Page images
PDF
EPUB

came to the Christian camp to redeem her son from his state of captivity. Lockhart is said to have fixed the price at which his prisoner should ransom himself; and the lady, pulling out a large embroidered purse, proceeded to tell down the ransom like a mother who pays little respect for gold in comparison of her son's liberty. In this operation, a pebble inserted in a coin, some say of the Lower Empire, fell out of the purse, and the Saracen matron testified so much haste to recover it as gave the Scottish knight a high idea of its value, when compared with gold or silver. "I will not consent," he said, "to grant your son's liberty unless that amulet be added to his ransom." The lady not only consented to this, but explained to Sir Simon the mode in which the talisman was to be used, and the uses to which it might be put. The water in which it was dipped operated as a styptic, as a febrifuge, and possessed several other properties as a medical talisman.

Sir Simon Lockhart, after much experience of the wonders which the charm wrought, brought it to his own country, and left it to heirs, by whom, and by Clydesdale in general, it was, and is still, distinguished as the Lee-penny, from the name of his native seat of Lee. The most remarkable part of its history, perhaps, was that it so especially escaped condemnation when the Church of Scotland chose to impeach many other cures which savoured of the miraculous, as occasioned by sorcery and censured the appeal to them, "excepting only that to the amulet, called the Lee-penny, to which it had pleased God to annex certain healing virtues which the Church did not presume to condemn." The efficacy of the charm is said to have been tested with fair success even during the present century, but the risk of injury or loss, when out of proper custody, was so great that the "Talisman" was dipped in water at home, the water being sent out in bottles to patients or others who desired to test its power.

Sir James Lockhart of Lee, the sixth in descent from the above Sir Simon, and son of Allan, slain at Pinkie, became in 1630 one of the Commissioners of Estates for the county of Lanark, and in 1645 a Commissioner of Exchequer. The following year he was made a Lord of Session, succeeding on the Bench that Sir

Alexander Gibson, Lord Durie, deceased, who was scarcely better known in his day from a ponderous volume of "Decisions," than for having been kidnapped by a daring moss-trooper known as Willie Armstrong, or "Christie's Will," and carried off to a lonely "peel" or fortress in Annandale, where he was kept in confinement till my Lord Traquair, Lord High Treasurer, had got some law case in which he was concerned settled after his own mind. After taking part in the exploit known as the "Engagement" to relieve King Charles from captivity in England, Lord Lee was himself taken prisoner at Alyth, August 1651, shipped off to England, and confined for years in the Tower, till relief came through the intercession of his eldest son, Sir William Lockhart, Governor of Dunkirk, and otherwise prominent as a diplomatist during the Commonwealth. Mazarine is said to have offered him the baton of a marshal of France if he would favour the plans of Louis XIV. regarding the cession of Dunkirk and Mardyke. Lord Lee's second son was that distinguished lawyer, Sir George Lockhart, President of the Court of Session, shot on Sunday, March 31, 1689, in a close off High Street leading to his own residence, by John Chiesley, of Dalry, in consequence of having given a decision in favour of Chiesley's wife as one of the arbiters in a suit for aliment. Chiesley, known in his day as a regardless ruffian, was first put to the torture by warrant of the Estates, and, confessing the crime, had his right hand struck off the Wednesday following. He was hanged immediately thereafter, and his body hung in chains between Leith and Edinburgh. The Lord President, known as Sir George of Carnwath, purchased that estate from the Earl of Carnwath, to whom it had come from the Somervilles through the Mar and Buchan families. The eldest son of the Lord President, also a George, known from his intrigues with the Jacobites as "Union Lockhart," acted as a sort of confidential agent between the Pretender and his Scottish adherents. Exiled to Holland for a brief period, he was permitted, in 1728, to return to Carnwath, where he lived unmolested till 1732, when he was unfortunately killed in a duel. George Lockhart wrote "Memoirs of Scotland, from the Accession of Queen Anne till the Union," published, but without his consent, in 1714; and left behind him "Papers on the

Affairs of Scotland, 1720-25," printed 1817. A younger brother, Philip, shot as a rebel at Preston, was father of Alexander of Craighouse, raised to the Bench under the title of Lord Covington. Carnwath, since 1639, has given the title of Earl to the family of Dalzell of Dalzell, presently represented by Henry Burrard Dalzell, eleventh in descent from Sir Robert, first Earl.

From Lord Lee the family succession was carried on by Sir William Lockhart, whose second wife, Robina Shouster, was niece by her mother of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector. Cromwell Lockhart, their eldest son, succeeded to Lee, but, failing issue, the estate reverted for the third time to a brother, James, on the death of whose son, John, the succession opened up to Count Lockhart Wishart. After him came another George of Carnwath, a strong partisan of the House of Stuart-James, who added the name of Wishart to his own, and became a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. A younger brother, Charles, married Elizabeth, only child of John Macdonald of Largie, and from them descends the present representative of the Lee and Carnwath Lockharts. On the death of John Lockhart, last of Lee, in 1777, James succeeded to that estate; but his son, Charles, dying in 1802 without issue, the foreign honours of the family became extinct, and the estates of Lee and Carnwath devolved upon his cousin, Alexander Macdonald, eldest surviving son of Charles Lockhart and Elizabeth Macdonald of Largie.

On inheriting the estate and representation of the family, Alex. Macdonald resumed the name of Lockhart, and was created a baronet of Great Britain, 24th May, 1806. With two daughters, he had three sons—namely, Sir Charles, second baronet; Sir Norman, third baronet; and Alexander, M.P. for Lanarkshire from 1837 to 1841. The eldest son, Sir Charles Macdonald Lockhart, married Emilia Olivia, daughter of Sir Charles Ross, sixth baronet of Balnagown, and had two daughters. On his death, 8th December, 1832, he was succeeded by his brother, Sir Norman Macdonald Lockhart, who died in 1849, when his son, Sir Norman Macdonald Lockhart, born 1845, became the fourth baronet. Sir Norman died 1870, and was succeeded by his brother, the present Sir Simon Macdonald Lockhart, fifth baronet, born 1849. Lee House, greatly enlarged and improved in 1822 from

designs by James Gillespie, Edinburgh, stands in an extensive and well wooded valley, near the bottom of the sloping hills which form its northern boundary. Technically speaking, it may now be described as an extensive building of a square castellated form, having circular embattled turrets at each corner, and an embattled parapet top. The principal entrance is in the lower part of a central tower in the east front, and immediately above is a square window, which lights the entrance hall. The building is surrounded with a high, broad terrace walk. The best view of this stately mansion and the fine woods around is thought to be from the road carried over Cartland, which passes along the brow of the hills on the north, and gives the spectator some idea of “a giant fortress in fairyland."

DALRYMPLE AND THE STAIRS.

SEPARATED from the western corners of Dumfries and Galloway by the wide parish of Dalmellington, and from the sea by Maybole, Dalrymple, lying along the north or right bank of the Doon, is like Stair, on the south or left bank of the Ayr, included within that subdivision of central Ayrshire known as King's Kyle. The one point marks the northern, the other the southern, limits of this portion of the country, and are only separated from each other by portions of Ochiltree and Coylton. With the exception of Craigie, north of the Ayr, Stair is the least thickly-peopled parish in Kyle, and, with the exception of Barr, in the centre of Carrick, smaller in point of numbers than any within the entire county. The figures in the last census show 734 for Stair and 1412 for Dalrymple, the latter coming thus to be classed also among the minor parishes so far as population is concerned. Yet, insignificant as these two Ayrshire parishes may appear under the application of a mere statistical test, it is within their bounds we must search for the cradle of a race devoted beyond most families to the public service of their country. No way overlooking

or extenuating the dark crime of Glencoe, it is still to the Dalrymples the historian must turn for some of the brighter examples of eminence in literature and law, in arms and diplomacy. It is indeed hardly open to doubt that we have in the career of James, first Viscount Stair, the highest example of a race of statesmen in which Scotland, up to his time, had by no means been so prolific as might be supposed, if judged only by what she won through her sturdy spirit of independence. From evidence not to be put lightly aside, it would appear that about the middle of the fifteenth century (1450), the year when King James, second of the ill-starred line, brought home Mary of Gueldres as his bride, a certain William, son of John of the barony of Dalrymple, acquired the lands of Stair, or Stair-Montgomery, through his marriage with the heiress, Margaret Kennedy, daughter of Malcolm of Carrick. Their son, William Dalrymple of Stair, is set down as having married Marion, daughter of Chalmers of Gadgirth, a lady who, as we have already described, was summoned before the King's Council as belonging to that religious reforming band known as the Lollards of Kyle. A grandson, James of Stair, was among the first who openly professed the reformed doctrines. In later years his enemies-and he had many of them—did not fail to taunt James, first Viscount Stair, with his lowly descent; but, if an offence was intended, it did not appear to disturb either his equanimity or his dignified bearing as President of the Court of Session. The place of his birth is thought to have been Drummurchie, Barr parish, Ayrshire, and the date 1619.

The future Lord-President's father was James of Stair, and his mother Jannet Kennedy of Knockdaw. Stirring as his career was, it may be stated in a very few lines from the period when he passed from Mauchline school to Glasgow University, till his elevation to the peerage a few years before his death. Commanding for three years a company of foot in Glencairn's regiment, he afterwards turned his attention to philosophical studies, and in 1641, after a competitive examination, he became a professor or regent of the logic class in his old University. This appointment, however, would appear to have been only a preliminary step towards the perfecting of his legal studies, which enabled him to pass as advocate in 1648. Although one

« PreviousContinue »