For some years the estate was in the hands of Sir James Sandilands of Slamannan, until 1608, when, through the good graces of James VI., it was restored to Francis, son of Archibald Wauchope, a restitution which was confirmed by Act of Parliament in 1609. Francis (usually styled Sir Francis Wauchope) appears to have done a good deal for the estate, but his son, Sir John Wauchope, may be regarded as the chief restorer of the house of Niddrie. He was frugal in his living, and he added several adjoining properties to the estate by purchase, and received the honour of knighthood from Charles I. on his visit to Scotland in 1633. He was an intimate friend of the notorious Duke of Lauderdale in their younger days, living with him, and spoken of as 'his bed-fellow.'
Sir John exercised great judgment in the management of his affairs; so much so, that in 1661 he acquired by purchase the border estate of Yetholm or Lochtour, in Roxburghshire, which has remained in the family ever since. He was present in London at the coronation of Charles II.; in 1663 he was elected a member of the Scottish Parliament, and one of the Committee for the Plantation of Kirks; and in 1678 was a member of the Convention of Estates.
Other lairds appear in succession as the years rolled on. There are Williams, Andrews, Gilberts, Roberts, following one another as the leaves succeed in the spring to those that have fallen in the autumn, but it is not our purpose to follow their story. One fought and fell at Killiecrankie with Viscount Dundee in 1689; another fought for the Stuarts at the Revolution, and afterwards rose to high command in the French and Spanish services; and though the Wauchopes took no active part in the Stuart risings of 1715 and 1745, their sympathies were all for the exiled race.
In Niddrie House there are to be seen full-length portraits of Charles I. and his queen; four small half-lengths of the Chevalier and his consort, and their two sons, Prince Charles Edward and the Cardinal York, as boys. These are understood to have been forwarded direct from the Chevalier himself to the Niddrie family as an acknowledgment of their loyalty, and the assistance—pecuniary and otherwise—which the royal line of Stuart had received at their hands.
A 'Minden' hero
To come to more recent times, we find that Andrew Wauchope of Niddrie—the great-grandfather of the subject of our sketch, born about the year 1736—was a captain in the First Regiment of Dragoon Guards, and fought at the battle of Minden in Westphalia, where in 1759 the French were defeated by an army of Anglo-Hanoverian troops. He lived to a good old age, for it was he who was alluded to by Sir Walter Scott in the ballad written on the occasion of the visit of George IV. to Scotland in 1822:—
Come, stately Niddrie, auld and true,
Girt with the sword that Minden knew;
We have owre few sic lairds as you,
Carle, now the King's come.
This Andrew Wauchope married, in 1786, Alicia, daughter of William Baird, Newbyth, and sister of the celebrated Sir David Baird, the hero of Seringapatam, who a few years afterwards—in 1805—commanded the expedition to the Cape of Good Hope which, after a decisive victory over the Dutch, received, on 6th January 1806, the surrender of the colony to Great Britain. There were nine children of this marriage, five boys and four girls. The eldest, Andrew, was killed in 1813 at the battle of the Pyrenees while in command of the 20th Regiment of Foot, and so the second son, William, succeeded to the property, old Andrew Wauchope having resigned it in his favour in 1817, retaining for himself the liferent.
William Wauchope, who had the year before married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Robert Baird of Newbyth, and niece of the then Marchioness of Breadalbane, was a lieutenant-colonel in the army. Curiously enough, William's younger brother, Admiral Robert Wauchope, was stationed at Cape Town at the beginning of the century, where he resided for many years with his wife. They knew the Dutch well, and were on the most friendly terms with both Dutch and English settlers in the colony.