, and two daughters. The elder son, John,
married Margaret, eldest daughter of George Ramsay of Dalhousie, by
whom he had a son, also named John, who seems to have died without
succeeding to the estate, and seven daughters.
On the 23d
August 1600, Mr. Thomas Cranstoun, one of the earl of Gowrie’s
attendants, was, with two others of his retainers, executed at Perth,
for drawing swords in the time of the tumult during the mysterious
transactions of the Gowrie conspiracy. He was the brother of Sir John
Cranstoun of Cranstoun, a zealous professor of religion, with whom Mr.
Robert Bruce the celebrated Edinburgh minister passed some time in
retirement at Cranstoun in 1603, when persecuted by the court.
Sarah, the
eldest of the seven daughters of the above John Cranstoun, married
William Cranstoun, first Lord Cranstoun. He was the son of John
Cranstoun of Morriestoun, and captain of the guard to King James the
Sixth, by whom he was knighted. He was raised to the peerage by the
title of Lord Cranstoun, by patent, dated 17th November
1609, to him and his heirs male bearing the name and arms of
Cranstoun. On the 20th August 1617, his lordship, with the
lords Sanquhar and Buccleuch, William Douglas of Cavers, sheriff of
Teviotdale, and three others, the landlords of the east and west
marches, compeared personally before the lords of council, and bound
themselves to make their whole men, tenants and servants, answerable
and obedient to justice, and that they should satisfy and redress
parties wronged, conform to the laws and acts of parliament, and
general bond made in 1602, which was the strictest ever made on the
borders. The first Lord Cranstoun died in June 1627, having had four
sons and one daughter. James, the second son, was in 1610 brought
before the council for sending a challenge to the son of Sir Gideon
Murray, and committed to Blackness castle, while the latter for
concealing the same, with the intention of meeting his opponent, was
warded in Edinburgh castle. James Cranstoun, for repeating the
offence, was afterwards banished forth of his majesty’s dominions. The
fathers at the same time were bound for all of their sons come to
man’s age, under the pain of ten thousand merks, that they should keep
the peace with each other.
John, the
eldest son, second Lord Cranstoun, married first, Elizabeth, youngest
daughter of Walter first Lord Scott of Buccleuch; secondly, Helen,
youngest daughter of James, seventh Lord Lindsay of Byres, but had no
issue by either. He was succeeded by his nephew, William, son of
James, master of Cranstoun, above mentioned, the second son of the
first lord. This gentleman was twice married; first, to Margaret, only
daughter of David Macgill of Cranstoun-Riddell, by whom he had a
daughter Margaret, who became the wife of Thomas Craig of Riccartoun,
in the county of Edinburgh; and, secondly, to Lady Elizabeth Stewart,
eldest daughter of Francis earl of Bothwell, and had a son, William,
third Lord Cranstoun, and three daughters.
William,
third Lord Cranstoun, marched into England with King Charles the
Second in 1651, and being taken at the battle of Worcester, was
committed prisoner to the Tower. He was particularly excepted out of
Cromwell’s act of grace and pardon, April 1654, by which his estates
were sequestrated, but a portion of the lands, of the yearly value of
two hundred pounds, were settled on his wife and children. He married
Lady Mary Leslie, third daughter of Alexander, first earl of Leven,
and had a son, James, fourth Lord Cranstoun, who married Anne,
daughter of Sir Alexander Don of Newton, in the county of Roxburgh,
baronet, and had two sons, William, fifth Lord Cranstoun, and the Hon.
Alexander Cranstoun, who died at Darien, without issue.
William,
fifth Lord Cranstoun, the elder son, supported the treaty of union in
the last Scots parliament. He died 27th January 1727. By
his wife, Lady Jane Ker, eldest daughter of William, second marquis of
Lothian, who survived him forty-one years, he had seven sons and five
daughters.
About the
history of the Hon. William Henry Cranstoun, the fifth son, born in
1714, there is something very uncommon. He was a captain in the army,
and married at Edinburgh on the 22d of May 1744, Anne, daughter of Mr.
David Murray, merchant in Leith, who was the son of Sir David Murray
of Stanhope, bart. The marriage was a private one, on pretence that
its being known might prevent his preferment in the army, as she was a
Roman Catholic. No witness was present but a single woman. The
clergyman was brought by Captain Cranstoun, and was not known to Miss
Murray or the other woman. They lived together, in a private manner,
till sometime in July thereafter. Then the lady went to an uncle’s
house in the country, while the captain staid among his own relations
till November, and then proceeded to London. A close correspondence
was kept up between them as husband and wife. Before he left she
acquainted him of her being in the way of becoming a mother, and he,
in consequence, in his absence wrote very affectionately both to
herself and her uncle, acknowledging her to have been his wife from
the middle of the preceding May, but still insisted on the marriage
being kept secret. He afterwards informed all his relations of it, and
they visited and corresponded with her as his wife. At her confinement
she was attended by one of his sisters. A daughter was born at
Edinburgh, on February 19th, 1745, and was baptized by a
minister of the established church, in presence of several of the
relations on both sides. The child was held up to baptism by one of
the captain’s brothers, and named after his mother, by express orders
from himself. Notwithstanding all this, Captain Cranstoun disowned his
marriage in 1746, alleging that they were never married; that he had
only promised to marry her in case she should turn protestant; that
double the time agreed for her changing her religion was now elapsed,
without her doing so; that what he had said to his friends was only to
amuse them and save her honour; and that now he would never marry her,
but was willing to support her to the utmost of his power. The lady
raised a declarator of her own marriage, and of her daughter’s
legitimacy, before the commissaries of Edinburgh, the summons of which
was executed in October 1746. In the process a great number of letters
written by the captain and the lady were produced, and after a tedious
litigation the commissaries, on the 1st Marcy 1748, decreed
them to be married persons, and the child to be their lawful daughter;
on the 7th of April following, they decerned the captain to
pay the lady an annuity of forty pounds sterling for herself, and ten
pounds for their daughter so long as she should be alimented by her,
both to commence from the date of citation, and on the 11th
of May, they ordained him to pay her forty pounds of costs, and nearly
sixty pounds for extracting the decreet. Captain Cranstoun advocated
the case to the court of session, but he was equally unsuccessful
there. It seems that during the proceedings he courted a young lady in
Leicestershire, but all hopes of a union with her were put a stop to,
when the match was nearly concluded, on the lady’s friends hearing
that he was already married. About the year 1746, having gone to
Henley to recruit, Miss Mary Blandy, the daughter of a retired
attorney at Reading, possessing, according to report, ten thousand
pounds, fell in love with him, and as her father disapproved of the
captain’s addresses, on account of his having a wife alive in his
native country, she poisoned him on the 5th of August 1751,
with some powder which Capt. Cranstoun had sent her from Scotland, in
a packet containing Scots pebbles, and labelled “to clean pebbles
with,” having mixed it in his gruel. For this heinous crime she was
tried at Oxford in February 1752, and being found guilty she was
hanged on the Castle green of that city, on the 6th of
April thereafter. In Miss Blandy’s statement after her condemnation,
she alleged that the powders were sent to her by her lover to be given
to her father as love-potions, to make him kind to them both, and
induce him to consent to their marriage, and that he had written to
her that he had consulted a Mrs. Morgan, “a cunning woman” in
Scotland, who had assured him that they would have that effect, which
she thoroughly believed. There does not appear to have been any
grounds for supposing that the captain was in any way accessary to the
murder. He died 2d December 1752, a few months after Miss Blandy’s
execution.
His younger
brother, the Hon. George Cranstoun of Longwarton, the seventh son of
the fifth Lord Cranstoun, married Maria, daughter of Thomas Brisbane
of Brisbane, in Ayrshire, and had by her, two sons and three
daughters. He died at Edinburgh 30th December 1788. The
second son, George Cranstoun, was an eminent judge of the court of
session, under the judicial title of Lord Corehouse. He was originally
designed for the army, but studied the law. He passed advocate, 2d
February 1793, was appointed one of the depute advocates in 1805, and
sheriff depute of the county of Sutherland in 1806. He was chosen dean
of the faculty of advocates, 15th November 1823, and
elevated to the bench, on the death of Lord Hermand in 1826, from
which he retired in 1839. His title was taken from his seat near the
celebrated fall of Corra linn in Clydesdale, one of the most beautiful
and romantic places in Lanarkshire, where he was visited by Sir Walter
Scott in 1827. His acquaintance with the author of Waverley began in
the winter of 1788, when they were both students of civil law in the
university of Edinburgh, and their intimacy lasted during life. When
practising at the bar, Mr. Cranstoun was the author of the celebrated
jeu d’esprit, entitled the “Diamond Beetle Case,” (inserted in
Kay’s Edinburgh Portraits, vol. i. pp. 384-387,) in which the judicial
style and peculiar manner of several of the judges, in delivering
their opinions, are most happily imitated. He was a superior Greek
scholar, which rendered him a great favourite with Lord Monboddo, who
used to declare that Cranstoun was the only scholar in all Scotland.
Lord Corehouse was an excellent judge and a first-rate lawyer,
especially in all feudal questions.
His eldest
sister, Margaret Nicolson, married, 25th February 1780,
William Cuninghame of Lainshaw, in Ayrshire. The second, Jane Anne,
afterwards countess of Purgstall, was an early confident and
correspondent of Sir Walter Scott. She was the first person to whom,
in April 1796, he read the manuscript of his first published piece,
the translation of Burger’s Lenore, and she early predicted his
poetical excellence; writing to a friend in the country at that
period, she said, “Walter Scott is going to turn out a poet –
something of a cross, I think, between Burns and Gray.” On the 23d
June 1797 she married Godfrey Winceslaus, count of Purgstall, a German
nobleman who had been some time residing in Edinburgh. He was a count
of the Holy Roman empire, of noble and ancient descent, and possessed
large estates in the province of Styria. “This lady,” says Lockhart in
his Life of Scott (under date 1821,) “had undergone domestic
afflictions more than sufficient to have crushed almost any spirit but
her own. Her husband, the count Purgstall, had died some years before
this time, leaving her an only son, a youth of the most amiable
disposition, and possessing abilities which, had he lived to develop
them, must have secured for him a high station in the annals of
genius. This hope of her eyes, the last heir of an illustrious
lineage, followed his father to the tomb in the nineteenth year of his
age. The desolate countess was urged by her family in Scotland to
return, after this bereavement, to her native country, but she had
vowed to her son on his deathbed, that one day her dust should be
mingled with his, and no argument could induce her to depart from the
resolution of remaining in solitary Styria. By her desire, a valued
friend of the house of Purgstall, who had been born and bred up on
their estates, the celebrated orientalist Joseph Von Hammer, compiled
a little memoir of ‘The two last Counts of Purgstall,’ which he put
forth in January 1821, under the title of ‘Denkmahl,’ or Monument.”
The copy of a letter of acknowledgment of the receipt of this work by
Sir Walter Scott to the countess, but which by some inadvertence was
never sent, will be found in Lockhart’s Life of Scott. An account of a
Visit to the Countess de Purgstall during the last months of her life
by Captain Basil Hall, has been published. See his Schloss
Hainfeld. Of Helen d’Arcy, Lord Corehouse’s youngest sister, the
wife of Professor Dugald Stewart, a notice follows.
James, sixth
Lord Cranstoun, succeeded his father in 1727, and died at London 4th
July 1773. He married Sophia, daughter of Jeremiah Brown of Abscourt
in Surrey, with whom he obtained twelve thousand pounds, and she
afterwards succeeded to a larger fortune. She had an estate in the
West Indies, and a jointure of seven hundred pounds. Her ladyship
remained only four months a widow, as she took for her second husband,
on 10th November, 1773, Michael Lade, Esq., councillor at
law, and died 26th October 1799. By this lady, Lord
Cranstoun had five sons and two daughters. The eldest, William, and
the third, James, successively enjoyed the title. The Hon. George
Cranstoun, the fifth son, born in 1761, was captain of an independent
company of foot in Africa, which was reduced in 1783. In 1795 he
became captain in the 131st foot, was appointed major of a
West India regiment in 1796, and the same year was promoted to the
lieutenant-coloneley of that corps. In 1801 he was appointed
lieutenant-colonel of the 64th regiment of foot, which
regiment he commanded at the capture of Surinam in May 1804, when he
was wounded. He had the rank of colonel in the army 1st
January 1805, and died at Surinam, 8th March 1806, in his
45th year, unmarried.
William,
seventh Lord Cranstoun, the eldest son, born at Crailing, 3d
September, 1749, succeeded his father in 1773, and died unmarried at
London, 1st August 1778, aged 29.
His brother
James, the third son, eighth Lord Cranstoun, was a distinguished naval
officer. He was born in 1755, and had the rank of lieutenant in the
royal navy,, 19th October 1776, and of captain, 31st
January 1780. He commanded the Bellequieux, of 64 guns, in the
engagements between Sir Samuel Hood and the Count de Grasse, off St.
Christophers, 25th and 26th January, 1782. After
the victory over De Grasse gained by Admiral Lord Rodney, 12th
April 1782, he was sent home with the despatches announcing it, in
which his lordship declared that Lord Cranstoun had acted as one of
the captains of the Formidable during both actions, and that he was
much indebted to his gallant behaviour, on both occasions. He
commanded the Bellerophon in Admiral Cornwallis’ squadron, 17th
June 1795, when, with five ships of the line and two frigates, he
sustained an attack of the French fleet, of thirteen ships of the
line, seven frigates, seven rasees and two brigs, and obliged them to
give over, after a running fight of twelve hours, wherein eight ships
of the line were so shattered that they could not engage any longer.
In his despatches the admiral stated that he considered the
Bellerophon as a treasure in store, having heard of her former
achievements, and observing the spirit manifested by all on board,
joined to the activity and zeal showed by Lord Cranstoun during the
whole cruise. The thanks of parliament were, on 17th
November 1795, voted to the admiral, captains, &c., “for the skill,
judgment, and determined bravery displayed on this occurrence, which
reflected as much credit as the achievement of a victory.” In 1706 his
lordship was appointed governor of Grenada and vice-admiral of that
island, but before he could set out to his government, he died at
Bishop’s Waltham in Hampshire, 22d September 1796, in the forty-second
year of his age. His death was occasioned by drinking cyder
impregnated with sugar of lead, from being made in a leaden cistern.
He was buried in the garrison chapel at Portsmouth. His character,
both as a man and a naval officer, was most honourable. The
contemporary journals said that “his death would be felt as a public
loss by those who knew his professional merits, and will be long and
deeply lamented by all who were acquainted with his exemplary worth in
private life.” He married at Darnhall, 19th August 1792,
Elizabeth, youngest daughter of Lieutenant-colonel Lewis Charles
Montolieu, sister of Lady Elibank, but had no issue by her. She died
at Bath, 27th August, 1797, aged twenty-seven. His lordship
was succeeded by his nephew, James Edward, ninth Lord Cranstoun, the
son of the Hon. Charles Cranstoun, (who died in November 1790,) fourth
son of the sixth lord by his wife, Elizabeth Turner, of the county of
Worcester.
James
Edward, the ninth lord, married at the Retreat in St. Christophers, 25th
August, 1807, Anne Linnington, eldest daughter of John Macnamara, Esq.
of that island, by whom he had two sons and two daughters, and died 5th
September 1818.
His elder
son, also named James Edward, tenth Lord Cranstoun, born 12th
August, 1809, is unmarried. His brother, the Hon. Charles Frederick
Cranstoun, born in 1813, is the heir presumptive.
CRANSTOUN, HELEN
D’ARCY,
authoress of the beautiful and pathetic song of ‘The tears I shed must
ever fall,’ was the third daughter of the Hon. George Cranstoun,
youngest son of William, fifth Lord Cranstoun, and was born in 1765.
On the 26th of July 1790 she became the second wife of
Dugald Stewart, of Catrine, Ayrshire, professor of moral philosophy in
the university of Edinburgh, and died at Warriston House, in the
neighbourhood of Edinburgh, 28th July 1838. A copy of
verses, attributed to her, beginning “Returning spring, with gladsome
ray,” which breathe the same strain of tender feeling as her justly
admired song, ‘The tears I shed,’ is inserted among the Notes to
Johnson’s Musical Museum, last edition.
