Robert's elder brother, Gilbert Wauchope, was meanwhile Laird of Niddrie, acquiring more property, extending his borders, and getting himself involved in the local feuds peculiar to the time of James V.; that king on one occasion, April 1535, having to grant a letter of protection in favour of him 'and his wife and bairns' against Sir Patrick Hepburn of Wauchtonne and thirty-four others for 'umbesetting the highway for his slaughter.' In this quarrel, even the Pope was called upon to interfere in the interest of peace and safety. In 1539 Paul III. put forth a mandate to the Dean of the Church of Restalrig, stating that a beloved son, a noble man, Gilbert Wauchope, lord in temporals of the place of Niddriffmarschall, within the diocese of St. Andrews, had represented to the Pope that some sons of iniquity, whom he was altogether ignorant of, had wickedly brought many and heavy losses upon the said Gilbert Wauchope by concealing the boundaries and limits or marches of the piece of land or place called Quhitinche, feued to him by the Abbot and Convent of the Monastery of the Holy Cross (Holyrood).... Therefore the Pope intrusted to the discretion of the said Venerable Dean and Commissary to admonish publicly in churches, before the people, ... all holders, etc., and to discover and restore these to the said Gilbert Wauchope or to the Abbot of the Monastery, under a general sentence of excommunication against these persons, till suitable satisfaction was made.
But the Reformation brought many changes, upsetting the laws, customs, and opinions held sacred for centuries. The sons no longer walked in the ways of their fathers, but began to think for themselves. And so we find that Gilbert, the son of the laird who had sought and obtained protection from the Pope, renounced the Pope and took an active part in promoting the Reformation. He was present at Knox's first sermon at St. Andrews in 1547. And at the conference of notables that afterwards was held, where Knox and his preaching were fully discussed, and Wauchope was asked what he thought of the Reformer, 'this answer gave the Laird of Nydre—"a man fervent and uprycht in religioun."' This Gilbert Wauchope of Niddrie was a member of the famous Parliament, held at Edinburgh in August 1560, by which the Reformation was established.
Later on we have a George Wauchope, a celebrated Professor of Civil Law at Caen, in Normandy, who was a grandson of Gilbert, and who in 1595, when he was about twenty-five years of age, wrote A Treatise concerning the Ancient People of Rome.
But the early Wauchopes were a wonderfully varied class of men, who could take their share of fighting when necessary; and towards the close of the sixteenth century their feuds, their 'slauchters,' and political partisanship well-nigh led to their extinction. The feuds with the neighbouring Hepburns and Edmonstons were the occasion of many unhappy conflicts, while their adhesion to the cause of Queen Mary for a time brought ruin on the family. Professor Aytoun, in his poem of 'Bothwell,' referring to Bothwell's attempt to intercept the Queen on her way from Stirling and carry her to Dunbar Castle, says:—
'Hay, bid the trumpets sound the march,
Go, Bolton, to the van;
Young Niddrie follows with the rear;
Set forward every man.'
The estate of Niddrie is quite close to Craigmillar Castle, where Mary frequently resided, and in all probability the fascination of her character brought the Wauchopes into frequent contact with her, and led them to espouse her cause when many of the leaders of the Scottish nobility had declared against her. We find, therefore, that Robert Wauchope and his son Archibald are mentioned in the 'charge agains personis denuncit rebellis' in June 1587. This Archibald appears to have been a youth of wonderful pugnacity, and to have got himself continually involved in trouble with the authorities for breaches of the peace, out of which he as often extricated himself, with no little cleverness. Once, in 1588, for an attempted 'slauchter' of 'umquhile James Giffert, and Johne Edmonston,' the adjoining laird, he was arrested, tried, and warded in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh; but 'no pardoun being granted' by the king, 'and about a thousand persouns in the Tolbuith waiting upon the event, the candles were put furth about ellevin houres at night, and Nidrie and his complices escaped out at the windowes.' It is a curious reflection upon the Wauchopes of this time that their name should be associated with the wild Clan Gregor of Perthshire as disturbers of the peace. King James VI. was married in 1590 to the Princess Anne of Denmark. On the 1st May the king and queen landed at Leith, amid a great concourse of loyal subjects, 'and with volleys of cannon, and orations in their welcome.' James had been absent from Scotland more than six months, and it was remarked at the time, and came to be memorable afterwards, that these months were a time of universal peace and good order in Scotland. 'The only notable exceptions,' according to Spottiswood, 'had been a riot in Edinburgh by Wauchope of Niddry, and an outbreak of the Clan Gregor in Balquhidder.'
In connection with this, we find Wauchope charged by the Privy Council (7th January 1590), 'along with all other keepers of the places and fortalices of Rossyth and Nudry,' to deliver the same to the officer executing these letters, within six hours after charge, under penalty of treason; the said officer to fence the goods and rents belonging to Wauchope, which are ordered to remain under arrest at the instance of the King's Treasurer, 'aye and quhill he be tryit foule or clene of sic crymes quharof he is dilaitet.'
Attack on Holyroodhouse
Not to mention other scrapes of a similar kind, Archibald Wauchope was implicated in the attack on the palace of Holyroodhouse, 27th December 1591, and for this and other misdemeanours he was forfeited, along with the Earl of Bothwell and others, and had to leave the country for a time. He afterwards came to an untimely end by falling from a window in Skinner's Close in Edinburgh, about the year 1596.
It was apparently about this period that the old house or tower of Niddrie Marischal—'so commodious that it could garrison a hundred men'—was destroyed by the enemies of the family.