'The publication,' as Mr. Laing says in his Preface, 'intended to form two volumes in octavo, under the title of Historical Notices of Scottish Affairs, had actually proceeded to press to page 304 in 1825, when the misfortunes of the publisher put a stop to the enterprise. After an interval of several years the greater portion of Sir Thomas's transcripts was placed at the disposal of the Bannatyne Club.' The result was the publication of the Observes and the Historical Notices. Mr. Laing adds, 'If at any subsequent time some of his missing MSS. should be discovered, another volume of Selections, to include his early Journal and extracts from his smaller notebooks, might not be undeserving the attention of the Bannatyne Club.' The Journal in France, though never printed, was reviewed by Mr. Cosmo Innes in 1864 in the North British Review, vol. xli. p. 170.
OUTLINE OF FOUNTAINHALL'S LIFE
A short relation of Lord Fountainhall's life is given in Mr. David Laing's preface to the Historical Notices. He was born in 1646. His father was John Lauder, merchant and bailie of Edinburgh, of the family of Lauder of that Ilk.[17] He graduated as Master of Arts in the University of Edinburgh in 1664. He went to France to study in 1665, and returned from abroad in 1667. He was 'admitted' as an advocate in 1668. He was married in 1669 to Janet, daughter of Sir Andrew Ramsay of Abbotshall,[18] Provost of Edinburgh, afterwards a Lord of Session. In 1674, along with the leaders of the bar and the majority of the profession, he was 'debarred' or suspended from practising by the king's proclamation for asserting the right of appeal from the decisions of the Court of Session, and was restored in 1676. He was knighted in 1681. In the same year his father, who was then eighty-six years old, purchased the lands of Woodhead and others in East Lothian. The conveyance is to John Lauder of Newington in liferent, and Sir John Lauder, his son, in fee. The lands were erected into a barony, called Fountainhall. In 1685, he was returned as member of Parliament for the county of Haddington, which he represented till the Union in 1707. In 1686 his wife, by whom he had a large family, died. In 1687 he married Marion Anderson, daughter of Anderson of Balram. He was appointed a Lord of Session in 1689, and a Lord of Justiciary in 1690. He resigned the latter office in 1709, and died in 1722. His father had been made a baronet in 1681 by James VII. The succession under the patent was to his son by his third marriage; but in 1690, after the Revolution, a new patent was granted by William and Mary to Sir John Lauder, senior, and his eldest son and his heirs. The first patent was reduced in 1692, and in the same year Fountainhall succeeded on his father's death.
[17] 'Sir John Lauder of Fountainhall is deschended of the Lauders of that ilk, and his paternall coat is immatriculate and registrate in the Lyons Book of Herauldrie.'—Unprinted MS. by Lauder, in possession of Sir T.N. Dick Lauder. A Genealogical Roll in MS., of the Lauder Family, compiled by Sir T. Dick Lauder, also in the present baronet's possession, has afforded much useful information; and for Lauder's family connections, I have also consulted Mrs. Atholl Forbes's Curiosities of a Scottish Charter Chest, and Mrs. Stewart Smith's Grange of St. Giles.
[18] See Appendix III.
The following estimate of his character in Forbes's Preface to the Journal of the Session (1714), a rare book, is quoted by Mr. Laing, but is too much in point to be omitted here. 'The publick and private character of this excellent judge are now so well known that I need say no more of him than that he signalized himself as a good patriot and true Protestant in the Parliament of 1686 in defence of the Penal Laws against Popery. This self-denyed man hath taken no less pains to shun places that were in his offer than some others have been at to get into preferment. Witness his refusing to accept a patent in the year 1692 to be the King's Advocate, and the resigning his place as a Lord of Justiciary after the Union, which Her Majesty with reluctancy took off his hand. In short, his lordship is (what I know by experience) as communicative as he is universally learned and knowing. He hath observed the decisions of the Session from November 1689 till November 1712, which I have seen in Manuscript; but his excessive modesty can't be prevailed on to make them publick.'
There are no materials for expanding Mr. Laing's sketch of Fountainhall's life, except in so far as the notes of his travels and his expeditions into the country, and the accounts, here printed, give some glimpses of his habits and his domestic economy in his early professional years. He lived in troubled times, but his own career was prosperous and comparatively uneventful. The modesty which Professor Forbes truly ascribes to him disinclined him to take a part, as a good many lawyers did, in public affairs, except for a short period before the Revolution, as a member of Parliament; and, together with his prudence and strong conscientiousness, preserved him from mixing in the political and personal intrigues which were then so rife in the country. The same modesty is apparent in his writings in mature life to a tantalising degree. It may not be so conspicuous in his boyish journal, when he was ready enough to throw down the gauntlet in a theological discussion; but in the later voluminous MSS., when even dry legal disputes are enlivened by graphic and personal touches, the author himself rarely appears on the scene. We miss the pleasant details of Clerk of Penicuik's Memoirs.[19] We learn little of the author's daily walk and conversation. It does not even appear (so far as I know) where his house in Edinburgh was. We do not know how often he went to Fountainhall, or whether he there realised his wish to spend half his time in the country.[20] We do not know how he occupied himself there, though it may be gathered that he took much interest in the management of his property and in country business, and he records with much gratification his appointment as a justice of the peace. He tells us nothing of his wife, except how much money she got for housekeeping, and nothing of his children, except when he records their births or deaths. Nothing of his personal relations with his distinguished contemporaries at the bar, or with the men who, as officers of State and Privy Councillors, still governed Scotland in Edinburgh.
[19] Scottish History Society.
[20] Journal, p. 21.
On the other hand, his opinions on all subjects, on public affairs and public men, on such questions of speculation or ethical interest as astrology and witchcraft, often strikingly expressed in language always racy and sincere, are scattered through the published volumes of his writings, all printed without note or comment. It may at least be a tribute to Fountainhall's memory to present a short view of his opinions, and for that purpose I have not scrupled to quote freely, especially from the Historical Observes, a delightful book, which deserves a larger public than the limited circle of its fortunate possessors. Fountainhall's political opinions were moderate, in an age when moderation was rare. We are tempted to think, if I am not mistaken, that in that dark period of Scottish history, every man was a furious partisan, as a Royalist or a Whig, or as an adherent of one or other of the chiefs who intrigued for power. But it may be that Lauder's attitude reflects more truly the average opinions of educated men of the time.