8 JULY 1865, Page 10

THE RA MSAYS OF DALHOUSIE. THE Ramsays are evidently derived

from one of the A nelo- Norman families who entered Scotland in the period imme- diately succeeding the Conquest. We find a Simon de Ramsay set- tled in the Lothians in the reign of David L, a William de Ramsay in the reign of William the Lion before the year 1198, and another William de Ramsay conspicuous in the minority of Alexander III., being one of his Council in 1255. There is a William de Ramsay also in the reign of Alexander Ill., who may have been the son of the last William, but we first reach certainly the line of the Dalhousie family of that name with a Wuraars DE RAMSAY, who swore fealty to Edward L for his lands of Dalwolsey, now DALHOUSIE, in the county of Edinburgh, and of Foulden in Berwickshire, in 1296, and again in 1304. He, however, afterwards joined Robert Bruce, and was one of those who signed the letter to the Pope, April 6, 1320, asserting the independence of Scotland. Alexander de Ramsay of Dalhousie, probably his son, was very conspicuous during the reign of David Bruce. He was one of the commanders in the engagement in which Edward III.'s foreign auxiliaries, under Count Guy of Namur, were defeated at Borough Muir, near Edinburgh, in August, 1335. He and the Knight of Liddesdale, Sir William Douglas, who was styled "the Flower of Chivalry," were the two principal agents of the Regent in expelling the English from the open country, and shutting them up in their castles. In 1338, when Dunbar Castle was besieged by the English, who, unable to take the castle by storm, were endeavour- ing, with every prospect of success, to starve it into surrender, Sir Alexander sailed at midnight with a light vessel from the Bass favoured by the darkness, passed unobserved through the line of the enemy's fleet, and ran his ship, laden with provisions and with forty soldiers on board, close under the wall of the castle. He then made a sally, and dispersed the advanced guard of the English, who were so discouraged that they abandoned the siege forthwith. Nor was he behindhand in the warlike courtesies by which the age of chivalry was distinguished. Henry of Lancaster, Earl of Derby, having run a course at jousting with the Knight of Lid- desdale, sent to his companion in arms, Sir Alexander Ramsay, en- treating him to hold a solemn jousting for three days at Berwick, twenty against twenty. This Sir Alexander acceded to, but the mimic warfare turned out a stern reality, for two English knights were slain, and Sir William Ramsay, a kinsman of Sir Alexander's, was struck through the bars of his aventaile by a spear, which pene- trated so deeply that it was deemed certain that he -would expire the moment it was extracted. He was confessed therefore in his ar- mour, and as the knights crowded round, "So help me Heaven I" said Derby, who stood by, "I would desire to see no fairer sight than this brave baron thus shrived with his helmet on ; happy man should I be, could I ensure myself such an ending !" Upon this Sir Alexander Ramsay placed his foot upon his kinsman's helmet, and by main force pulled out the broken truncheon, when the wounded knight started on his feet, and declared he should soon ail nothing. He died, however, immediately in the lists. "What stout hearts these men have !" said Derby, and so the fatal joustings concluded. This Henry Earl of Derby, this premix chevalier, was the grandson of Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, second son of Henry III., and was nephew of the Earl of Lancag-

'Blanche, married John of Gaunt, and was the mother of King risen had to surrender to their opponents. It was on this occa- i Henry IV., in whose son, Henry of Monmouth, the chivalric spirit sion that a French knight purchased some English prisoners from of this Earl of Derby seems to have lived again. In the same year, the Scots, led them to a solitary spot, and there butchered them, 1338, on the resumption of general hostilities, Sir Alexander raised in revenge for the death of his father in the French wars. King a strong body of young men among the rocky and wooded banks David, on the 24th of October, 1368, granted to Sir William of the Esk, and concealing his followers and himself with their Ramsay, and his wife Agnes, and their heirs, the lands of booty in the caves of Hawthomden, sallied from these recesses and Nether-Liberton, and Sir William had a charter from the same carried his depredations to the English borders, cruelly ravaging the monarch -of Inverleith, which descended to his second son, land, and leading away from the smoking hamlets and villages David. His eldest son, Sir Patrick, had a charter from King many bands of captives. In these expeditions his fame became so David of the lands of Keringtoun, in Edinburgh county. He was great, that we are told there was not a noble youth in the land put in possession of Dalhousie and Keringtoun by his father in his who considered his military education complete unless he had life-time, and himself resigned them to his own grandson, Alex- served in the school of this brave captain. On one occasion, on ander, son of his son Alexander, who had died before him. In his return from an expedition into Northumberland, Ramsay was case of this limitation failing, they were to go to James, his second pursued and intercepted by the Lords Marchers,in a plain near Werk son. Sir Patrick died in 1377. His grandson and successor, Sir Castle. But-by a feigned flight Ramsay led the English into an Alexander, followed the example of his ancestors. In 1378, during ambush, completely defeated them, took Robert, Lord Manners, a time of nominal peace between the two kingdoms, but of con- prisoner, and put many to the sword. He continued to be ex- tinual raids on both sides of the borders, Sir Alexander, with a tremely active in co-operating with the Regent against the English, small body of adventurers, stormed and took the castle of Ber- an1 on the 20th of March, 1342, he took the strong fortress of wick, and when summoned to surrender it by the English and Roxsburgh by escalade. But this was a tiuly fatal success for Scottish Wardens, proudly replied " that he would give up his Ramsay. King David had only just arrived in Scotland from his prize neither to the monarch of England nor of Scotland, but long exile in France, and on hearing of this exploit, in an incon- would keep it while he lived for the King of France." And in fact, siderate transport of delight and gratitude, conferred the govern- with his little band of borderers, he defended the castle for some m.ent of the place and the sheriffship of Teviotdale on Sir time against the Earl of Northumberland, at the head of 10,000 Alexander. But the latter office was then held by Sir William men, assisted by miners and all the machinery for carrying on a Douglas, the Knight of Liddesdale, till then the warm friend and siege. In 1388 Sir Alexander was one of the commandera of the companion in arras of Ramsay. Douglas, stung at this injury, con- daring Scottish force which, under the celebrated Earl of Douglas, oeived a deadly hatred to Ramsay, and took a most disgraceful invaded the bishopric of Durham, and won the far-famed field of mode of executing his revenge. Ile pretended to be reconciled to Otterbum against Harry Hotspur. In this Sir Alexander's time Sir Alexander, and treated him in his usual friendly manner, and the house of Dalhousie was attacked by the English under Henry having so disarmed suspicion, he led a band of soldiers to Hawick, IV., but, was so well defended that the King was obliged to where the new sheriff held his court in the open church. Ramsay retreat. Sir Alexander was one of the Soots who fell on the fatal is said to have been warned against treachery, but to have treated field of Homildon on the 14th of September, 1402, when the the idea with entire disbelief, and on Douglas entering the church Percies avenged the defeat at 0 tterburn. A Robert de Ramsay he invited him to take his place beside him. But Douglas drew appears as lord of Dalhousie in a charter of the year 1416, but we his sword, seized his victim, who was wounded in attempting a vain have no evidence as to his relationship to Sir Alexander, or of that resistance, and throwing him bleeding across a home, carried him of another Sir Alexander of Dalhousie, who distinguished himself off to his castle of Hermitage, where he flung him into a dungeon in the reign of James I. • This Sir Alexander had a safe-conduct into and left him without food. It is said that it so happened that England in 1423, to conduct the captive King home on his release there was a granary above the dungeon, and that some particles from his English prison, and he was knighted at the coronation in of corn fell through the chinks and crevices of the floor, upon 1424, but arrested and imprisoned the same year, along with many which Ramsay supported a miserable existence for seventeen days, other of the chief men of the kingdom, as an adherent of the but at last died of hunger. More than four hundred years after House of Albany. He was one of the chief commanders of the this a countryman, in excavating round the foundations of Her- force which, on the 30th of September, 1435, defeated the lawless mitage Castle, laid open a stone vault, in which, amid a heap of raid of Sir Robert Ogle at Piperden, some of the incidents of chaff and dust, lay several human bones, along with a large and which encounter have been engrafted on the ballads of Otter- powerful bridle-bit and an ancient sword. These were conjec- burn, with which it is confounded in them under the common tared to be the relics of the brave Sir Alexander Ramsay. No name of Chevy Chase, several of the names of the comman- attempt was made to punish the crime, Douglas receiving a for- ders, as Douglas, Sir Alexander Ramsay, &c., being the same mal pardon through the intercession of the Regent—the Steward, in the two encounters. Sir Alexander executed an entail of his and obtaining the spoils of his victim, the governorship of Roxburgh, estate on the 3rd of April, 1456, in favour of his grandson and the sheriffship of Tweeddale ; but eleven years afterwards the Alexander, and the heirs male of his body, which failing. Knight of Liddesdale himself fell a victim to a treacherous ambus- to his second son, Robert, his third son, George, his fourth cede, laid for him by his kinsman, the Earl of Douglas, as he was son, William, and the heirs male of their bodies. He had hunting in Ettrick forest. These are the reverse sides to the a charter from James IL, confirmed by one of James Ill, nobler features of the age of chivalry, of the baronies of Dalhousie, Keringtoun, and Foulden, and died

Sir William Ramsay of Dalhousie, said to be the son of the before the 19th of March, 1465. He was succeeded by his grand. unfortunate Sir Alexander, had four hundred men following his son, Sir Alexander, of whom a letter of marriage was granted at banner in an inroad made in August, 1355, by the Earls of March that date to Isabel, relict of George Earl of Angus, to Jean os and Douglas on the borders. Having occupied a strong pass Johanna Douglas, daughter of the Earl of Angus, or any °the] near Neabit Moor, where the hilly country and the tortuous daughter of that Earl. He sat in Parliament, October 4, 1479 nature of the road allowed them to form an ambuscade, the two under the style of "Dominus de Dalwousey," and fell at the battli Earls despatched Sir William with his followers across the Tweed of Flodden, September 9, 1513. He was succeeded by his son to plunder the village of Norham and the adjacent country. Nicol de Ramsay, who was served heir to the lands of earned Ramsay executed his task with unsparing fidelity, and in his in 1532, and had a commission of justiciary on " Dalwobley; retreat took care to drive his booty just under the walls of Keringtoun, and Foulden, May 2, 1542. In 1522 we find hin Norham Castle, which was constantly occupied by a strong and named among the adherents of the Earl of A gas, who with tha picked English garrison. The insult, as was expected, brought Earl himself were summoned by the Governor Albany to appea out the whole English garrison upon them, led by the Constable, before the Parliament, and "render an account of their lewd an Sir Thomas Grey, and Sir James Deere. After a short resistance wicked pranks." He died in 1554, and was succeeded by hi Ramsay fled to where the Scottish army lay concealed, and the eldest son George, who with other confirmatory charters of th 'English pursuing, suddenly found themselves, on turning round preceding lands, of various incidental privilegssconnected withthem he shoulder of a mountain, in presence of the well-known had a charter of the barony of Dalhousie on the 6th of October tanners of Douglas. Retreat was impossible, resistance seemed 1564, to himself and his heirs in tail, and a Parliamentary con desperate, for the odds of numbers were overwhehning. But firmation of his infeoffinent of the barony, April 19, 1567. I Sir Thomas Grey was a model knight of the age, and first this latter year he signed the association to stand. by King Jame calling for his son, and knighting him on the field, he dis- VI., but on the escape of Mary from Lochleven. he joined he mounted his men-at-arms, and with his archers and fellow party, and entered into the bond to support her cause a .knights made a furious onslaught on the Scottish columns. Hamilton, May 8, 1568. He died in December, 1579. We d

'Blanche, married John of Gaunt, and was the mother of King risen had to surrender to their opponents. It was on this occa- of this Earl of Derby seems to have lived again. In the same year, the Scots, led them to a solitary spot, and there butchered them, 1338, on the resumption of general hostilities, Sir Alexander raised in revenge for the death of his father in the French wars. King a strong body of young men among the rocky and wooded banks David, on the 24th of October, 1368, granted to Sir William of the Esk, and concealing his followers and himself with their Ramsay, and his wife Agnes, and their heirs, the lands of booty in the caves of Hawthomden, sallied from these recesses and Nether-Liberton, and Sir William had a charter from the same carried his depredations to the English borders, cruelly ravaging the monarch -of Inverleith, which descended to his second son, land, and leading away from the smoking hamlets and villages David. His eldest son, Sir Patrick, had a charter from King many bands of captives. In these expeditions his fame became so David of the lands of Keringtoun, in Edinburgh county. He was great, that we are told there was not a noble youth in the land put in possession of Dalhousie and Keringtoun by his father in his who considered his military education complete unless he had life-time, and himself resigned them to his own grandson, Alex- served in the school of this brave captain. On one occasion, on ander, son of his son Alexander, who had died before him. In his return from an expedition into Northumberland, Ramsay was case of this limitation failing, they were to go to James, his second pursued and intercepted by the Lords Marchers,in a plain near Werk son. Sir Patrick died in 1377. His grandson and successor, Sir Castle. But-by a feigned flight Ramsay led the English into an Alexander, followed the example of his ancestors. In 1378, during ambush, completely defeated them, took Robert, Lord Manners, a time of nominal peace between the two kingdoms, but of con- prisoner, and put many to the sword. He continued to be ex- tinual raids on both sides of the borders, Sir Alexander, with a tremely active in co-operating with the Regent against the English, small body of adventurers, stormed and took the castle of Ber- an1 on the 20th of March, 1342, he took the strong fortress of wick, and when summoned to surrender it by the English and Roxsburgh by escalade. But this was a tiuly fatal success for Scottish Wardens, proudly replied " that he would give up his Ramsay. King David had only just arrived in Scotland from his prize neither to the monarch of England nor of Scotland, but long exile in France, and on hearing of this exploit, in an incon- would keep it while he lived for the King of France." And in fact, siderate transport of delight and gratitude, conferred the govern- with his little band of borderers, he defended the castle for some m.ent of the place and the sheriffship of Teviotdale on Sir time against the Earl of Northumberland, at the head of 10,000 Alexander. But the latter office was then held by Sir William men, assisted by miners and all the machinery for carrying on a Douglas, the Knight of Liddesdale, till then the warm friend and siege. In 1388 Sir Alexander was one of the commandera of the companion in arras of Ramsay. Douglas, stung at this injury, con- daring Scottish force which, under the celebrated Earl of Douglas, oeived a deadly hatred to Ramsay, and took a most disgraceful invaded the bishopric of Durham, and won the far-famed field of mode of executing his revenge. Ile pretended to be reconciled to Otterbum against Harry Hotspur. In this Sir Alexander's time Sir Alexander, and treated him in his usual friendly manner, and the house of Dalhousie was attacked by the English under Henry having so disarmed suspicion, he led a band of soldiers to Hawick, IV., but, was so well defended that the King was obliged to where the new sheriff held his court in the open church. Ramsay retreat. Sir Alexander was one of the Soots who fell on the fatal is said to have been warned against treachery, but to have treated field of Homildon on the 14th of September, 1402, when the the idea with entire disbelief, and on Douglas entering the church Percies avenged the defeat at 0 tterburn. A Robert de Ramsay he invited him to take his place beside him. But Douglas drew appears as lord of Dalhousie in a charter of the year 1416, but we his sword, seized his victim, who was wounded in attempting a vain have no evidence as to his relationship to Sir Alexander, or of that resistance, and throwing him bleeding across a home, carried him of another Sir Alexander of Dalhousie, who distinguished himself off to his castle of Hermitage, where he flung him into a dungeon in the reign of James I. • This Sir Alexander had a safe-conduct into and left him without food. It is said that it so happened that England in 1423, to conduct the captive King home on his release there was a granary above the dungeon, and that some particles from his English prison, and he was knighted at the coronation in of corn fell through the chinks and crevices of the floor, upon 1424, but arrested and imprisoned the same year, along with many which Ramsay supported a miserable existence for seventeen days, other of the chief men of the kingdom, as an adherent of the but at last died of hunger. More than four hundred years after House of Albany. He was one of the chief commanders of the this a countryman, in excavating round the foundations of Her- force which, on the 30th of September, 1435, defeated the lawless mitage Castle, laid open a stone vault, in which, amid a heap of raid of Sir Robert Ogle at Piperden, some of the incidents of chaff and dust, lay several human bones, along with a large and which encounter have been engrafted on the ballads of Otter- powerful bridle-bit and an ancient sword. These were conjec- burn, with which it is confounded in them under the common tared to be the relics of the brave Sir Alexander Ramsay. No name of Chevy Chase, several of the names of the comman- attempt was made to punish the crime, Douglas receiving a for- ders, as Douglas, Sir Alexander Ramsay, &c., being the same mal pardon through the intercession of the Regent—the Steward, in the two encounters. Sir Alexander executed an entail of his and obtaining the spoils of his victim, the governorship of Roxburgh, estate on the 3rd of April, 1456, in favour of his grandson and the sheriffship of Tweeddale ; but eleven years afterwards the Alexander, and the heirs male of his body, which failing. Knight of Liddesdale himself fell a victim to a treacherous ambus- to his second son, Robert, his third son, George, his fourth cede, laid for him by his kinsman, the Earl of Douglas, as he was son, William, and the heirs male of their bodies. He had hunting in Ettrick forest. These are the reverse sides to the a charter from James IL, confirmed by one of James Ill, nobler features of the age of chivalry, of the baronies of Dalhousie, Keringtoun, and Foulden, and died

Sir William Ramsay of Dalhousie, said to be the son of the before the 19th of March, 1465. He was succeeded by his grand. unfortunate Sir Alexander, had four hundred men following his son, Sir Alexander, of whom a letter of marriage was granted at banner in an inroad made in August, 1355, by the Earls of March that date to Isabel, relict of George Earl of Angus, to Jean os and Douglas on the borders. Having occupied a strong pass Johanna Douglas, daughter of the Earl of Angus, or any °the] near Neabit Moor, where the hilly country and the tortuous daughter of that Earl. He sat in Parliament, October 4, 1479 nature of the road allowed them to form an ambuscade, the two under the style of "Dominus de Dalwousey," and fell at the battli Earls despatched Sir William with his followers across the Tweed of Flodden, September 9, 1513. He was succeeded by his son to plunder the village of Norham and the adjacent country. Nicol de Ramsay, who was served heir to the lands of earned Ramsay executed his task with unsparing fidelity, and in his in 1532, and had a commission of justiciary on " Dalwobley; retreat took care to drive his booty just under the walls of Keringtoun, and Foulden, May 2, 1542. In 1522 we find hin Norham Castle, which was constantly occupied by a strong and named among the adherents of the Earl of A gas, who with tha picked English garrison. The insult, as was expected, brought Earl himself were summoned by the Governor Albany to appea out the whole English garrison upon them, led by the Constable, before the Parliament, and "render an account of their lewd an Sir Thomas Grey, and Sir James Deere. After a short resistance wicked pranks." He died in 1554, and was succeeded by hi Ramsay fled to where the Scottish army lay concealed, and the eldest son George, who with other confirmatory charters of th 'English pursuing, suddenly found themselves, on turning round preceding lands, of various incidental privilegssconnected withthem he shoulder of a mountain, in presence of the well-known had a charter of the barony of Dalhousie on the 6th of October tanners of Douglas. Retreat was impossible, resistance seemed 1564, to himself and his heirs in tail, and a Parliamentary con desperate, for the odds of numbers were overwhehning. But firmation of his infeoffinent of the barony, April 19, 1567. I Sir Thomas Grey was a model knight of the age, and first this latter year he signed the association to stand. by King Jame calling for his son, and knighting him on the field, he dis- VI., but on the escape of Mary from Lochleven. he joined he mounted his men-at-arms, and with his archers and fellow party, and entered into the bond to support her cause a .knights made a furious onslaught on the Scottish columns. Hamilton, May 8, 1568. He died in December, 1579. We d hot know whether his third son Alexander, who had from his mother, Elizabeth Hepburn, the lands of Edglaw, in the barony of Keringtonn, is the same with the Alexander Ramsay, ensign to Crawford of Jordanhill (Darnley's devoted attendant), who in 1571 was one of the three that first gained the top of the castle wall at Dumbarton, slew the sentinel, and maintained their post against the guard till joined by Crawford and the rest of his daring band, when the castle (Mary's last stronghold) was stormed to the vengeful cry of "A Darnley ! a Darnley!" George Ramsay was succeeded first by his eldest son John, who died without issue in 1592, and then by his grandson George, eldest son of his second son James, who had died before the 20th of May, 1580. This George Ramsay of Dalhousie had a charter of the barony of Eclingtoun in Berwickshire, March 2, 1594, and of that barony and several other lands, March 23, 1603, as "Sir George Ramsay of Dalhousie, Knight," and on the 12th of Sep- tember, 1615, of the lauds of Balleidmouth, Inuerdevot, and Sam- ford, to himself and Margaret Douglas, his wife, and with it the barony of Balleidmouth ; and on the 25th of August, 1618, he had by charter the barony of Dalhousie, on his own resignation, and the lordship of Melrose on the resignation of his brother John, erected into a free barony to himself and his heirs male of entail, to be called the barony of Melrose, with a grant to him and his heirs male and successors in the said lordship and barony of Melrose of the honour and dignity of a free baron and lord of Parliament, to be called in all time to come Lord Ramsay of Melrose. But not being pleased with that title, he obtained a letter from King James, January 5, 1619, changing his title to Lord Ramsay of Dalhousie. He died in 1629.

' John Ramsay, younger brother of the first Lord Ramsay of Dalhousie, raised himself to high fortune by his conduct during the extraordinary and mysterious affair called the "Gowrie Plot." 2 He was then page to James VI., and accompanied him to Gowrie's t house, and when the King's cry of treason was heard, and his head c was seen at a window, red and flushed, with a hand at his throat, John Ramsay, remembering a back entry, and running t swiftly up the turnpike stair to the top, dashed open the door t of the chamber with his foot, and found himself in the pre- t sence of James and Alexander Ruthven, who were struggling t together. James seemed to have thrown Ruthven almost on his knees, while, according to Ramsay's evidence, Ru.thven still kept hhis grasp on the King's throat. Ramsay was hampered by a dhawk, a favourite bird of the King's, which he held on his wrist; but throwing her off and drawing his whinger, he made an in- *effectual blow at Ruthven, the King calling out to him to strike mow, as the traitor had on him a pyne doublet. Ramsay then "stabbed Ruthven twice in the lower part of the body, and the t4King pushed him backwards through the door down the stairs, on which he was met by Sir Thomas Erskine and Dr. Herries, who thdespatched him, while he exclaimed, " Akts ! I had not the wyte rap% !" Ramsay and the other two Royal attendants, however, were miaow assailed in their turn by the Earl of Gowrie and seven of "'his servants, and the contest was only decided by some one calling "hheut that the King was slain, when Gowrie, as if paralyzed with 34iorror, dropped the point of his weapon, and Ramsay, throwing ?himself within his guard, passed his sword through his body and "'clew him on the spot. Even on the face of the facts as detailed °f -ay the King, Ramsay, and the other Royal attendants, the conduct f the Ruthvens is inexplicable and self-contradictory, on the uggestion that they really intended anything against the King's "de. There was certainly some cabal of the Ruthvens immediately 2t'aireceding the King's visit, but those who most recently have ex- umimined into the affair are of opinion that were the real facts 'nown, they would add another to the already dark shadows on 'Ile character of James VI. However this may be, John Ramsay's wh.' ortune was made by the part he played, or professed to have theilayed, in the drama. He had the barony of Eastburn, in the of County of Haddington, conferred on him, November 15, 1600, and th°vas created Viscount Haddiiagton and Lord Ramsay of Barres, relitune 11, 1606, and had a grant of arms commemorating his achieve- .gre'ee nt. He had also a grant of the lands and baronies belonging to as

he abbey of Melrose, which were erected for him into a barony, but h

. le resigned, as we have seen, the title of Lord Ramsay of Melrose to elder brother. After several vicissitudes of Court favour, he Pr°vas on the 22nd of January, 1620, created a peer of England as aron of Kingston-on-Thames and Earl of Holderness, with the dealight of bearing the sword of State before the King on every 5th _f August, the day appointed to commemorate the alleged deliver- isr 'lice of James from the Gowrie plot. The Earl died without issue twna February, 1625, when his titles became extinct. His elder rother, George, first Lord Ramsay of Dalheusie, was succeede l by

his eldest son William, second Lord Ramsay, who was advancal to the dignity of Earl of Dalhousie and Lord Ramsay of Keringto

to himself and his heirs male, by a patent dated at Holyroo , June 29, 1633, on occasion of the coronation of Charles I. He warmly espoused the cause of the Covenant, and was one of the Covenanting Lords at Edinburgh who signed a letter to the Earl of Essex on April 19, 1639, protesting against the alarm and misrepresentations caused in England by the warlike pre- parations of the Scots, and he held a command in Leslie's army which crossed the Tweed in 1640. In 1641 Alexander, Ear/ of Dalhousie, was one of the Lords recommended by the Parlia- ment to the King as councillors in place of those contained in the King's list, and in his subsequent entries Balfour calls the Earl constantly "Alexander." It is strange that the Lyon Kings at-Arms should fall into such a mistake in copying his official rolls of Parliament. It is to be observed that in recording the creation of the earldom he calls the nobleman William. Has, then, an Earl Alexander been omitted from the line of Dalhousie in the ordinary peerage-books ? Leaving this point to be determined by future inquirers into the family pedigree, we will proceed with the account of the actions attributed to the Earl of Dalhousie, whether a William or Alexander. On the 26th of November, 1643, the Committee of Estates appointed among other regiments to be levied one (of horse) to be commanded by the Earl of Dal- housie, consisting of two troops from the sheriffdom of Berwick; two troops from the sheriffdom of Haddin,gton, two troops from the sheriffdom of Edinburgh, one troop from the sheriffdom of Stirling under Sir William Bruce, and one troop from the sheriff- dom of Linlithgow. With this regiment the Earl appears to have marched into England in January, 1644, in the army of the Earr of Leven, and his regiment was certainly at Marston Moor in the July of that year, being one of the three Scotch regiments of horse which formed the support to Sir Thomas Fairfax's horse, and on his defeat by Goring being also broken and taking refuge with Cromwell and the victorious wing of the Parliament's army_ Whether the Earl himself was there is rendered somewhat doubtful, by his name appearing in Balfour as having taken his seat in the Scotch Parliament in the beginning of June. At any rate his regiment was recalled in this year to Scotland, to assist Argylr against Montrose, the sister of whose wife (a daughter of the Earr of Southesk) Dalhousie had married. On the sentence of for- feiture passed on Montrose in the following year, we find Dal- housie and Southesk expressly permitted to abstain from voting on account of this family connection with Montrose. On the 26th of October, 1646, Dalhousie was appointed to the office of high sheriff of the county of Edinburgh, and his name appears among the nominations to a colonelship in Hamil- ton's " Engagement " of the 4th of May, 1648; but he seems not to have accepted the command, as he was not after- wards excluded from Parliament by Argyll's party in Janu- ary, 1649, when a severe anti-Engagement test was adopted: He joined with Argyll in supporting the King of Scots in 1650; and was appointed to the command of a regiment of horse to be raised from Midlothian. On this account he incurred a fine of X1,500 in Cromwell's Act of Oblivion of April 12, 1654, his Christian name unfortunately not being mentioned in that Act.. He survived the Restoration, and died February 11, 1674. He had married, secondly, a daughter of Sir Alan Apsley, and sister of the celebrated Lucy Hutchinson, but had only children by his first wife, being succeeded by his son George, second Earl of Dalhousie, who died the next year, 1675, leaving a son William, who then became third Earl of Dalhousie. This Earl was sworn a Privy Councillor, February 23, 1682, and high sheriff of the county of Edinburgh in the same year, in which year he also, died, and was succeeded by his eldest son George, fourth Earl of Dalhousie, who was under age at the time of his father's death, and narrowly escaped being brought up as a Catholic at Douay, through the interest of the Chancellor Perth. He was too young to be conspicuous at the crisis of the Revolution, and was killed in Holland in a duel by a Mr. Hamilton in 1696. His neat brother, William, succeeded as fifth Earl of Dalhousie, and was appointed high sheriff of Edinburghshire in February, 1703. He steadily supported the Union, was Colonel of the Scottish Guards sent to the assistance of the Archduke Charles in Spain ; became Brigadier-General in January, 1710, and died unmarried in Spain in the October following. He had been persuaded by his mother to execute a disposition of his estates and honours to his. sister, but the Queen not having previously accepted his resigna- tion of the honours, the disposition was ineffectual as to them, and as it was invalid as to the estate also, as the consent of a quorum. of his " interdictors " was not obtained, his sister succeeded to personal property only. The earldom and real estates

devolved on his cousin William, sixth Earl of Dalhousie, son of the Hon. Captain John Ramsay, second son of the first Earl. He was the patron of Alan Ramsay the poet, who addressed him " Dalwolsey of an auld descent!

My stoup! my pride ! my ornament!"

He died on the 8th December, 1739. His eldest son, George, who had married Jean. second daughter of the Hon. Henry Maule, brother of the Earl of Panmure, died in his father's life- time, and the latter was succeeded as seventh Earl of Dalhousie by his grandson Charles, who was a lieutenant-colonel in the army, and died unmarried, January 29, 1764, and was succeeded by his brother George, eighth Earl of Dalhousie, who had studied the law, and became a member of the Faculty of Advocates in 1757. In February, 1775, he was appointed one of the Lords of Police, Iligh Commissioner to the Assembly of the Church from 1777 to 1782, and a Scotch representative peer in 1774,1780, and 1784. On the death of his uncle, William Earl of Panmure, in 1782, the extensive property of that family devolved on him in life-rent, in virtue of a settlement, with remainder to his second son, the Hon. 'William Ramsay. Lord Dalhousie died in France, November 4, 1787. His eldest son George succeeded as ninth Earl of Dalhousie, entered the army, had a command in the West Indies in 1795, and in Ireland during the rebellion of '98; in the campaign in Hol- land in 1789; and in the expedition to Egypt in 1801. He became a major-general in the army in 1808, went on the disastrous Walcheren expedition of 1809, and remained there till the place was evacuated. He again served under Wellington, and distin- guished himself at Waterloo. He became a Scotch representative peer in 1796, and was several times re-chosen. On August 11, 1815, he was made a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Dal- housie, of Dalhousie Castle. From the year 1820 to 1828 he was Governor of Lower Canada. In politics he was a Tory. He died on the 21st of March, 1838, and was succeeded as tenth Earl by his son James Andrew, who was one of the " following " of Sir Robert Peel, but will be known hereafter by his Governorship of India from 1847 to 1856, so much praised at the time, so much decried subsequently. Posterity will probably decide that he was a really great man, framed in a mould which was scarcely the one best adapted to his age. An indifferent financier and care less of popular feeling, he framed imperial plans of conquest and of fusion which his immense administrative ability and political daring enabled him to carry out to the full. During his eight years of power he added four great kingdoms—the Punjaub, Nag- pore, Oude, and Pegu—to his Sovereign's dominions, covered India with telegraphs, laid down the railway plan now being com- pleted, reformed the administration of justice, and re-organized every department of the State upon the English basis. His pro- ject was to convert the Indian continent into one vast homogene- ous military monarchy, governed by one mind acting through English laws, and supporting the English system of ideas, and had he lived and continued Viceroy he might have succeeded. He was compelled to resign by ill health in 1856, and the national spirit of the country, rebounding the moment his strong com- pression was relaxed, broke out in the mighty rebellion falsely called, because the fighting castes moved first, the Indian mutiny. On the 25th of August, 1849, he was created Marquis of Dal- housie, of Dalhousie Castle, in the county of Edinburgh, and of the Punjaub in the peerage of the United Kingdom. He was also Governor of Dover Castle and Warden of the Cinque Ports. He returned from India to die by inches under a most distressing disease, which disabled him from attempting any personal defence of his Indian policy—a defence, indeed, which he was far too haughty to attempt. He died on the 19th of December, 1860, with- out male issue, when the marquisate and barony of Dalhousie be- came extinct, but the Scotch earldom of Dalhousie devolved on his cousin Fox Manic, second Baron Paumure, son of the Hon. William Ramsay, second son of the eighth Earl of Dalhousie, who had assumed the name of Maule on succeeding to the estates of his great-uncle the Earl of Panmure, and was created Baron Panmure, September 16, 1831. Fox Manic, who has re-assumed the name of Ramsay in addition to that of Manic, the present and eleventh Earl Dalhousie, succeeded his father in April, 1852, as Baron Panmure, and has been a leading statesman of the Whig party, was Under-Secretary of State from 1835 to 1811, when he became Vice-President of the Board of Trade, and resigned with his party in the same year. He was Secretary at War from 1846 to 1852, and again from 1855 to 1858. He is otherwise known for his strong Evangelical opinions, which have Modified to a certain extent the general Liberalism of his politics.

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