TRIP HAYS OF ERROLL.-(CONTINUED.)
AFTER a banishment of more than a year Francis, Earl of Erroll, obtained leave to return, and landed at Stonehaven, Septem- ber 20, 1596. In May, 1597, he consented to conform to the Kirk, and on June 26 was solemnly re-admitted into the Church, and took the Sacrament with the other Catholic lord, Huntley. " Next day the Market Cross of Aberdeen was solemnly hung with tapestry, and in a small house close by a band of musicians was placed. Fourscore of the young men of the town, in their best habiliments, with hagbuts, took their station around. Here also were placed the magistrates and council, with six maskers. On a table set out in the street were wine, glasses, and sweetmeats. The Earl's ' pacification' was then solemnly proclaimed by March- mont herald. The two Earls (Huntley and Erroll) sat at the Cross in chairs, with His Majesty's Commissioner and the ministry. The wand of peace delivered to them by Patrick Murray, he receives them in His Majesty's name ; next the ministry embraces them, and then the provost, bailies, and magistrates. Hagbuts sounded that day ; wine drunk in abund- ance; glasses broken ; sirfootfeats casten abroad on the causey, gather whoso please I After this the Earls and their train pass to the Tolbooth with the haill ministry ; all are made burgesses of the town, the ministry with the rest. At eve naething but weight- ing." " Of course," observes Mr. Chambers on this contemporary account, "all was a forced hypocrisy on the part of the two lords, merely to avoid the legal consequences of their excommuni- cation. Most curious it would be to know if there were no mis- givings on the subject among the clergy. Certainly none ap- pear." In the Parliament held the 19th December, 1597, the Act of forfeiture against Erroll, Angus, and Huntley was repealed, and they were restored to their hon ours and estates, Erroll carry- ing the sword before the King on the last day of the Parliament. He had a charter of the lands of Turnaluef, July 29, 1607 ; of the barony of Cremond, June 7, 1608, and of the dominical lands of Essilmouth, &c., March 13, 1623. He was one of the Commis- sioners nominated by Parliament to treat of a Union with England July 11, 1604. In 1608 he appears to have got into trouble again about his "papistry." On the 21st of August in that year the King by his letters to the Lords of the Privy Council orders them to require the Marquis of Huntley, with the Earls of Angus and Erroll, to render themselves prisoners, and that hereafter they have no releasement nor liberty for so much as a day without His Majesty's especial command ; and in November they are com- mitted to custody to separate prisons, " for not satisfying the Church, for their entertaining of mass-priests and Jesuits, and not receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper." After this it appears that the Earl, as a recusant papist, was only allowed to remain in the country " on condition that he should not pass beyond a small circle around his own castle in Aberdeenshire." Being embarrassed by debt and troubled by his creditors, he found himself constrained to take some legal steps " for the provision of his many young children and settling of some good course for the estate of his house." It was necessary that he should be allowed to break temporarily through the obligation under which he lay to live within a certain space around his house. He therefore got a formal licence (November 9, 1615), "to repair to Edinburgh, and there to remain in some lodging, not kything ony way in day- light upon the heich street for ten days after the 20th of Novem- ber." The Earl died at Slains, July 16, 1631, and was buried in the night, conveyed quietly by his own domestics and country friends to the church of that place by torchlight, the money which would have been spent on a grander funeral being dis- tributed instead, according to his directions, among the poor. His second wife, Lady Margaret Stewart, was the youngest daughter of the Regent Moray, but he only had children by his third wife, Lady Elizabeth Douglas, youngest daughter of William, Earl of Morton, and her son William succeeded as ninth Earl of Erroll. The new Earl had been brought up in the Protestant faith. He was one of the twenty-five made Knights of the Bath along with Prince Henry, May 30, 1610, and officiated as High Constable at the coronation of Charles I. in Scotland in 1633, and lived in such magnificent style that he was ultimately obliged to dispose of his ancient family lordship of Erroll and the lands belonging to it. He, died December 7, 1636, at Erroll, and was privately interred without any funeral display in Erroll Church.
He was succeeded by his only son, Gilbert, tenth Earl. Earl
Gilbert obtained a pension in 1639. On the 3rd of August, 1641, we find a curious petition presented to the Scotch Parlia- ment " by Gilbert, Earl of Err011, Great Constable of Scotland, and John, Earl of Kinghorn, his tutor [guardian], for the exhibition of a manslayer, to be judged by him, as within the Constable% verge in time of Parliament." On this " the House, after much debate, ordained the town of Edinburgh to exhibit the man- slayer to the Constable and his deputies, with liberty to the town of Edinburgh to protest prout de jure." Erroll did not attain his majority till June, 1652, but was colonel of a regiment of horse under Hamilton's " Engagement" in 1648, and we find him nomi- nated on the 20th of December, 1650, one of the colonels of horse in the Scotch army under David Leslie which was to assert the• title of the " King of Scots." By Cromwell's Act of Oblivion of 1654 he was fined 2,0001. On this he presented a petition setting forth that " he was neither at Preston, Dunbar, nor Worcester and did not invacte England in the years 1618, 1650, nor 1651, nor was he a premover nor active in carrying on of any war against England the said years, or any of them, being all that time through minority and nonage under the government of tutors and curators for the most part at schools. The truth is," he continues, " the petitioner being by his birthright and by succession of many ages High Constable of Scotland, one place of great eminence and trust in this nation, was several times during the years of his pupillority and minority brought by his tutors and curators from the schools to be present at some Parliaments and committees only for preserving his office, and to sit there in the Constable's chair,. and to look upon the guarding and ordering of the House of Parliament as properly belonging to the Constable's place." He then states that although the title of colonel was bestowed on him, he never acted on the King's side, nor attended his Court during his abode in Scotland, and in June, 1651, came to Stirling,. and resigned formally his commission as colonel, thereby causing himself to be looked upon with an evil eye by the Royal party, and that he retired to his own house, where he hactlived peaceably ever since. He says he was one of the first to give in his adhesion when the English army came into the north of Scotland, and protests his fidelity to the Protectorate." This petition was backed by a certificate from the Clerk of the Parliament, that the Earl's presence at the coronation of Charles at Perth was. only an official one, in obedience to express order of Parlia,. ment. After the Restoration he was sworn a Privy Councillor, 1661. He obtained a new charter of his titles and offices from the King, November 13, 1666, to him and the heirs male or female of his body, which failing, to the heirs he should appoint by a writing under his hand, which failing, to heirs male and of tailzie in the former limitations, which failing, to his; heirs male whatsoever. He died in 1674, and as he had no children by his wife, Lady Catherine Carnegie, daughter of the: Earl of Soothe*, he had nominated his nearest heir male, Sir John' Hay of Killour, grandson of George Hay of Killour, youngest Boa of Andrew, seventh Earl of Erroll, who succeeded as eleventh Earl, obtaining a charter from the Crown of his kinsman's dignities. At the Revolution, to use Dundee's words, he " stayed at home," and he no part in public affairs from that time, being at heart e. Jacobite. His wife, Lady Anne Drummond, onlydaughter of James,. third Earl of Perth, was a more ardent adherent of that faith, and, even incurred imprisonment for her zeal in the troubled period immediately following the Revolution. The Earl died De- cember 30, 1704, and was succeeded by his son Charles, twelfth Earl of Erroll, noted while a young man as " an enemy to Presbytery." He is described as a man of " good understand,- ing," but not of brilliant or showy qualities. On succeeding his father he took the oaths to Queen Anne and his seat, June 284. 1705. He warmly opposed the Union, against which he entered a. strong protest, January 7, 1707. He was then vehemently dis- affected to the Government, and in March of the same year- Colonel Hooke, a Jacobite refugee in the French service, arrived. at Slains Castle " as a sort of ambassador or commissioner, autho- rized by the Court of France to negotiate with the friends of the cause, and report on their strength and willingness to act." Erroll seems, from Hooke's reports, to have given in his adherence pretty heartily. It is not surprising therefore that on the alarm of an In- vasion arising in 1708 the Earl, although being, or professing to be, in bad health, was sent prisoner to the castle of Edinburgh He was one of those who attended the gathering at Braemar in 1715, at the summons of the Earl of Mar, but he escaped any serious consequences from his participation in that rebellion, and died in 1717 unmarried. His title then devolved on his sister Mary, who became Countess of Erroll, and at the coronation of George H. the Duke of Roxburgh, on her claim to the Constabulate being allowed, acted as her deputy in that office. Under the Act abolishing heritable jurisdictions (1747) she got for the regality of Slains 1,2001., and died at Slains Castle, August 19, 1758. She was succeeded by James, Lord Boyd, grandson of her sister, Lady Margaret Hay. Lady Margaret had married James, fifth Earl of Linlithgow, and fourth Earl of Callendar, who was attainted for his adhesion to the Rebellion of '15. Her daughter by this noble- man, Lady Anne Livingstone, married William Boyd, fourth Earl of Kilmarnock, who took a conspicuous part in the Re- bellion of '45, and was executed on Tower Hill, August 18, 1746. The Countess died a year afterwards at Kilmarnock, September 14, 1747. Her eldest son, James, Lord Boyd, had a commission in the 21st Regiment of Foot in 1745 on the side of Government, and upon his father's execution claimed the estate " as disponed to trustees for his use " on 10th August, 1732. The Court of Session sustained his claim in 1749, and on the 28th of March, 1751, it was affirmed by the House of Lords. In October, 1754, he obtained a commission in Pepperell's Foot in America, and in Arabin's Foot in December, 1755, but on succeed- ing his great-aunt in 1758 as thirteenth possessor of the earldom of Erroll he quitted the army. His presence as hereditary Constable of Scotland at the coronation of George III. is alluded to by Sir Walter Scott in his novel of Red-gauntlet. On this occasion he neglected by accident to pull off his cap when the King entered, and apologizing for the ommission, the King entreated him to be covered, for he looked upon his presence at the ceremonial as a very particular honour. He spent the rest of his life almost wholly in retirement at Slains, attending to his estates and the comfort of his tenantry. He was, however, appointed one of the Lords of Police, 1767, and elected a Scottish representative Peer in 1770. He died at Callendar House, July 3, 1778. He was remarkable for his stature, being six feet four inches in height, of excellent proportions, and extremely graceful. Dr. Johnson said of him that he resembled Homer's Sarpedon. He was succeeded by his eldest son, George, fourteenth Earl of Erroll, who served in the army in various regiments, and in 1796 was chosen one of the sixteen representative Peers for Scot- land, on which occasion the Earl of Lauderdale entered a protest, on the ground that the earldom of Erroll was from its original creation a male fee, and that no new right was created by the charter of 1674, and he presented accordingly a petition to the House of Lords against the return of Erroll. On the 19th of May, 1797, however, the Lord Chancellor pronounced judg- ment in favour of Earl George, who only survived till the 14th of June, 1798, when, dying without issue, the titles devolved on his brother William, fifteenth Earl of Erroll. He was appointed Knight-Marshal of Scotland, February 5, 1805, and chosen a representative Peer in 1806. He was also for several years Lord High Commissioner to the Church of Scotland His eldest son, James, Lord Hay, an Ensign in the Guards, was killed at Waterloo, June 18, 1815. The Earl himself died January 26, 1819, and was succeeded by his second son, William George, sixteenth Earl, who married in 1820 Miss Elizabeth Fitzclarence, daughter of William IV. and Mrs. Jordan. After the accession of his Royal father-in-law he was sworn a Privy Councillor, and was created a
Peer of the United Kingdon (June 17,1831) as Baron Kilmarnock, county Ayr. He was created a Knight of the Thistle in 1835, was a cordial supporter of the Whig party, and on the accession of the Melbourne Administration in 1835 was appointed Master of the Buckhounds, which office he exchanged in November, 1839, for that of Lord Steward of the Household, which he held till August, 1843. In 1836 he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Aberdeen- shire. After protracted ill-health, he died, April 19, 1846, and was succeeded by his son, William Henry, seventeenth and present
Earl of Erroll. As hereditary (22nd) High Constable of Scotland the Earl is the first subject in Scotland (not .orthe Blood Royal),
and has the right to take precedence of every other hereditary honour. He served in the Crimea, and was severely wounded at the battle of the Alma in September, 1854. Like his father, he is a Whig in politics.
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