Jean Hay, the daughter of Lord Yester by the heiress of Smithfield, married George Broun of Coalstoun, and received as her dowry the famous enchanted pear, which is still preserved in the family. (See THE RAMSAYS, i. 314.)

JOHN, fourth Lord Yester, was taken prisoner at the battle of Pinkie, 10th September, 1547, was carried to the Tower of London, and was not restored to liberty until peace was concluded in the year 1550. He died in 1557.

JOHN, fifth Lord Yester, was deprived by James V. of his sheriff-ship in consequence of his brother, Hay of Smithfield, having allowed a Border freebooter to escape out of prison; but he appealed to the Council against this arbitrary act of the King, and was restored in his office. Though Lord Yester had supported the Reformation, and was one of the nobles who subscribed the ‘Book of Discipline,’ 27th January, 1561, he espoused the cause of Queen Mary, was present with her forces at Carberry Hill in 1567, and fought on her side at the battle of Langside in 1568. He was one of the noblemen who, in 1570, signed a letter to the English queen, Elizabeth, in behalf of Queen Mary, whom Elizabeth had held for three years in captivity. He died in 1576, leaving two sons and four daughters by his wife, a daughter of Sir John Kerr of Ferniehirst. The Kers of Ferniehirst were noted even among the Border clans for their fierce and sanguinary spirit. Sir John was ‘art and part’ in the murder of Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch, in the High Street of Edinburgh. The account which De Beaugue gives in his ‘Memoirs’ of the cruel treatment of the English garrison, when Sir John, with the assistance of the French troops under D’ Esse, retook his castle of Ferniehirst in 1549, is shocking in the extreme. Lord Yester’s eldest son and successor—

WILLIAM, sixth Lord Yester, seems to have inherited the fierce and turbulent spirit of his maternal ancestors, for he was noted even in those troublous times for his turbulence and violence. On the 30th of April, 1585, a complaint was made against him, before the Privy Council, by John Livingstone of Belstane, in the parish of Carluke, on the ground of a violent attack made upon him by Lord Yester, which put him in peril of his life. One morning, he alleges, he left his home before sunrise, meaning no harm to anyone, and expecting none to himself. He was walking out, ‘under God’s peace and the King’s,’ when suddenly he was beset by about forty people, who had him at feud, ‘all bodin in feir of weir;’ namely, armed with jacks, steel bonnets, spears, lances, staffs, bows, hagbuts, pistolets, and other invasive weapons forbidden by the laws. At the head of them was William, Master of Yester (a denounced rebel on account of his slaughter of the Laird of Yesterhall’s servant), Alexander Jardine, younger, of Applegarth, and a number of other individuals, all mentioned by name, all of them persons of good position and influence. Having come for the purpose of attacking Livingstone, they no sooner saw him than they set upon him with discharge of their firearms, to deprive him of his life. He narrowly escaped, and ran back to his house, which they immediately environed in the most furious manner, firing in at the windows, and through every aperture, for a space of three’ hours. A ‘bullon’ pierced his hat. As they departed they met his wife and daughter, whom they abused shamefully. The perpetrators of these barbarities and violent deeds were all denounced as rebels by the Privy Council, a sentence which they seem to have regarded very lightly.

In the following year (October 8th) the Master of Yester is once more brought before the council, on a complaint made by Sir John Stewart of Traquair, and his brother, James Stewart of Shillinglaw, lieutenant of his Majesty’s guard. They set forth, in the first place, how it is well known of Sir John Stewart that, ‘having his dwelling-place on the south side of Tweed, in a room [place] subject to the invasions of the thieves and broken men of the Borders, and lying betwixt them and sundry his Majesty’s true liges, whom commonly they harry and oppress, have at all times himself, his brother, his friends and neighbours assisting him, dwelling betwixt the burgh of Peebles and Gaithopeburn, resistit the stouthreif and oppressions of the said thieves and broken men, to the comfort and relief of many true men, in whilk course they intend, God willing, to continue to their lives’ end.’ Of late, however, they declare ‘they have been and is gretumly hindered therein, by reason that William, Master of Yester, by the causing, direction, at least owersight and tolerance, of William Lord Hay of Yester, his father, sheriff of Peebles and provost of the burgh of Peebles (wha by the laws of this realme aucht to mak his said son answerable,’ but had ‘placit him in the principal house and strength of Neidpath,’ though he had been denounced rebel for nearly the space of a year ‘for his inobedience to underlie the laws’ till within the last few days that he obtained relaxation) . . . had in the meantime ‘not only usurpit, and taken on him the charge of the sheriffship of Peebles, and provostry of the burgh thereof, but ane absolute command to proclaim and hold wappinshawings at times na wise appointit by his hieness’ direction, to banish and give up kindness to all persons, in burgh or land, where he pleases, to tak up men’s gear under pretence of unlaws fra wappinshawings or other unnecessar causings, never being lawfully callit nor convenit; . . . and forder it is well knawn to sundry of the lords of Secret Council that the said Master sought the life of the said James Stewart, and daily shores and boasts [threatens and vaunts] to slay him and all others of his kin, friends, allies, assisters, and partakers.’ On the petition of the complainers, the Council heard parties, the peccant Master appearing for himself and in excuse for his father, who was sick and unable to travel. The case was remitted to the judgment of the Court of Session, to be decided by them as they might think proper. Meanwhile the Master was enjoined to desist from molesting the Stewarts and their friends and dependents between this and the 8th of January next.

On the 20th April, 1587, it is stated that the King had dealt with these hostile parties, and had arranged letters of affirmance between them, in order to secure peace for the future; but the Master of Yester had refused to subscribe. For his refractory behaviour he was threatened with being denounced a rebel. On the 12th of May the King ordered him to enter in ward north of the Tay, and there remain till liberated; and a few weeks later, on this order not being complied with, the Master was denounced rebel, and all persons were forbidden to assist or receive him.

It was shortly after this fruitless effort to heal the feud between the Hays and Stewarts that King James made his memorable attempt to induce the whole nobility, convened for the purpose at Edinburgh, to bury in oblivion their mutual animosities, and to promise that they would henceforth live together in amity. After a banquet at Holyrood, they were made to march in procession hand-in-hand to the Cross of Edinburgh, and there, in the presence of the King and a great concourse of the citizens, to drink to each other, and to pledge their faith that they would be friends. The Master of Yester alone declined to comply with the King’s earnest request, and refused to be reconciled to Stewart of Traquair. He was committed to the castle for his contumacy, and after a few months’ imprisonment he at last yielded. The whole circumstances connected with this affair throw great light both on the character of the Scottish nobility of that day, and on the lawless state of the country, when the son of a peer of the realm, and the sheriff of the county, robbed the people of their goods under the pretext that they had refused to attend meetings illegally convened by his own authority.

It is a curious and instructive fact that Father Hay, in his ‘Genealogie of the Hays of Tweeddale,’ written a century later, precisely reverses the character and objects of this quarrel. The Master of Yester, whose nickname it seems was Wood-sword, is described by him as a vigorous supporter of the laws, and a scourge of the thieves and broken men who infested the Borders; while the Stewarts of Traquair were their friends and protectors. The Master, he affirms, captured and hanged a great number of them, and in pursuing them received a wound in the face. Father Hay admits that the Master was at feud with the house of Traquair, but asserts that it was because they ‘seconded’ the moss-troopers. ‘King James VI.,’ he continues, ‘being desirous to have this feud taken away, as all others of the country, and he refusing was committed to the castle of Edinburgh, out of which he made his escape, and immediately made some new inroad against the thieves, of whom he killed a great many, in a place called from thence the Bloody Haugh, near Riskinhope, in Rodonna; whereupon King James was pleased to make a hunting journey, and came to the house of Neidpath, whither the King called Traquair, with his two sons, who made to Lord Yester acknowledgement for the wrong they had done him, and thus peace was made by the King. This was witnessed by one William Geddes, who was my lord’s butler, and lived till the year 1632.'

This account of the cause of the feud between these two powerful Border families is no doubt in accordance with the version of it which was traditionary among the Hays, but it is unfortunately at variance with the judicial records of the country. It is not improbable, however, that the reconciliation, which was undoubtedly effected by the King, took place at Neidpath.

Lord Yester was one of the nobles engaged in the Raid of Ruthven in 1582, and was in consequence obliged to take refuge in the Low Countries. He returned in 1585, and died in 1591, leaving six daughters, but no son, by his wife, a daughter of Lord Herries. He was succeeded by his brother— JAMES, seventh Lord Yester, who obtained from James VI. a charter to him and to his heirs male of the lordship and barony of Yester, containing a new creation. The charter is dated 1591, but it had not passed the seals when his brother died, and Father Hay asserts the Chancellor Maitland extorted from Lord Yester the superiority of Lethington, and the lands of Haystoun, near Haddington, before he would pass it. Lord Yester resided at Neidpath Castle like his predecessors. At this time his wife—Lady Margaret Kerr, a daughter of the Earl of Lothian—had brought him no family, and his presumptive heir was his second cousin, Hay of Smithfield. In connection with this state of matters, a singular incident occurred— a public judicial combat on Edston-haugh, on the north bank of the Tweed, near Neidpath—the last of the kind in Scotland.

Lord Yester had for his page one George Hepburn, brother of the parson of Oldhamstocks, in East Lothian. His master of the horse was John Brown of Hartree. One day Brown, in conversation with Hepburn, remarked, ‘Your father had good knowledge of physic; I think you should have some also.’ ‘What mean ye by that?’ said Hepburn. ‘You might have great advantage of something,’ answered Brown. On being further questioned, the latter stated that, seeing Lord Yester had no children, and Hay of Smithfield came next in the entail, it was only necessary to give the former a suitable dose to make the latter Lord Yester. ‘If you,’ continued Brown, ‘could give him some poison, you should be nobly rewarded, you and yours.’ ‘Methinks that were no good physic,’ quoth Hepburn, drily, and soon after revealed the project to his lord. Brown, on being taxed with it, stood stoutly on his denial. Hepburn strongly insisted that the proposal had been made to him. In these circumstances it was resolved that a passage of arms should be held between the two, in order to determine the dispute.

‘The two combatants were to fight in their doublets, mounted, with spears and swords. Some of the greatest men in the country took part in the affair, and honoured it with their presence. The Laird of Buccleuch appeared as judge for Brown; Hepburn had on his part the Laird of Cessford. The Lords Yester and Newbottle were amongst those officiating. When all was ready, the two combatants rode full tilt against each other with their spears, when Brown missed Hepburn, and was thrown from his horse, with his adversary’s weapon through his body. Having grazed his thigh in the charge, Hepburn did not immediately follow up his advantage, but suffered Brown to lie unharmed on the ground. ‘Fy!’ cried one of the judges; ‘alight, and take amends of thy enemy!’ He then advanced on foot, with his sword in his hand, to Brown, and commanded him to confess the truth. ‘Stay,’ cried Brown, ‘till I draw the broken spear out of my body.’ This being done, Brown suddenly drew his sword and struck at Hepburn, who for some time was content to ward off his blows, but at last dealt him a backward wipe across the face, when the wretched man, blinded with blood, fell to the ground. The judges then interposed to prevent him being further punished by Hepburn, but he resolutely refused to make any confession.

Lord Yester, after this incident, had by Lady Margaret, ‘who was ane active woman, and did mutch for the standing of the familie,’ three sons and a daughter—John, his successor; William, who was the ancestor of the Hays of Linplum; and Robert, who died young. It was this Lady Yester who in her widowhood erected the church in Edinburgh which bears and perpetuates her name.

JOHN, eighth Lord Yester, and first Earl of Tweeddale, was noted for his sagacity and active business habits. He took a prominent part in resisting the attempts of James VI. and Charles I. to alter and injure the constitution of the Presbyterian Church. He opposed the Five Articles of Perth, which were most obnoxious to the people of Scotland, and voted against them in the Parliament of 1621. He was equally hostile to the Act passed in 1633, for regulating the apparel of ecclesiastics, which he saw was intended to prepare the way for further and more offensive innovations—a step which made the King withhold from him at that time the dignity of an earl. He took part, also, in the resistance which was made in 1637 to the introduction of the new liturgy framed by Charles. When the Covenanters took up arms in 1639, in defence of their rights and liberties, Lord Yester was appointed to the command of one of the regiments in the Scottish army. On the breaking out of the second war, Lord Yester accompanied the forces under General Leslie in their march into England, and was present at the siege of Newcastle, but refused to accept of any command. Lord Yester was raised to the rank of Earl of Tweeddale by King Charles when he sought refuge in the Scottish camp in 1646. The pecuniary embarrassments which proved so troublesome to his son and successor, and so injurious to the family estates, were caused by the improvidence of this Earl, and the obligations which he undertook for his nephew, the Earl of Dunfermline, ‘a young man,’ says Father Hay, ‘much inclined to all sorts of gaming, and careless of his business.’ Lord Yester’s mother had contracted a second marriage with the Master of Jedburgh, ‘with whom her sone was necessitated to enter into a treatie and composition for payment of fortie thousand merks in money, and ane annuity of eight thousand merks by year, which, with the burthens of the family, which were not small, and debts contracted by himself in his travels abroad, and courtship at home, he was necessitat to sell the barony of Swed in the sheriffdome of Dumfreese, which came in by the Cunninghams; with Beltoun, and the barony of Arthearmoor, reserving only the superiority.’ He purchased the barony of Drumelzier, an ancient possession of the Tweedies, on which he had heavy mortgages, and assigned it to his second son, Lord William Hay. From him it passed by inheritance to the Hays of Dunse Castle, with whom it remained till disposed of in 1831.

In the latter years of Lord Tweeddale, when enfeebled by illness, the honour of the family was sustained by his eldest son, Lord Yester, who fortified his castle of Neidpath against the forces of the Commonwealth, when Cromwell invaded Scotland. A detachment of troops, probably commanded by Major-General Lambert, besieged Neidpath, and by battering down the old peel, which was attached to the fortress, and was its weakest part, compelled the garrison to surrender.

The Earl was twice married, first to Lady Jane Seton, daughter of the first Earl of Dunfermline, his brother-in-law, by whom he had one son, John; and secondly, to Lady Margaret Montgomery, eldest daughter of the sixth Earl of Eglintoun, who bore to him four sons and three daughters, but they all died in childhood, except one son, William. The Earl was present at the coronation of Charles II. in 1650, and survived till 1654.

JOHN, second Earl of Tweeddale, was born in 1626. He spent his early years in London, with his relatives, the Earls of Rothes and Dunfermline, and when only sixteen years of age he repaired to the standard of Charles I., raised at Nottingham, at the commencement of the Great Civil War. His father, however, at this juncture carried him to Scotland, and in the following year he was appointed to the command of a regiment in the army levied by the Covenanters for the assistance of the Parliament in the contest with the King. He took part in the battle of Marston Moor, which was so fatal to the royal cause. But after the designs of the Republicans became apparent, Lord Tweeddale withdrew from their party, and waited on the King when he took refuge in the Scottish camp at Newcastle. He joined the army of the ‘Engagement’ raised for his rescue, and fought at Preston in 1648 at the head of the East Lothian Regiment, twelve hundred strong. More fortunate than most of the other leaders in that ill-devised and badly managed enterprise, he made his escape when the troops in the town were compelled to surrender, and returned in safety to Scotland. He attended Charles II when he came from the Continent for the purpose of vindicating his claim to the throne of his ancestors, and was present at his coronation in 1657. The Earl does not appear, however, to have been appointed to any command in the forces under General Leslie, and did not accompany them in their march into England, which terminated so disastrously at Worcester. When all opposition to the sway of Cromwell had ceased, ‘the usurpers,’ as Father Hay says, ‘being absolut masters of the countrey, he was necessitat to live under their protection, having a numerous family of childring, as all others at that time did who were not prisoners.’ His lordship, however, yielded something more than mere passive obedience to the Commonwealth, for he consented, in 1655 to represent the county of East Lothian in Cromwell’s Parliament.

The relations in which Lord Tweeddale stood to the Protector are made apparent by the following letter which appeared in No. 2 of the Public Inlelligencer, a newspaper published at the time in London. It was, according to the heading, written ‘by the Lord Tweeddale, a Scottish Lord, to his Highness, upon occasion of a pamphlet that was published a while since, wherein the said Tweeddale’s name was mentioned, which pamphlet was entituled, "A Short Discovery of his Highness the Lord Protector’s intentions touching the Anabaptists in the Army," upon which there are thirty-five queries propounded for his Highness to answer:-

‘Amongst the bad accidents of my life (as who will excuse himself) I count it not a small one, that my name is used to a Forgery, wherein many bitter expressions is cast upon your Highness, and the present Government; and though God has raised your thoughts above the considerations of such, that possibly it neither has nor should come to your knowledge, but for my boldness in the way I take to vindicate myself, and bear testimony against such an untruth as is contained in a printed paper relating to a discourse of your Highness to me, the falsehood of the thing being sufficiently known to your Highness. All I say for myself is, that if I had been a persone to whom your Highness had communicat any purpose of importance in reference to the Government, I wold not have been so unworthy of your favour as to have divulged it without your Highness’ order of licens, much less to the prejudice of the peace and quiet of the people, or fomenting the jealousies of any. I beseech your Highness to give this charity to my discretione; a good consciens I desire to keep towards all men, and likewise excuse the presumption of

‘Your Highness’ most dutiful and humble servant,

‘TWEEDDALE.’

Lord Tweeddale had succeeded his father in the previous year. He had been reduced to great straits in consequence of his having become security for the debts of his uncle, the Earl of Dunfermline. ‘He was forced sometimes to flee his house, and for the most part necessitat to stay att Edinburgh to keep his credit, most of the estate being wadsett [mortgaged] and comprisd; and he, haveing only his relief out of Dunfermlyn’s, was forced to have led comprisings, and used all other diligence against it, which occasioned the Earle of Kalendar to enter into a treatie with him for dividing the debt, and the relief, which continued till 1654, that his father died.’ At a later period these responsibilities brought upon the Earl no little trouble and pecuniary loss.

At the Restoration, Lord Tweeddale, who was at that time in London, waited upon Charles II. as soon as he arrived in England, and was cordially received by him. The King ‘was pleased,’ says Father Hay, ‘as a mark of his favour to change the holding of the greatest part of his estate from ward to blench, and to name him one of his Privy Council.’

But Lord Tweeddale’s loyalty was entirely free from that mingled fawning upon the King and violence against the Covenanters, which was exhibited by the courtiers of that day; and in the Parliament of 1661 he stood alone in opposing the passing the sentence of death upon the Rev. James Guthrie of Stirling, for having declined the authority of the King in ecclesiastical affairs. It is alleged that some remarks which he made were misrepresented to the King by Middleton, and he was in consequence (September 14th) committed a prisoner, by royal warrant, to the castle of Edinburgh. He was liberated, however, on the 4th of October, on giving security to the amount of £10,000 Scots that he would appear when called upon; but was required to confine himself for six months to his own house. In some unknown way, probably through his insinuating address, when the Earl repaired to Court, he was again received into royal favour, and in 1666 was appointed one of the Extraordinary Lords of Session. In the following year he was nominated one of the Commissioners of the Treasury, and in 1668 became a member of the English Privy Council. He was a strenuous advocate of milder measures with the Covenanters, and employed his influence with the King in favour of the Indulgence which was issued in 1669, granting permission, under certain conditions, to the ejected Presbyterian ministers to exercise the functions of their office. He held interviews with some of these ministers, in order to ascertain whether some terms of accommodation could not be framed which they could accept. With the assistance of Sir Robert Murray, the Earl succeeded in putting the public finances on a satisfactory footing, and in paying off the old debts which the King had contracted in Scotland. It was through Tweeddale’s influence also that, after the suppression of the Pentland rising, the standing army was reduced to a small reserve force, greatly to the dissatisfaction of the prelates, as well as of the military officers.

The success of these measures and the popularity which they gained for the Earl roused the jealousy of Lauderdale, who was President of the Council and First Commissioner of the Treasury, and his alienation was manifested by his underhand efforts to defeat the project which Tweeddale had formed to bring about a union of the two kingdoms. He also changed the destination of his estates, which had been settled upon his only child, who had married the Earl of Tweeddale’s son, and were to descend to the second son of that marriage. At this time Lauderdale’s wife died, and six weeks after her death he married the notorious Countess of Dysart, who, to serve her own purposes, induced him to quarrel with his best friends. Among others, Lord Tweeddale was dismissed from all his offices, and was even deprived of his seat in the Privy Council. Lauderdale’s enmity induced him to stir up the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth to commence a suit for a reduction of the settlement made with them by the Earl, with consent of their curators, and ratified by a decreet of the Lords, in connection with the Buccleuch estates, which were entailed upon Lady Tweeddale, a sister of Earl Francis, failing heirs of the Earl’s own body. The King had bound himself as administrator for his son, the Duke of Monmouth, for the fulfilment of this contract. Notwithstanding, Lauderdale induced the Court to set aside this deed, and thus deprived his former friend of £4,000 sterling.

This injustice, Father Hay says, with the expense of three or four journeys to Court, and of two lawsuits, inflicted great loss on the Earl, ‘so that the Duke of Lauderdale may be justly said to have robbed the family of any benefit it had by his daughter’s tocher.’ He contrived also to deprive Tweeddale of the teinds of Pinkie, and to compel the Earl to repay him £1,000 sterling for the sums which he had received from them.

On the downfall of Lauderdale, in 1680, the Earl was restored to his office of Commissioner of the Treasury, and was readmitted a member of the Privy Council. He was continued in these offices by James VII., though he was well known to be averse to all measures of persecution. He was still harassed by the debts which he had incurred on account of his cautionary obligations for the Earl of Dunfermline, who seems to have been completely bankrupt. There is a curious printed document in the possession of the Marquis of Tweeddale, giving a full account of ‘the particular debts wherein the deceased Earl of Tweeddale was engaged for Charles Earl of Dunfermline, and which John, now Earl of Tweeddale, present Lord Chancellor, was obliged and necessitat to pay for preventing the ruine of his own family and fortune: With a distinct account what whereof was payed by intermission with the rents of Dunfermline’s estate, or by the sale of lands or other wayes; and how much ballance is yet resting to the Earl of Tweeddale of these debts.’ It appears from this detailed and minute account that the original amount due by the Earl of Dunfermline in 1650, for which the Earl of Tweeddale was responsible, was 176,808 3s. 9d Scots, to which had to be added £10,865 5s. 8d. for interest and sheriffs’ fees. The sale of lands belonging to Lord Dunfermline, and the purchase from him of the estate of Pinkie, at one time considerably reduced the amount of the debt, but it mounted up again until, at Whitsunday, 1691, there was due of principal and interest the sum of about £24,220 sterling, exclusive of the sheriffs’ fees, which amounted to £122 5s. sterling. It was further alleged that ‘albeit the Earl of Tweeddale paid to the Earl of Dunfermline a very great and exorbitant price for the lands of Pinkie and the teinds thereof,’ the Duke of Lauderdale succeeded in obtaining a decreet of eviction of these teinds before the Court of Session, and repayment of the sums which Lord Tweeddale had received from them, and that amount, together with the rent of the teinds for four years, during which they were possessed by Lauderdale, making in all upwards of £1,513 lost to Tweeddale, besides the loss entailed upon him by the failure of tenants and ‘the bad payment of teinds and feu duties,’ estimated at £166. It was stated in conclusion that ‘the yearly rent of the estate which belonged to Dunfermline, and is now possessed by the Earl of Tweeddale, does not come near the interest of the ballance which is due. . . . And upon the whole matter it is clearly evident how great a loser the Earl of Tweeddale hath been, and is like still to be, of these debts which he is necessitat to pay for the Earl of Dunfermline, and whereof he can expect no adequate relief.’

Reference is made in this document to the sale of the Earl of Tweeddale’s ‘whole interest in the shire of Tweeddale,’ for the purpose of paying the Earl of Dunfermline’s debts. It is mentioned that the Tweeddale estate at that time yielded upwards of £1,300 sterling of yearly rent, and that it was sold at twenty years’ purchase. It appears, however, that the obligations under which the Earl had come for his kinsman were not the only cause of his embarrassments, for we learn on the same authority that he had an unfortunate taste for buying land beyond his means of payment. ‘The Earle of Tweeddale, haveing purchased the baronies of Linton and Newland, and contracting considerable debts for them, neare £10,000 sterling, which, with the old debts of the familie, and cautionrie for the Earle of Dunfermlyne, brought his debts to so immense a soume as att Whitsundey, 1686, he was necessitat to sell his whole estate and interest in Tweeddale to the Duke of Queensberry for about £280,000 pounds’ [Scots], a sum equal £23,333 6s. 8d. sterling. The sale of this fine estate, which is now worth £14,315 a year, brought to a close the connection of the Tweeddale family with Peeblesshire, which had lasted for nearly four hundred years.

The Earl of Tweeddale cordially concurred in the resolution adopted by the Convocation at the Revolution of 1688, that King James had forfeited the Crown, and that it ought to be offered to William and Mary. He was sworn a Privy Councillor 18th May, 1689. On the 7th of December following he was nominated one of the Lords of the Treasury, and on 5th January, 1692, he was appointed High Chancellor of Scotland. On 17th December, 1694, he was created Marquis of Tweeddale, Earl of Gifford, Viscount Walden, and Lord Hay of Yester. In a very critical state of public affairs, when inquiry had to be made into the massacre of Glencoe, the Marquis of Tweeddale was selected for the office of Lord High Commissioner to the Parliament which met at Edinburgh in 1695. In connection with that appointment of the Chancellor ‘to sit on the throne and hold the sceptre,’ Lord Macaulay says ‘he was a man grown old in business, well informed, prudent, humane, blameless in private life, and on the whole as respectable as any Scottish lord who had been long and deeply concerned in the politics of those troubled times.’ He discharged the delicate and difficult duties of his office with great prudence and impartiality. He was a member of the Commission appointed by King William to examine fully the whole circumstances of the massacre, and the report—in all probability his production—which they prepared and laid before Parliament, has been justly pronounced highly creditable to those who framed it: an excellent digest of evidence, clear, passionless, and austerely just.

But Lord Tweeddale was too patriotic to retain long the favour of a sovereign who knew little of Scotland, and regarded its welfare as a matter of secondary importance. When William Paterson projected a Scottish company for trading to Africa and the Indies, the High Commissioner gave the royal sanction to the Act by which it was established (26th June, 1695), in accordance with the unanimous wish of the legislature, which it was impossible for him to resist; and it was admitted even by Lord Macaulay, who strongly condemns the scheme, that the policy of the ‘shrewd, cautious old politician,’ was for the moment eminently successful, and soothed into good humour the Parliament which met burning with indignation. But when the English East India Company and Parliament were thrown into a frenzy of alarm by the Darien project, and both Houses addressed the Crown, complaining of the injury which would be inflicted on English commerce by this new Scottish corporation, William is reported to have said ‘that he had been ill served in Scotland; but he hoped that some remedies might be found to prevent the inconveniences that might arise from this Act.’ His Majesty showed his displeasure by immediately dismissing the Chancellor and the two secretaries from office.

Lord Tweeddale spent large sums of money in improving his estates, and he greatly enlarged and embellished the castle of Neidpath, the ancient residence of his family. He died in 1697, in the seventy-first year of his age, having had by his wife, daughter of the first Earl of Buccleuch, seven sons and two daughters. One of the latter became Countess of Roxburgh, the other was the Countess of March. Of his sons, two—the second and fourth—died young. David, the third, was the ancestor of the Hays of Belton; Alexander, the fifth, of the Hays of Spot. The eldest son—

JOHN, who was born in 1645, became second Marquis of Tweeddale. Father Hay gives a very naive account of the manner in which he became the son-in-law of the potent minister of Charles II. ‘Whilst Lord Yester,’ he says, ‘was going to France, he was engaged by the Earle of Lauderdale, and the means of Sir Robert Murray, to stop his journey, the plague being then in London, and to stay till he should be out of danger of abideing in France in quarantine; and in the meantime he was advised to writt to his father for his allowance to become a suitter to my Lord Lauderdale’s daughter, upon whom his whole estate was entailed. The Duke of Lauderdale, being the sole Secretarie and Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the King, and in greatest favour at Court, and showing to the youth his esteem and so great a passion and affection that he could deny him nothing, and underhand employing Yester’s friends and acquaintances, to compass a conclusion, the Lord Yester complied easily, and first allowed Sir Robert Murray to writt, and then writt himself, so that his father and mother were at length persuaded to condescend to the stop of his journey, and follow the youth’s inclination in that particular, every one representing that it was the greatest opportunity a man could wish of making a fortune, Lauderdale being a courteour, and Yester, by that means, in a way to share and become a partner of all his places and employments. Those weighty thoughts of makeing an assured fortune engadged Yester to press his father to come to London, and treat of the conditions. They were concluded with great advantage, if they had been kept by Lauderdale, and if he had not wronged the fortune and familie, and diffrauded his daughter and their childring of their right by the contract of marriage, some part whereof is yet subjudice. Lauderdale did then often profess that he was so well satisfied to have my Lord Yester for his goode sone, that he did absolutely forget that ever he had a sone to succeed him, and that the loss of his son was abundantly made up by this alliance. So the marriage was made publick, and the King delivered the bride.’

Lauderdale continued on the most friendly terms with his son-in-law and daughter until Lady Dysart obtained a complete ascendancy over him, and set herself, only too successfully, to alienate the savage old persecutor from his own family. It was no doubt at her instigation that, when his first wife was on her death-bed in France, he obtained a warrant from the French king to seize her jewels and plate. ‘Not satisfied therewith, he was no sooner arrived in Scotland than he sent his daughter and Yester a summons to hear and see it found by the Lords of Session that all my Lady Lauderdale’s plate and jewells, which he had seased by warrand, were exhausted by debts. This summons occasioned so much grief and trouble to his daughter, that she contracted thereby a melancholy, whereof she never recovered.’ So bitter was the enmity of this rapacious Duchess to her husband’s son-in-law, that, no doubt through her means, he dismissed him from the Council, and deprived him of the command of the East Lothian militia regiment. Disheartened by this unworthy and unnatural treatment, Lord Yester travelled in France and Italy for two years, but on his return ‘he found Lauderdale as badly disposed against him as before, and so continued till the day of his death, which happened anno 1681.’

After the sinister influence of Lauderdale was at an end, Lord Yester was restored, in 1683, to his seat in the Council, and in the descent upon Scotland by the Earl of Argyll in 1685, he was appointed to the command of the regiment raised in East Lothian to assist in the suppression of. the rebellion. Like his father, he cordially concurred in the Revolution of 1688. He was sworn a privy councillor of the new sovereigns, and appointed Sheriff of East Lothian. In the Parliament of 1695, of which his father was Lord High Commissioner, Lord Yester sat and voted as High Treasurer of Scotland. He succeeded to the family titles and estates in 1697, and was continued a member of the Privy Council by Queen Anne in 1702. Prior to the opening of the parliamentary session of 1703, the Marquis of Tweeddale and the Duke of Hamilton, accompanied by the Earls of Marischal and Rothes, made a personal application to her Majesty for the dissolution of the Parliament, which was virtually the Convention of Estates that had framed the Revolution settlement. They contended that by the fundamental laws and constitution of the kingdom ‘all parliaments do dissolve by the death of the king or queen.’ Anne, however, issued a proclamation for the assembling of Parliament in the usual manner. When it met, Hamilton and Tweeddale protested against anything that might be done by it, and left the meeting, followed by about eighty of their adherents. The Court, though very angry at this step, felt it necessary to give way, as the country party not only disputed the authority of the ‘Rump,’ as the remnant were termed, but began to refuse payment of the taxes which they imposed. A new Parliament was accordingly summoned, in which a strong party, led by the Marquis of Tweeddale, who were hostile to the proposed union of the two kingdoms, insisted on indemnification for the losses sustained by the Darien expedition, and on the punishment of the authors and agents in the massacre of Glencoe. The Marquis was appointed Lord High Commissioner to the Parliament, which, 5th August, 1704, passed the famous ‘Act for the Security of the Kingdom.’ On the 17th of October, the same year, he was appointed to the office held by his father, that of High Chancellor of Scotland, in the room of the Earl of Seafield, but on a change of Ministry he was displaced, on the 9th of March, 1705, and Seafield was reinstated in his office. In the Parliament which passed the Treaty of Union the Marquis of Tweed-dale was the head of a party who held a middle position between the supporters of the Government and the Jacobites. Occupying an independent position, they did not adhere steadily to either party, but shifted from side to side according to circumstances. Hence they were termed by the Jacobites the ‘Squadrone Volante,’ or flying squadron. The intrigues that were carried on at this time in the Scottish Parliament, at the last stage of its existence, were endless, and by no means creditable either to the integrity, or the patriotism of the great body of the members. The leader of the ‘Squadrone Volante,’ however, was too sagacious to accede to the proposal of the Jacobites that he should unite with them against the Court. He declared that the object for which his followers had been formed—to mediate between the contending parties in Parliament, and to support only those measures which were likely to be most beneficial to the country—made it impossible for him to co-operate with the enemies of the Revolution settlement. The Marquis and his ‘squadron,’ therefore, supported the Union, which without their aid could not have been carried. He was one of the sixteen Scottish peers chosen to represent the nobility in the British Parliament in 1707. He died at Yester, 20th April, 1713, in the sixty-first year of his age.

Mackay, in his curious contemporary work entitled ‘Memoirs,’ describes Lord Tweeddale as ‘a great encourager and promoter of trade and the welfare of his country.’ ‘He hath good sense,’ he adds, ‘is very modest, much a man of honour, and hot when piqued; is highly esteemed in his country, and may make a considerable figure in it now. He is a short, brown man towards sixty years old.’ Scott of Satchells, in his dedication to the Marquis of his ‘History of the House of Scott,’ compliments him on his poetical abilities. He is the author of the original song entitled ‘Tweedside,’ which must have been written at Neidpath before 1697.

Notwithstanding the dilapidation of the Duke of Lauderdale’s property by his rapacious duchess, and the jeremiad of Father Hay over the manner in which the Duke ‘robbed the family of any benefit of his daughter’s tocher,’ it appears that her husband inherited of the Lauderdale estates the barony of Steads, comprising the farms of Snowdon, Carfrae, and Danskine, which still belong to the family, though this was a small portion compared with the property which might have been expected with the lady who, at the time of her marriage, was reputed the greatest heiress of her day in Scotland.

The Marquis had three sons by Lady Anne Maitland, and two daughters. The eldest son, Charles, succeeded him. The second, Lord John Hay, a distinguished military officer, was colonel of the Royal Scots Greys, fought at the battle of Ramilies, and attained the rank of brigadier-general. The grandson of Lord William, the third son, became seventh Marquis of Tweeddale.

CHARLES, third Marquis, was appointed, in 1714, President of the Court of Police, and Lord-Lieutenant of Haddingtonshire. He was chosen one of the sixteen representative peers, 3rd March, 1715, and died on the 17th of December following. He married Lady Susan Hamilton, second daughter of the Duke of Hamilton, and by her had four sons and four daughters. The third son, Lord Charles Hay, entered the army, served at the siege of Gibraltar, and fought at Fontenoy, where he was wounded. He was appointed aide-decamp to the King in March, 1749, and major-general in February, 1757. Three months after receiving this promotion he was sent out to America as second in command under General Hopson. The Earl of Loudon, commander-in-chief there, was a weak and irresolute man. He had eleven thousand soldiers under him, supported by thirty-three ships of war and ten thousand two hundred seamen, with whom he was to undertake an expedition against Louisberg. But on receiving some exaggerated reports of the French force, he lost heart and gave orders to retreat. ‘He is like St. George upon the sign-posts,’ said a Philadelphian to Dr. Franklin, ‘always on horseback but never advances.’ When Lord Charles Hay arrived at Halifax, he found the incapable commander idly amusing himself by employing the powerful force entrusted, to him in a series of sham fights, instead of active operations against the enemy. The indignation of Lord Charles was so roused at such misconduct, that he could not refrain from expressing his dissatisfaction with the want of spirit displayed by his superior officer. He was in consequence put under arrest, and sent home to England. Although the incompetent Earl of Loudon was recalled in 1758, Lord Charles was tried by a court-martial in February, 1760; the case was submitted to the King, but no decision was given regarding it, and Lord Charles died at London two months afterwards.

JOHN, fourth Marquis of Tweeddale, was an able and accomplished statesman, and possessed considerable knowledge of law. He was appointed one of the Extraordinary Lords of Session in 1721—the last who held that office; was chosen one of the Scottish representative peers in 1722, and was afterwards several times re-elected. On the downfall of Walpole, in February, 1742, Pulteney, to whom had been entrusted the arrangement of places in the new Government, insisted that the office of Scottish Minister, which had been in abeyance since 1739, should be revived, and the Marquis of Tweeddale was appointed Secretary of State for Scotland, and Principal Keeper of the Signet. Erskine of Tinwald, who at this juncture resigned the office of Lord Advocate, wrote to a brother lawyer—Craigie of Glendoick—2nd March, 1742, ‘You have been mentioned to the King by the Marquis of Tweeddale as my successor. You are happy in having to do with a patron who is a man of truth and honour.’ The period of four years during which his lordship held the office of Scottish Minister, was a time of great trouble and anxiety. The English members of the Government were not only grossly ignorant, as usual, of the state of feeling in Scotland, but they were by no means willing to receive accurate information on the subject. They rejected as utterly incredible the idea that a Jacobite insurrection was at hand, and thought it quite unnecessary to make any preparations to resist and suppress it. Lord Tweeddale, who was in London at that time, shared to some extent in their feeling of incredulity, and even after he was aware that the Highlanders had left Perth in their march to the south, he wrote to the Lord Advocate, ‘I flatter myself they have been able to make no great progress.’ On the very day on which this letter was written, Prince Charles entered the Palace of Holyrood.

In February, 1746, when the rebellion was still raging, a ministerial crisis took place. On the refusal of the King to admit Pitt to the Government, Mr. Pelham, the Prime Minister, along with those members of the administration who supported him, resigned office. Earls Granville and Tweeddale attempted, unsuccessfully, to form a Ministry. On their failure Pelham resumed office; Granville and Tweeddale were left out of the reconstructed Government, and the office of Secretary of State for Scotland was a second time abolished. Lord Tweeddale resigned at this time his office of Keeper of the Signet. In 1761 he was appointed Justice-General of Scotland, and was also sworn a member of the Privy Council. He died at London in 1762.

The Marquis married Lady Frances Carteret, daughter of the Earl of Granville, and had by her four daughters and two sons. The eldest son died in infancy; the younger, George, became fifth Marquis, and died in 1770, in the thirteenth year of his age. The title then devolved on his uncle—.

GEORGE, sixth Marquis of Tweeddale. He was noted for his strict economy, and accumulated a large fortune, which he bequeathed to trustees to be laid out in the purchase of lands, to be entailed on the Tweeddale title. He died without issue in 1787, and was succeeded by his cousin, GEORGE HAY, grandson of Lord William Hay, of Newhall.

GEORGE, seventh Marquis of Tweeddale, married a daughter of the seventh Earl of Lauderdale. He was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Haddingtonshire, and was chosen one of the Scottish representative peers. On account of his delicate health, the Marquis and Marchioness went to the Continent in 1802, and were among the British subjects who were detained in France by the discreditable act of Napoleon Bonaparte, when war with Great Britain was renewed in 1803. The Marchioness died at Verdun on the 8th of May, and the Marquis on August 9th, 1804. They left twelve orphan children to lament their loss.

The eldest son, George, succeeded to the family titles and estates. The second and fifth sons entered the army, in which they attained high rank. Lord John Hay, the third son, joined the royal navy, and, after many distinguished services, rose to the rank of rear-admiral. In 1846 he was appointed one of the Lords of the Admiralty, and in the following year was elected Member of Parliament for Windsor.

GEORGE, eighth Marquis of Tweeddale, was born in 1787. He received his early education at the parochial school of Gifford, where he distinguished himself more by his physical strength and prowess than by his intellectual attainments. He entered the army in 1804, the year in which he succeeded to the family titles and estates, when he was only seventeen years of age. He had the good fortune to receive his first training as a soldier under the gallant Sir John Moore, at Shorncliffe. Two years later he went out to Sicily as aide-de-camp to the general commanding the English army in that island. There, having got his company, he exchanged into the Grenadier Guards, only, however, to re-exchange into a regiment on active service. He served through the Peninsular war as aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington, was honourably mentioned in the Duke’s despatches for his personal bravery, was wounded at Busaco, and a second time at Vittoria, where he acted as quartermaster-general, and received a medal for his services in that decisive engagement. He was the third man in the army to cross the Douro, and attack the French forces under Soult at Oporto—one of the most famous exploits of the Great Duke. Shortly after being gazetted as a major, when he was in his twenty-seventh year, the Marquis was invalided, and returned home. But impatient of enforced inactivity, before his health was completely restored he rejoined his regiment, which was at that time stationed in Canada. On reaching it, at the Falls of Niagara he found the drums beating, calling the men to go into action, and though he was labouring under a fit of ague he joined the regiment in the encounter, but was once more, almost at the outset, severely wounded. In two months, however, he was again on foot, and obtained the command of a brigade, which he retained till the close of the war, in 1814. Lord Tweeddale’s distinguished services were rewarded by steady and well-merited promotion. He attained the rank of general in 1854, was nominated colonel of the 2nd Life Guards in 1863, and ten years after was created a field marshal. On the termination of the war with France the Marquis took up his residence on his paternal estate, married in 1816 Lady Susan Montagu, third daughter of the fifth Duke of Manchester, was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Haddingtonshire in 1824, and set himself with characteristic energy and zeal to discharge the duties of that office, and to improve his estates. In 1842 he was appointed Governor of Madras and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces—a union of offices unprecedented at that period, but carried out by the Duke of Wellington from a conviction that Lord Tweeddale possessed special qualifications for restoring the discipline of the army, which had been allowed to fall into a somewhat relaxed state. He did much to improve the condition not only of the soldiers, but of the people also, and to draw out the resources of the country.

On his return home, in 1848, the Marquis resumed the operations which he had previously commenced for the improvement of his estates. He led the way in tile-draining, in deep ploughing, and in other agricultural experiments, which he conducted at a considerable expense. He was also the inventor of several eminently useful agricultural implements now in general operation. His tile-making machine and celebrated Tweeddale plough have conferred an important boon on the farmers of Scotland, and will long make his name a household word amongst them. His lordship took a great interest in meteorology, and was a proficient in mechanics. The eminent services which he had rendered to the agricultural interest were acknowledged by his election to the office of President of the Agricultural and Highland Society.

Lord Tweeddale was conspicuous for his stature and strength; and numerous anecdotes have been told of his gallantry in the field, and of the terrible effect with which he wielded a sabre longer by a good many inches than the regulation weapon. He was a famous boxer—one of the very best—and when provoked gave practical proof of his prowess. He was an excellent horseman, was long known as ‘the Prince of the Heavy Bays,’ was a most skilful whip, and once drove the mail-coach from London to Haddington at a sitting.

The extraordinary strength of Lord Tweeddale’s constitution, invigorated as it was by athletic exercises, in which he was a great adept, bade fair, notwithstanding his great age, to prolong his life a good many years beyond the period at which it was unexpectedly brought to a close through the effects of an unfortunate accident. After having been undressed by his valet, he was left alone in his room, and, rising from his chair to ring his bell, he fell between the fender and the fire, and was severely burned on the back. For a time he seemed likely to recover from the effects of this accident, but the shock had been too great for his enfeebled vitality, and his strength gradually sank till he quietly passed away, 10th October, 1876, in the ninetieth year of his age.

The Marquis was the father of six sons and seven daughters, six of whom were married. The eldest daughter was the Marchioness of Dalhousie; the fifth is the Dowager-Duchess of Wellington, and was a great favourite of her illustrious father-in-law; the youngest is the wife of the present Sir Robert Peel. George, Earl Gifford, the eldest son of the Marquis, was a man of great ability. He was for some time Member of Parliament for Totness, but his invincible shyness prevented him from taking a prominent part in the debates of the House. The illness of which he died, in 1863, was caused by his exertions to save the life of a workman who was in imminent danger of being crushed by a tree which he was cutting down in the vicinity of the ruins of the old castle. Shortly before his death, Lord Gifford married the Dowager-Baroness Dufferin, one of the beautiful Sheridans.

Lord Tweeddale’s second son, ARTHUR, Viscount Walden, succeeded him as ninth Marquis. He died, 29th December, 1878, leaving no issue.

WILLIAM MONTAGUE HAY, third son, the present Marquis, was created a British peer in 1881 by the title of Baron Tweeddale of Yester. His immediate younger brother, Lord John Hay, a gallant naval officer, for several years held the command of the Mediterranean fleet. He was recently raised to the rank of admiral, and is at present the first naval officer of the Admiralty.

According to the Doomsday Book, the Tweeddale estates in the counties of Haddington, Berwick, and Roxburgh, comprise 43,027 acres, with a rental of £23,832 6s.

‘It is to be observed,’ said Father Hay, ‘that the whole fortune of this familie came by marriages, and whatever hath been purchased was by the selling of lands that had come that way; in consideration whereof Charles Hay, present Lord Yester [third Marquis of Tweed-dale], made the following verses—

‘Aulam alii jactent, felix domus Yestria, nube,
Nam quæ sors aliis, dat Venus alma tibi.’