LOTHIAN, EARLS AND MARQUESSES OF. Mark Kerr, 1st earl of Lothian (d. 1609), was the eldest son of Mark Kerr (d. 1584), abbot, and then commendator, of Newbattle, or Newbottle, and was a member of the famous border family of Ker of Cessford. The earls and dukes of Roxburghe, who are also descended from the Kers of Cessford, have adopted the spelling Ker, while the earls and marquesses of Lothian have taken the form Kerr. Like his father, the abbot of Newbattle, Mark Kerr was an extraordinary lord of session under the Scottish king James VI.; he became Lord Newbattle in 1587 and was created earl of Lothian in 1606. He was master of inquests from 1577 to 1606, and he died on the 8th of April 1609, having had, as report says, thirty-one children by his wife, Margaret (d. 1617), daughter of John Maxwell, 4th Lord Herries. His son Robert, the 2nd earl, died without sons in July 1624. He had, in 1621, obtained a charter from the king enabling his daughter Anne to succeed to his estates provided that she married a member of the family of Ker. Consequently in 1631 she married William Ker, son of Robert, 1st earl of Ancrum (1578-1654), a member of the family of Ker of Ferniehurst, whose father, William Ker, had been killed in 1590 by Robert Ker, afterwards 1st earl of Roxburghe. Robert was in attendance upon Charles I. both before and after he came to the throne, and was created earl of Ancrum in 1633. He was a writer and a man of culture, and among his friends were the poet Donne and Drummond of Hawthornden. His elder son William was created earl of Lothian in 1631, the year of his marriage with Anne Kerr, and Sir William Kerr of Blackhope, a brother of the 2nd earl, who had taken the title of earl of Lothian in 1624, was forbidden to use it (see Correspondence of Sir Robert Ker, earl of Ancrum, and his son William, third earl of Lothian, 1875).
William Ker (c. 1605-1675), who thus became 3rd earl of Lothian, signed the Scottish national covenant in 1638 and marched with the Scots into England in 1640, being present when the English were routed at Newburn, after which he became governor of Newcastle-on-Tyne. During the Civil War he was prominent rather as a politician than as a soldier; he became a Scottish secretary of state in 1649, and was one of the commissioners who visited Charles II. at Breda in 1650. He died at Newbattle Abbey, near Edinburgh, in October 1675. William’s eldest son Robert, the 4th earl (1636-1703), supported the Revolution of 1688 and served William III. in several capacities; he became 3rd earl of Ancrum on the death of his uncle Charles in 1690, and was created marquess of Lothian in 1701. His eldest son William, the 2nd marquess (c. 1662-1722), who had been a Scottish peer as Lord Jedburgh since 1692, was a supporter of the union with England. His son William, the 3rd marquess (c. 1690-1767), was the father of William Henry, the 4th marquess, who was wounded at Fontenoy and was present at Culloden. He was a member of parliament for some years and had reached the rank of general in the army when he died at Bath on the 12th of April 1775. His grandson William, the 6th marquess (1763-1824), married Henrietta (1762-1805), daughter and heiress of John Hobart, 2nd earl of Buckinghamshire, thus bringing Blickling Hall and the Norfolk estates of the Hobarts into the Kerr family. In 1821 he was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Ker and he died on the 27th of April 1824. In 1900 Robert Schomberg Kerr (b. 1874) succeeded his father, Schomberg Henry, the 9th marquess (1833-1900), as 10th marquess of Lothian.
LOTHIAN. This name was formerly applied to a considerably larger extent of country than the three counties of Linlithgow, Edinburgh and Haddington. Roxburghshire and Berwickshire at all events were included in it, probably also the upper part of Tweeddale (at least Selkirk). It would thus embrace the eastern part of the Lowlands from the Forth to the Cheviots, i.e. all the English part of Scotland in the 11th century. This region formed from the 7th century onward part of the kingdoms of Bernicia and Northumbria, though we have no definite information as to the date or events by which it came into English hands. In Roman times, according to Ptolemy, it was occupied by a people called Otadini, whose name is thought to have been preserved in Manaw Gododin, the home of the British king Cunedda before he migrated to North Wales. There is no reason to doubt that the district remained in Welsh hands until towards the close of the 6th century; for in the Historia Brittonum the Bernician king Theodoric, whose traditional date is 572-579, is said to have been engaged in war with four Welsh kings. One of these was Rhydderch Hen who, as we know from Adamnan, reigned at Dumbarton, while another named Urien is said to have besieged Theodoric in Lindisfarne. If this statement is to be believed it is hardly likely that the English had by this time obtained a firm footing beyond the Tweed. At all events there can be little doubt that the whole region was conquered within the next fifty years. Most probably the greater part of it was conquered by the Northumbrian king Æthelfrith, who, according to Bede, ravaged the territory of the Britons more often than any other English king, in some places reducing the natives to dependence, in others exterminating them and replacing them by English settlers.
In the time of Oswic the English element became predominant in northern Britain. His supremacy was acknowledged both by the Welsh in the western Lowlands and by the Scots in Argyllshire. On the death of the Pictish king Talorgan, the son of his brother Eanfrith, he seems to have obtained the sovereignty over a considerable part of that nation also. Early in Ecgfrith’s reign an attempt at revolt on the part of the Picts proved unsuccessful. We hear at this time also of the establishment of an English bishopric at Abercorn, which, however, only lasted for a few years. By the disastrous overthrow of Ecgfrith in 685 the Picts, Scots and some of the Britons also recovered their independence. Yet we find a succession of English bishops at Whithorn from 730 to the 9th century, from which it may be inferred that the south-west coast had already by this time become English. The Northumbrian dominions were again enlarged by Eadberht, who in 750 is said to have annexed Kyle, the central part of Ayrshire, with other districts. In conjunction with Œngus mac Fergus, king of the Picts, he also reduced the whole of the Britons to submission in 756. But this subjugation was not lasting, and the British kingdom, though now reduced to the basin of the Clyde, whence its inhabitants are known as Strathclyde Britons, continued to exist for nearly three centuries. After Eadberht’s time we hear little of events in the northern part of Northumbria, and there is some reason for suspecting that English influence in the south-west began to decline before long, as our list of bishops of Whithorn ceases early in the 9th century; the evidence on this point, however, is not so decisive as is commonly stated. About 844 an important revolution took place among the Picts. The throne was acquired by Kenneth mac Alpin, a prince of Scottish family, who soon became formidable to the Northumbrians. He is said to have invaded “Saxonia” six times, and to have burnt Dunbar and Melrose. After the disastrous battle at York in 867 the Northumbrians were weakened by the loss of the southern part of their territories, and between 883 and 889 the whole country as far as Lindisfarne was ravaged by the Scots. In 919, however, we find their leader Aldred calling in Constantine II., king of the Scots, to help them. A few years later together with Constantine and the Britons they acknowledged the supremacy of Edward the Elder. After his death, however, both the Scots and the Britons were for a time in alliance with the Norwegians from Ireland, and consequently Æthelstan is said to have ravaged a large portion of the Scottish king’s territories in 934. Brunanburh, where Æthelstan defeated the confederates in 937, is believed by many to have been in Dumfriesshire, but we have no information as to the effects of the battle on the northern populations. By this time, however, the influence of the Scottish kingdom certainly seems to have increased in the south, and in 945 the English king Edmund gave Cumberland, i.e. apparently the British kingdom of Strathclyde, to Malcolm I., king of the Scots, in consideration of his alliance with him. Malcolm’s successor Indulph (954-962) succeeded in capturing Edinburgh, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Scots. His successors made repeated attempts to extend their territory southwards, and certain late chroniclers state that Kenneth II. in 971-975 obtained a grant of the whole of Lothian from Edgar. Whatever truth this story may contain, the cession of the province was finally effected by Malcolm II. by force of arms. At his first attempt in 1006 he seems to have suffered a great defeat from Uhtred, the son of earl Waltheof. Twelve years later, however, he succeeded in conjunction with Eugenius, king of Strathclyde, in annihilating the Northumbrian army at Carham on the Tweed, and Eadulf Cudel, the brother and successor of Uhtred, ceded all his territory to the north of that river as the price of peace. Henceforth in spite of an invasion by Aldred, the son of Uhtred, during the reign of Duncan, Lothian remained permanently in possession of the Scottish kings. In the reign of Malcolm III. and his son, the English element appears to have acquired considerable influence in the kingdom. Some three years before he obtained his father’s throne Malcolm had by the help of earl Siward secured the government of Cumbria (Strathclyde) with which Lothian was probably united. Then in 1068 he received a large number of exiles from England, amongst them the Ætheling Eadgar, whose sister Margaret he married. Four other sons in succession occupied the throne, and in the time of the youngest, David, who held most of the south of Scotland as an earldom from 1107-1124 and the whole kingdom from 1124-1153, the court seems already to have been composed chiefly of English and Normans.
Authorities.—Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica (ed. C. Plummer, Oxford, 1896); Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ed. Earle and Plummer, Oxford, 1899); Simeon of Durham (Rolls Series, ed. T. Arnold, 1882); W. F. Skene, Chronicle of Picts and Scots (Edinburgh, 1867), and Celtic Scotland (Edinburgh, 1876-1880); and J. Rhys, Celtic Britain (London).
(F. G. M. B.)
LOTI, PIERRE [the pen-name of Louis Marie Julien Viaud] (1850- ), French author, was born at Rochefort on the 14th of January 1850. The Viauds are an old Protestant family, and Pierre Loti consistently adhered, at least nominally, to the faith of his fathers. Of the picturesque and touching incidents of his childhood he has given a very vivid account in Le Roman d’un enfant (1890). His education began in Rochefort, but at the age of seventeen, being destined for the navy, he entered the naval school, Le Borda, and gradually rose in his profession, attaining the rank of captain in 1906. In January 1910 he was placed on the reserve list. His pseudonym is said to be due to his extreme shyness and reserve in early life, which made his comrades call him after le Loti, an Indian flower which loves to blush unseen. He was never given to books or study (when he was received at the French Academy, he had the courage to say, “Loti ne sait pas lire”), and it was not until 1876 that he was persuaded to write down and publish some curious experiences at Constantinople, in Aziyadé, a book which, like so many of Loti’s, seems half a romance, half an autobiography. He proceeded to the South Seas, and on leaving Tahiti published the Polynesian idyll, originally called Rarahu (1880), which was reprinted as Le Mariage de Loti, and which first introduced to the wider public an author of remarkable originality and charm. Le Roman d’un spahi, a record of the melancholy adventures of a soldier in Senegambia, belongs to 1881. In 1882 Loti issued a collection of short studies under the general title of Fleurs d’ennui. In 1883 he achieved the widest celebrity, for not only did he publish Mon frère Yves, a novel describing the life of a French bluejacket in all parts of the world—perhaps his most characteristic production—but he was involved in a public discussion in a manner which did him great credit. While taking part as a naval officer in the Tongking War, Loti had exposed in the Figaro a series of scandals which followed on the capture of Hué (1883), and was suspended from the service for more than a year. He continued for some time nearly silent, but in 1886 he published a novel of life among the Breton fisher-folk, called Pêcheur d’islande, the most popular of all his writings. In 1887 he brought out a volume of extraordinary merit, which has not received the attention it deserves; this is Propos d’exil, a series of short studies of exotic places, in his peculiar semi-autobiographic style. The fantastic novel of Japanese manners, Madame Chrysanthème, belongs to the same year. Passing over one or two slighter productions, we come in 1890 to Au Maroc, the record of a journey to Fez in company with a French embassy. A collection of strangely confidential and sentimental reminiscences, called Le Livre de la pitié et de la mort, belongs to 1891. Loti was on board his ship at the port of Algiers when news was brought to him of his election, on the 21st of May 1891, to the French Academy. In 1892 he published Fantôme d’orient, another dreamy study of life in Constantinople, a sort of continuation of Aziyadé. He described a visit to the Holy Land, somewhat too copiously, in three volumes (1895-1896), and wrote a novel, Ramuntcho (1897), a story of manners in the Basque province, which is equal to his best writings. In 1900 he visited British India, with the view of describing what he saw; the result appeared in 1903—L’Inde (sans les Anglais). At his best Pierre Loti was unquestionably the finest descriptive writer of the day. In the delicate exactitude with which he reproduced the impression given to his own alert nerves by unfamiliar forms, colours, sounds and perfumes, he was without a rival. But he was not satisfied with this exterior charm; he desired to blend with it a moral sensibility of the extremest refinement, at once sensual and ethereal. Many of his best books are long sobs of remorseful memory, so personal, so intimate, that an English reader is amazed to find such depth of feeling compatible with the power of minutely and publicly recording what is felt. In spite of the beauty and melody and fragrance of Loti’s books his mannerisms are apt to pall upon the reader, and his later books of pure description were rather empty. His greatest successes were gained in the species of confession, half-way between fact and fiction, which he essayed in his earlier books. When all his limitations, however, have been rehearsed, Pierre Loti remains, in the mechanism of style and cadence, one of the most original and most perfect French writers of the second half of the 19th century. Among his later works were: La Troisième jeunesse de Mme Prune (1905); Les Désenchantées (1906, Eng. trans. by C. Bell); La Mort de Philae (1908); Judith Renaudin (Théâtre Antoine, 1904), a five-act historical play based on an earlier book; and, in collaboration with Émile Vedel, a translation of King Lear, also produced at the Théâtre Antoine in 1904.
(E. G.)