On the 20th September 1703, by which time Balthayock was dead, Finhaven presented a petition to the Privy Council, setting forth that he had not submitted to the sentence, but placed the sum of the fine in consignment, and thereupon was liberated. Balthayock had never called for the suspension; her majesty’s late gracious indemnity had discharged the fine, ‘the cause of which,’ he alleged, ‘was natural and ordinary, and the marriage every way suitable.’ There might be demur to the last |1697.| particular, as young Kinfauns, when led into the marriage with Carnegie’s daughter, was only a boy. Nevertheless, the Council now ordained the money to be rendered back to the petitioner.[[220]]
1698. Jan. 27.
The Court of Session had before it a remarkable case, involving matters of the highest delicacy, regarding two prominent members of society. David Lord Cardross—son of the Lord Cardross whose piety had exposed him to sufferings all but the highest in the late reigns—was married in February 1697 to the daughter of Henry Fairfax of Hurst, in Berkshire, an heiress of ten thousand pounds. They were the grand-parents of the Chancellor Lord Erskine. He had been helped in the obtaining of this match by Sir John Cochrane, another eminent sufferer in the late times of trial. To secure his best services as proxenata, or, as it is called in Scotland, black-foot, Lord Cardross had given Sir John a bond, securing him a thousand pounds, if he should be able to effect the marriage. When the marriage was completed, Cochrane applied for the promised sum, but was met with the assertion that no money was fairly due, as the lady’s hand had been obtained without his assistance. He sued Lord Cardross first in Westminster Hall, where the bond was declared void by the Lord Chancellor, as granted ob turpem causam, and now in the Court of Session for similar reasons, much to the enjoyment of all the lovers of gossip. Sir John, probably seeing public sentiment to be against him, gave up his claim to the whole £1000 as a reward for his services, and restricted it to £600, as required to repay him for expenses he had incurred in Lord Cardross’s lovesuit. Even this was denied to him, unless he could ‘condescend’ upon an account of special outlays in Lord Cardross’s behalf. We do not hear of his doing anything in consequence of this award, and it is to be suspected that he lost some character by the transaction, as well as legal expenses, and got nothing in return.[[221]]
Those who looked back with feelings of sympathy and pride to the sufferings of the patriots under the late reigns, must have had some painful feelings when they reflected on the present doings of some of them and their descendants. The Argyle of this day, though a man of both ability and spirit, highly qualified to serve his country, was now living in circumstances which certainly formed a marked contrast with the history of his grandfather and |1698.| father. Being married unhappily—his wife was a daughter of the Duchess of Lauderdale—he was induced to associate himself with another lady, for whose sake he seems to have in a great measure abandoned public life. Purchasing a house called Chirton, near Newcastle (which he bequeathed to his mistress), he was content to spend there in inglorious self-indulgence the days which ought to have been consecrated to the service of his country. Sad to say, this representative of pious martyrs died of bruises received in a house of evil fame at North Shields (September 1703). Even worse was the story of his Grace’s brother, James, who carried off Miss Wharton, an heiress of thirteen, and forcibly married her (November 1690)—a crime, the proper consequences of which he escaped, while his instrument and assistant, Sir John Johnston of Caskieben, paid the penalty of an ignominious death at Tyburn. Worse still, the actual Gordon of Earlstoun, so renowned for his resolute conduct in the evil days, fell, more than twenty years after, under censure for a lapse in virtue of the highest class, and underwent the higher excommunication; ‘but,’ says Wodrow, ‘they find the intimation of it will not be for edification, and people will still converse with him, do as they will; so the sentence is not pronounced.’
Feb. 22.
We have seen something of an old clan-feud between the Laird of Mackintosh and his vassal, Macdonald of Keppoch. The Keppoch who had overthrown the chief at Inverroy in 1688, and afterwards burned down his house of Dunachtan, was now dead; but in his son, Coll Macdonald, he had left a worthy successor. Coll was as defiant of the Mackintosh claims as his father had been, and, though he lived within ten miles of the well-established garrison of Fort-William, he seemed as utterly beyond the reach of the law as if he had haunted the wilds of Canada. It now became necessary to take sharp measures with him, in order to make good the rights of his superior.
The king, seeing ‘it is below the justice of our government that any of our loyal subjects should be disappointed of the benefit of our laws,’ was pleased to resort once more to that desperate remedy of letters of fire and sword which he had, to all subsequent appearance, employed once too often six years before in the case of the Glencoe Macdonalds. A commission was accordingly granted to Lachlan Mackintosh of that Ilk, to the governor for the time of Fort-William, Farquharson of Monaltrie, Farquharson of Invercauld, and a number of other gentlemen, ‘to convocate |1698.| our lieges in arms, and pass and search, seek, hunt, follow and take, and in case of resistance, pursue to the death Coll Macdonald [and a multitude of other persons specified, outlaws and fugitives from justice], and if any of them shall happen to flee to houses or strengths [then grants full power] to asseige the said houses or strengths, raise fire, and use all force and warlike engines that can be had for winning thereof,’ slaughter of the persons pursued not to be imputed as a crime.[[222]]
There was, in reality, nothing to prevent the same class of inhumanities flowing from this order as had followed on the Glencoe commission, if the officers intrusted with it had been disposed, as in the other case, to carry it out to the letter. It was effectual for its purpose without any extreme atrocities, and, three months after, we hear of a detachment from Fort-William to assist Mackintosh ‘in maintaining his own lands against Keppoch and others, who may disturb him in the peaceable possession thereof.’
In a poem written in 1737, Coll Macdonald of Keppoch is spoken of as a kind of Rob Roy, who had fought against the government at Killiecrankie, Cromdale, and Dunblane; who had resisted the law regarding lands which he occupied, and been denounced rebel on that account; who ‘from thefts and robberies scarce did ever cease;’ but who had, nevertheless, not merely kept possession of his territory, but rather improved his circumstances; and finally, four years ago, had died at home in peace. He was, says the poet in a note, ‘a man of low stature, but full of craft and enterprise: his life, if printed, would make an entertaining piece, whether one considers the depth of his genius, the boldness of his adventures, or the various turns of adverse fortune which he bore with uncommon steadiness, and had the art to surmount.’
Mar. 1.