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THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

RIVERSIDE

•

MAKCHMONT

AND

THE HUMES OF POLWARTH
l

/Y\-

MAKCHMONT

AND

THE HUMES OF POLWAKTH

ONE OF THEIE DESCENDANTS

"True to the end"

SIR HUGH
HUME CAMPBELL, BABT

OF MARCHMONT
THIS LITTLE BOOK

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY
HIS GRANDDAUGHTER.

MARGARET WARRENDER

CONTENTS,

MAECHMONT AND. THE HUMES OF POLWARTH—

CHAPTER I.

Situation of Polwarth parish — The village of Polwarth-on-the-
Green — St Mungo's Fair — Derivation of Polwarth — The
Black Well — Polwarth thorn-tree — Modern version of " Pol-
warth on the Green " — Polwarth church and churchyard —
Vicissitudes of the old parish church — Its restoration by
the Marchmont family — The frightening bell — The early
Polwarths — The family of Home — "The Flyting betwixt
Montgomerie and Polwart" — The barony of Jedburgh,

CHAPTER II.

Sir Patrick Hume, eighth Baron of Polwarth — His marriage —
His daughter, Lady Grisell Baillie — His imprisonment in the
Tolbooth — The projected Caroline settlement — The Ryehouse
Plot — Sir Patrick Hume in hiding — Heroism of Lady Grisell
Baillie — Sir Patrick flees to Holland — Confiscation of the Pol-
warth estates — The Polwarth family in exile — Their return
at the Eevolution of 1688 — Restoration of their estates —

CONTENTS.

Kingly favours showered on the family — Sketch of the
history of Greenlaw — Its erection into a barony — The ancient
Castle of Greenlaw — The church of Greenlaw, ... 27

CHAPTER III.

Continued prosperity of the Marchmont family — Patrick, first
Earl of Marchmont, appointed King's High Commissioner —
His apartments at Holyrood — The Castle of Redbraes —
Family portraits at Marchmont — Death of King William III.
— Change in the family fortunes — The Treaty of Union —
End of Lord Marchmont's parliamentary life — Death of
Lady Marchmont — Her character — Lord Polwarth's second
marriage — "Bonnie Jean o' the Hirsel" — Death of Lord
Polwarth — Marriage of Mrs Murray — Unhappy issue of
the marriage — Her residence in England — Her friendship
with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and with Lady Hervey
— Her death, ......... 51

CHAPTER IV.

Lord Marchmont's attachment to the house of Hanover — Devoted
conduct of his daughter, Lady Grisell — Lord Polwarth at
Copenhagen — Colin Maclaurin tutor to the Master of Pol-
warth— Latter years and death of Lord Marchmont — Dif-
ferent estimates of his character — His advice to his children
— Holland revisited — Death of Lord Binning — Death of Lady
Grisell Baillie — Her songs, ...... 71

CHAPTER V.

Alexander, second Earl of Marchmont — His studies at Utrecht —
Return to Scotland with his family — His marriage — His
accession to the Scottish Bench as Lord Cessnock — Becomes
Lurd Polwarth — Honours conferred on him by the House of

CONTENTS.

Hanover — Aids in the suppression of Lord Mar's rising —
Becomes Ambassador at the Court of Denmark — His love of
Literature — Appointed First Ambassador to the Congress of
Cambray — Death of his wife, Margaret, Lady Polwarth —
His return home — His downfall — His death and character —
His twin sons — Perplexing resemblance between the two, . 80

CHAPTER VI.

Careers of the twin brothers — Intimacy of the elder, Lord Pol-
warth, with Pope — Becomes executor to Sarah, Duchess of
Marlboro ugh — His triumphs in the House of Commons —
Succeeds to title of Lord Marchmont — Takes his seat in the
Upper House — Made Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of
Scotland — His first wife — His second marriage — Letter from
Lord Bolingbroke on the birth of a son and heir — Building
of new house — Marriage of his son, Lord Polwarth — Death
of Lord Polwarth — Marriage of Lady Anne — History of
Eccles House — Sir John Paterson — Deadrigs Cross — Orange
Lane — Marriage of Lady Diana to Walter Scott of Harden
— Return of young Mr Scott as member for the county —
Disastrous results of the political triumph — Lord March-
mont's latter years at Hernel Hempstead — His relations —
Lady Anne Purves, and her anecdotes of the Marchmont
family — Mr George Rose — Death of Lord Marchmont —
Final settlement of his estates — Succession of Sir William
Purves — The library at Marchmont — Sir Walter Scott's
recollections of Lady Diana Scott — The barony of Polwarth, 91

CHAPTER VII.

Description of the country round Polwarth village — The Craw's
Entry — The Back Lea — Polwarth Common — Kyles Hill —
The Hule Moss — The Foul Fords — Tragic occurrence at the
Foul Fords — Site of the struggle, . . . . .119

CONTENTS.

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT, . 129
PEDIGREE OF THE HUMES OF POLWARTH, . . 179-180

APPENDIX—

I. THE COUNTESS OF MARCHMONT'S BILLS OF FARE, . . 183

II. TWO SONGS OF LADY GRISELL BAILLIE, . . .' . 187
HI. LETTERS —

GEORGE I. TO THE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA, . . . 190

CAROLINE PRINCESS OF WALES TO THE KING OF PRUSSIA, 190

CAROLINE PRINCESS OF WALES TO THE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA, 191

IV. VERSES TO THE EARL OF MARCHMONT ON THE DEATH OF HIS

FATHER, 192

LIST OF ILLUSTBATIONS,

PAGE

HUGH, THIRD EARL op MARCHMONT, From a contemporary Print, Frontispiece

MIRROR OVER DRAWING-ROOM FIREPLACE AT MARCHMONT, . Dedication

BOOKPLATE OF PATRICK, FIRST EARL OF MARCHMONT, . . . xiv

ARMS OF POLWARTH, HUME, AND SINCLAIR, . .1

SITE OF THE OLD CASTLE OF POLWARTH, From a Sketch, . . 26

PATRICK, FIRST EARL OF MARCH- f From the Portrait at Marchmont
MONT, I by Sir Godfrey Kneller, . 27

LANTERN CARRIED BY LADY GRISELL BAILLIE, . . . .50

REDBRAES CASTLE, . . . From an old Picture at Marchmont, 53

ELIZABETH, LADY POLWARTH. . From a Portrait at Marchmont, . 55

From the Portrait at Marchmont

by Sir Godfrey Kneller, . 60

POLWARTH CHURCH, . . . From a Sketch, ... 70

BAILLIE ARMS, ..... 79

ALEXANDER. SECOND EARL OF )

I . From a Portrait at Marchmont, . 80

MARCHMONT, J

MARGARET, LADY POLWARTH, . n n "

HUGH AND ALEXANDER, TWIN SONS ~j

OF ALEXANDER, SECOND EARL OF > u n "

MARCHMONT, J

GRISELL, COUNTESS OF MARCHMONT, <

xii ILLUSTRATIONS.

HAMMERED-IRON BALUSTRADE, WITH CYPHER OP ALEXANDER, SECOND

EARL OF MARCHMONT, ...... 90

ELIZABETH, COUNTESS OF MAHCHMONT, From a Portrait at Marchmont, 98

ALEXANDER, LORD POLWARTH, . it n n

MARCHMONT HOUSE, .......

CROSS AT DEADRIGS, NEAR ECCLES, .....

PANEL DESIGNED BY ADAMS FOR THE LIBRARY AT MARCHMONT,
BOOKPLATE OF ALEXANDER, SECOND EARL, THEN SIR ALEXANDER

CAMPBELL OF CESSNOCK, . . . . . .126

BOOKPLATE OF ALEXANDER, SECOND EARL, WHEN LORD POLWARTH, . 128

LADY ANNE PURVES, . . From a Miniature, . .129

BOOKPLATE OF ALEXANDER, SECOND EARL OF MARCHMONT, . .182

MAKCHMONT

AND

THE HUMES OF POLWAETH.

CHAPTER I.

" At Polwart on the Green

If you'll meet me the morn,
Where lasses do convene

To dance about the thorn,
A kindly welcome you shall meet

Frae her wha likes to view
A lover and a lad complete —
The lad and lover you."

— ALLAN RAMSAY.

little parish of Polwarth lies in the heart of Ber-
wickshire, midway between Duns and Greenlaw. It
contains 3012 acres, and — with one exception, Eyemouth
—is the smallest parish in the county, and the entire
property of the owner of Marchmont. Four families—

2 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES 'OF POLWARTH.

Polwarth, Sinclair, Hume, and Purves-Hume-Campbell—
have succeeded each other in this fair heritage, and with
their history its own is inseparably connected.

The long brown slopes of Lammermuir seem to pause
before making a rapid descent into the Merse, and the
wooded crest of Kyles Hill looks boldly forth across the
wide expanse of plain that sweeps to the foot of Cheviot ;
and there — where the heather ceases, and the rich grass
fields run up among the sheltering plantations — nestles
the little village, which for centuries has been known as
Polwarth-on-the-Green. It is a singularly picturesque
spot. Backed by a narrow strip of wood, where the
rowan-berries hang like bunches of coral every autumn,
the irregularly shaped Green slopes gently to the north.
There are no formal rows of houses ; ash-trees of great
size and immense age overhang the thatched cottages
which are dotted about in groups of twos and threes.
Each has its garden, bright with flowers ; while inter-
spersed among them are little hedged-in paddocks, where
generally a pony is grazing. There are only about twenty
inhabited cottages now, for the village is dwindling away;
but within the memory of persons still alive, there were
nearly double the number. Following the traditional
Scottish custom, whereby the inhabitants of a village all
embraced the same trade, handing it down from father
to son, the people of Polwarth were formerly shoemakers,

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 3

tanning their leather in the little stream that runs past
their doors. " The Polwarth folk winna marry oot o' their
ain parish " was the country saying about them, and from
generation to generation the same family names are found
there. Long, long ago the village claimed such import-
ance that St Mungo's Fair was held there twice a-year,
summer and winter ; and traders came from far and wide
to display their wares on the Green. The fair lasted for
two days, on the first of which horses and cattle changed
hands, while the second was devoted to ordinary mer-
chandise. Tradition relates that after one of these fairs a
quarrel took place between two packmen ; and the one slew
the other on the hill-slope to the south-east of Polwarth,
which to this day is called The Packman's Brae. The
murdered man was buried where he fell, and the stone
that marks his resting-place may still be seen in the
hedge to the west of the road.

The name of the village was anciently written Poul-
ivorth, Paulworth, and Polworth. Chalmers in his ' Cale-
donia' derives it from Pol -worth, the hamlet on the
muddy stream (Pul in the Cambro- British, and Pol in
the Gaelic, signifying a muddy stream, a marshy place ;
and worth or weorth in the Saxon tongue, a hamlet, farm-
stead, or village). After rain the Swirden burn (or the
Kirk burn, as it is called lower down), in common with
every little stream in the parish, runs a deep red colour,

4 MAECHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

owing to the clayey nature of the soil. This would make
Chalmers's derivation appear very probable. Other writers
have traced the name to Paul-worth — the settlement of
Paul — but they do not attempt to unveil the identity of
Paul. The village is of great antiquity, and in 1587 was
made a baronial burgh.

From a little knowe behind the smithy gushes the Black
Well, to which tradition ascribes the same virtues as to the
Fountain of Trevi, — he who drinks here once is bound to
return. Far more picturesque were the wells on the Green,
their cool, dark depths protected from the sun by the
arched mounds built over them, grass-covered above, and
within fringed with ferns. Close by, surrounded by a
railing, stand two large thorn - trees, offshoots of that
original tree blown down about fifty years ago, in which
the earliest traditions of the village centred. Its fame

came down from a time so remote that all memory has
been lost of the origin of its luck-bringing powers. Al-
ready in the sixteenth century it was a well-known land-
mark, as appears from the line —

" In a pit by Polwart-thorn,"

which occurs in that curious poem, " The Flyting betwixt
Montgomerie and Pol wart." A hundred years earlier it
had witnessed the triumphant return of the captive
heiresses, and the wedding dance had circled beneath its

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 5

shade ; and down to the present time there has been no
occasion of rejoicing in Polwarth with which it has not
been associated. It is alluded to also in the lines owing
to which Polwarth - on - the - Green is enshrined in every
collection of Scottish song ; and though Allan Ramsay's
verses — the first of which is quoted at the head of this
chapter — are of no great antiquity, he acknowledges to
having grafted them on the two first lines, —

" At Polwart on the Green
If you'll meet me the morn," —

which, wedded to an air equally ancient, were by some
unknown poet of a much older date.

At the beginning of this century, another version of
" Polwarth on the Green " was written by John Grieve,
that early friend of the Ettrick Shepherd to whom
"Mador of the Moor" is dedicated: —

" 'Twas summer tide ; the cushat sang

His am'rous roundelay ;
And dew, like clustered diamonds, hang

On flower and leafy spray.
The coverlet of gloaming grey

On everything was seen,
When lads and lassies took their way

To Polwarth on the Green.

The spirit-moving dance went on,

And harmless revelry
Of young hearts all in unison

"VVi' love's soft witcherie ;

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Their hall the open-daisied lea,

While frae the welkin sheen
The moon shone brightly on the glee

At Polwarth on the Green.

Dark een and raven curls were there,

And cheeks of rosy hue,
And finer form, without compare,

Than pencil ever drew ;
But ane, wi' een o' bonnie blue,

A' hearts confessed the queen,
And pride of grace and beauty too,

At Polwarth on the Green.

The miser hoards his golden store,

And kings dominion gain ;
While others in the battle's roar

For honour's trifles strain.
Away such pleasures, false and vain !

For dearer mine have been,
Among the lowly, rural train

At Polwarth on the Green."

Another favourite rhyme of unknown origin runs thus : —

" At Pol wart on the Green
We oft hae merry been,
And merry we'll be still
While stands the Kylie's hill ;
And round the corn-bing
We'll hae a canty fling ;
And round about the Thorn
We'll dance till grey-e'ed morn
Shall lift her drowsy bree
On mountain, vale, and lea.

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 7

At Pol wart on the Green
Our forebears oft were seen
To dance about the Thorn,
When they gat in their corn ;
Sae we their sons \vha be,
Shall keep the ancient glee,
Nor let the gree gang doun
While Polwart is a toun."

The crows fly round the wooded knowe, some three-
quarters of a mile to the south-east of the village, where,
half hidden among the trees, the church stands at the top
of a steep bank rising straight above the burn. A low
moss-grown wall bounds the tiny churchyard — -so small
that the afternoon sun throws the shadows of the syca-
mores right across it. Here and there the eye lights on
some freshly hewn memorial, with its inscription telling
of present sorrow and future hopes ; but most of the low
irregular head-stones are weather-worn and lichen-stained,
revealing little but the outline of a cherub's head or of a
mutilated scroll. Among them, but barely legible, is the
quaint epitaph on Mr Greig, factor to the first Earl of
Marchmont :—

" 1699.

Remember, man, as thou goest by,
As thou art now, so once was I ;
As I am now, so must thee be ;
Remember, man, that thou must die."

The ivy creeps up the church tower, and has long ago

8 MAEGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

hidden the sun-dial ; it now threatens to bury the sculp-
tured arms which proclaim that it was Patrick, Earl of
Marchmont, and Grisell Ker his wife, who built the tower
and restored the church. Long before they accomplished
their pious work this had been hallowed ground ; and the
voice of prayer had ascended from this spot ere ever the
mighty ash-tree hard by was a sapling, or the seeds had
ripened from which those gnarled sycamores had sprung.
Ten centuries have passed since the pious zeal of those
far-distant days dedicated a church here to St Mungo, the
" Beloved Saint," the memory of whose miracles and
blameless life was still fresh in the land.1 Since then
many strange vicissitudes have befallen it. Too near the
Borders to escape the tide of war which ebbed and flowed
intermittently for so many hundred years, it more than
once ran the risk of complete destruction. After some such
evil times, it was rededicated by Bishop David de Bernham
in April 1242.2 Fifty-four years later — in 1296 — Adam

1 St Kentigern, a famous Scotch saint, died in 603. The 13th of January
was held as his day, of which it was said, " Holy St Mungo never leaves the
weather as he found it." Under his name of Mungo, " the Beloved or Gracious
One? many churches were dedicated to him.

2 David de Bernham was born about the end of the twelfth or beginning of
the thirteenth century at Berwick-on-Tweed, and is said to have been descen-
ded from an ancient family of burgesses in that town. He became Camerarius,
or Chamberlain, to Alexander II. of Scotland, and on the death of William de
Malvoisin, in July 1237, was raised by the influence of the king to the vacant
bishopric of St Andrews, although the clergy and people of the diocese desired
the appointment of Galf'rid, Bishop of Dunkeld. David de Bernham's election
took place at St Andrews in June 1239, and he was consecrated on the 22d of
the following January. In 1240 he and William de Bondington, Bishop of

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 9

Lamb, "Parson of the Church of Poulesworth," bent the
knee to the usurper, and was reinstated by Edward I. in
his benefice.1 He does not appear to have enjoyed it

Glasgow, were summoned by Pope Gregory IX. to attend a General Council
to be held at Rome, with the object of concerting measures for the overthrow
of Frederick II. of Germany, then in open warfare with the Holy See. On
their way to Rome they were captured, together with many other bishops, by
the emperor, who released them on condition they should return direct to
their homes. The Scottish bishops gave the required promise, but sent on
their procurations by an ecclesiastic to Rome. Owing to the death of Gregory
IX., M'hich almost immediately supervened, the Council was never held. The
rest of David de Bernham's life seems to have been filled with the dedication
and rededication of churches throughout his large diocese, which extended
from the English border on the south-east to the confines of Aberdeen. In the
Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris is preserved a valuable Scottish MS., a pontifi-
cal which contains the forms used by David de Bernham for the consecration of
a church, an altar, a cemetery, or the reconciliation of a church " post effusionem
sanguinis" ; and in the book is a record of the 140 churches and chapels at
the dedication of which this volume served him during the years 1240 to
1249. Among the churches are mentioned Polwarth, Fogo, Eccles, Greenlaw,
and many others in Berwickshire. On the 13th of July 1249 the bishop
crowned Alexander III. at Scone, and in the following year took part in the
great religious and state ceremonial of the translation of the body of St Margaret,
Queen of Scotland, from its original resting-place in the outer church at Dun-
fermline to the silver shrine bedecked with gold and precious stones beside
the high altar. In 1251 he went to York, accompanied by several of the
Scottish nobility, to be present at the marriage of King Alexander III., then
only ten years of age, with Margaret, daughter of Henry III. of England.
According to Spottiswoode, he was seized with a fever, and died there on May
1, 1251. The continuator of Fordun's ' Scotichronicon ' states, on the con-
trary, that he died at Nenthorn, in Berwickshire, April 26, 1253, and that he
was buried in the Abbey Church of Kelso. David de Bernham seems to have
possessed great vigour and determination of character. Spottiswoode says of
him that " he kept a severe hand over the clergy, especially the monks and
others that lived in religious orders." (See Lockhart's ' The Church of Scot-
land in the Thirteenth Century ;' also Keith's 'Scottish Bishops.')

1 The benefice was valued in the old Papal Taxation Roll at £14, 5s. 6d. In
the Tax Roll of St Andrews, 1 547, the rectory of Polwarth, in the deanery of
the Merse, was included. It remained a rectory till the Reformation. Chal-

10 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

long, for in 1299 the same king presented William de
Sadyntone, clerk, to the living.

During the succeeding century, time and neglect
brought St Mungo's holy fane into a ruinous state, from
which it was rescued about 1378 by the care of John Sin-
clair of Herdmanston, who in right of his wife, Elizabeth,
lorded it over these lands. The Eeformation, which caused
total destruction to many a fair church and abbey, passed
harmlessly over Polwarth. Adam Hume, third son of Sir
Patrick, the fourth Baron of Polwarth, was rector of the
parish at the time. He adopted the tenets of the
Keformed faith, and became the first Protestant minister.
Since then eleven successors have filled his pulpit,1 but
the church of to-day has been greatly altered and restored

mers states that it was valued in the ancient Taxatio at 12 marks ; and in
Bagimont's Roll the tenth of the rectory was rated at £4, which shows it was
of but little value.

1 The following is a list of the ministers that have been in Polwarth since
1567 :—

Adam Hume, 1567 to 1593.

Alexander Gaillis, M.A., 1593 to 1603.

Alexander Cass or Carse, M.A., 1604 to 1651.

David Robertson, M.A., 1652 to 1663.

Oeorge Holiwell, M.A., 1664 to 1704. (Earl Patrick's tutor.)

Archibald Borthwick, M.A.. 1709 to 1727.

John Hume, of Abbey St Bathans, 1727 to 1734.

William Home (son of Walter Home of Bassendean), 1735 to 1757.

Alexander Home, 1758 to 1768.

Robert Home, 1769 to 1838.

Walter Home (son. assistant and successor), 1823 to 1881.

Charles Watt, 1882.

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 11

since be preached in it. Besides the armorial bearings on
the tower and the crowned orange that surmounts the
eastern gable — both of which tell us that the present state
of the building is due to Earl Patrick — an inscription cut
on the deep red sandstone slab above the south door sets
forth as follows : —

" TEMPLUM • HOC • DEI • CULTUI • IN • ECCLE8IA • DE • POLUARTH •

A • FUNDI • DOMINIS • EJUSDEM • PRIU8 • DESIGNATIONS •

DEIN • COGNOMINIS • ^EDIFICATUM • ET • DICATUM • ANTE • ANNUM •

SALUTIS • 900 • RECTORIAQUE • BENEFICIO • DOTATUM •

SED • TEMPORIS • CTJRSU • LABEFACTUM •

A • DNO • JOHANNE • DE • SANCTO • CLARO • DE • HERDMAN8TON •
GENERO • DNI • PATRICIJ • DE • POLUARTH « DE • EODEM •

CIRCA • ANNUM • 1378 • REPARATUM •
TANDEM • VERO • VETUSTATE • AD • RUINAM • VERGENS •

SUMTIBUS • UTRIUSQUE • PROSAPLffi • HEREDI8 •
DNI • PATRICIJ • HUME • COMITIS • DE • MARCHMONT • ETC •

SUMMI • SCOTIA • CANCELLARII «

ET • DN^E • GRISELLI.E • KAR • COMITISS^E • SU.E • SPOS^E •

SEPULCHRI • SACELLO • ARCUATE • RECEN8 • CONSTRUCTUM •

ET • CAMPANARUM • OBELISCO • ADAUCTUM • FUIT •

ANNO • DOMINI • 1703." l

The restoration of the church seems to have been a

1 Translation : " This temple for the worship of God in the church of Pol-
warth by the lords of the soil of the same designation originally, afterwards of
the same name, built and consecrated before the year of grace 900, and
endowed with the benefice of a rector, but in course of time fallen into ruin,
was repaired by Lord John Sinclair of Herdmanston, the son-in-law of Lord
Patrick of Polwarth of the same place, about the year 1378. But at length
verging to decay through age, at the expense of the heir of both line?, Lord
Patrick Hume, Earl of Marchmont, &c., High Chancellor of Scotland, and of
Lady Grissell Kar, his wife and countess, it was fresh built with the shrine
in the form of a vault, and augmented by the addition of a bell-tower. Anno
Domini 1703."

12 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

labour of love with the whole family. Lady March mont
gave the bell which was to hang in the new tower, but from
the inscription on it, it does not seem to have been cast
till fourteen years after her death.1 The green velvet
pulpit-hangings, which still exist under the modern red
draperies, were embroidered in an elaborate arabesque
pattern by Lady Grisell Baillie ; and her sister-in-law,
Lady Jane Home, Lord Polwarth's second wife, gave the
two beautiful silver Communion cups. The proportions of
the church, 55 feet by 24 feet externally, being those
common to small pre-Reformation churches, and the ori-
entation being almost exact, prove that it was restored
on the old lines. The vault beneath is substantially the
same as that in which Earl Patrick lay hidden. To-day,
as then, it is lit by a faint glimmering light from the
grating high up in the eastern end, through which those
outside, by stooping down on the grass, may distinguish —
when their eyes become accustomed to the dusky gloom —
four coffins, once richly gilt and decorated, now with tar-
nished plates and nails, and mouldering velvet palls.
These are all of later date than Earl Patrick's time, for in
them sleep the earthly remains of Alexander, the second
Earl ; his daughter-in-law, Anne Western, Countess of
Marchmont ; her only son, the little Lord Polwarth, who

1 The inscription on it is, " Given to the Kirk of Polwarth by Lady Grizel
Kur, Countess of Marchmont, 1697. E. M. fecit Edr. 1717."

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 13

died in childhood; and Sir William Purves. The vault
was formerly entered by the west door of the church,
which for that reason had large pearl - shaped tears
powdered over it ; but, to the regret of those who cling
to old customs, when the door was last painted the tears
were left out. The entrance to the vault is now sealed
up, and the west door used for admission into the church.
Formerly the three doors on the south side were alone
used. The laird and his family went in by the centre one,
the servants of the great house by one side door, the
people of the village by the other. Over these two last
entrances are engraved verses taken from the Bible ; and
on the south-east end of the church is an inscription in
memory of Adam Hume, the first Protestant minister.
Two other memorial stones are built into the outer wall,
also in memory of former ministers : one bears the name
of Alexander Cass ; and the other, after enumerating the
virtues of George Holiwell, "pedagogue" to Patrick, Earl
of Marchmont, quaintly adds that his father was a periwig-
maker in Duns.

In old days a bell used to be carried in the funeral pro-
cessions at Polwarth, and rung in front of the coffin to
frighten away the evil spirits. The bell still exists, but is
at present in possession of the family of the late minister.
A good many years ago, the basin of the old font was dis-
covered hidden away at the back of the church. It is now

14 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

placed on a graduated circular base on the grass close to
the west door, and is a rude circular sandstone basin with-
out carving or ornament of any kind, and apparently of
early date. The external diameter is 28 inches, and the
height 20 J inches — the depth of the bowl being 14 inches,
with a perforation at the bottom.

In very remote times the lands of Polwarth were held
by a family of the same name, " Domini de eodem," as
they are styled in old charters. From the inscription
placed by Earl Patrick on the church, they appear to have
been established here before the year 900 ; but tradition is
silent as to whence they came, or from whence they derived
the silver shield with three piles issuing from the chief
engrailed gules, which are their ancient armorial bearings.
Their castle stood half-way between the village and the
church, but a clump of Scotch firs in the field to the east
of the road is all that marks the spot to-day. Little is
known of these early Polwarths. The first mention of the
name in a charter occurs in the time of Alexander II.
(1214-1249), at the end of whose reign Adam de Polwarth,
Knight, had the lands of Beith given him from Sir Alex-
ander Seatoun of Wintoun, in frank marriage with Eva his
sister.1 He left two sons : Patrick, his successor in the
barony ; and Adam, who, by a deed still existing among the

1 " Chartul. of Dunfermling in Biblioth. Juricl. Eclin." See Crawfurd's
Peerage.

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 15

Montrose papers, made over "Domino David de Grame"
all the tenements that his brother Patrick had given him
" in feudo de Dunipace," in exchange for four acres of land,
" in feudo de Wedderly."1

In the time of Robert II. (1371-1390) Sir Patrick de
Polwarth died, leaving an only child, Elizabeth, the last
•of her race. She carried the broad lands of Polwarth and
Kimmerghame into the Sinclair family, by her marriage
with Sir John Sinclair of Herdmanston.2 Their great-
grandson, John Sinclair, died in the fifteenth century
without male issue. The estate of Herdmanston devolved
on his brother, Sir William Sinclair (from whom the
present Lord Sinclair is descended), but his lands of
Polwarth and Kimmerghame went to his daughters,
Marion and Margaret. The heiresses were young and
beautiful ; and among the many suitors that flocked round
them, those that met with the greatest favour in their
eyes were two brothers, George and Patrick, the young
Humes of Wedderburn. The ladies' uncle, Sir William,
fearing that their lands should go out of the family, not

1 " Charta penes Ducem de Montrose." See Crawfurd's Peerage.

2 The first ancestor of the Sinclairs of Herdmanston was Henry de Sancto
Claro, who got the lands of Herdmanston from Richard de Morville, Constable
of Scotland, before the year 1162. His successor was Sir William Sinclair,
who by Margaret, his wife, daughter of Sir William Sinclair of Roslin, sister
to Henry, first Earl of Orkney, had Sir John his eon and heir, who married
Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir Patrick de Polwarth. See Crawfurd's
Peerage.

16 MAEOHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

only refused his consent, but removed his nieces from their
castle of Polwarth to lonely Herdmanston, his stronghold
on the northern slopes of Lammermuir. Though closely
immured, they contrived, by the help of an old beggar
woman, to send a message to Wedderburn. A day or two
later, a gallant train, headed by the two young lovers,
rode over the hills and drew rein beneath the castle walls.
An angry parley followed the demand for the restoration
of their lady-loves ; but the " Men o' the Merse " were too
strong to be resisted, and Sir William had the mortification
of seeing the heiresses borne away in triumph. The
double marriage was celebrated at Polwarth, and the
wedding-dance took place around the thorn-tree.

The marriage of Margaret Sinclair with Patrick Hume,
the younger of the brothers, carried the lands of Polwarth
into the possession of a family whose descendants in the
male line enjoyed them for upwards of three hundred
years.

The great Border family of Home l is a younger branch
of the illustrious house of Dunbar, Earls of March and
Dunbar, which sprang from the Saxon kings of England,
and from the princes and earls of Northumberland. The

1 In early times the name was spelt indifferently Home or Hume. In later
days the Polwarth branch adopted the spelling with a u, while the head of
the family, Lord Home, retained the o ; but they all spring alike from the
same stock.

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 17

Homes trace their descent from Patrick, second son of
Cospatrick, third Earl of Dunbar, who died 1166; and
they bear the same arms as the parent house, a lion
rampant. In the fourteenth century Sir Thomas Home,
" Dominus de eodem," seventh in descent from Cospatrick,
Earl of Dunbar, married Nicolas Pepdie, the last of the
ancient line of Dunglas, in right of whom their descendants
quarter the three papingoes vert. They built the Collegiate
Church of Dunglas, and died leaving, with other issue, two
sons — Sir Alexander, the ancestor of the Earls of Home,
and Sir David, the progenitor of the Homes of Wedder-
burn. The husband of Margaret Sinclair was grandson
of this Sir David, and he is reckoned the first Baron
of Polwarth of the Hume family. He was a man of
great personal bravery, and distinguished himself in the
defence of the Borders against the encroachments of the
English.

His son Sir Patrick, the second Baron, was rather a
noted personage at the Scotch Court. He remained a loyal
and steady adherent of James III., in spite of the offers
lavished on him by the Duke of Albany, the King's brother,
who, being in a constant state of rebellion against the
royal authority, was anxious to secure to his party a man
of such power and influence in the Lowlands. Sir Patrick
owned great wealth and vast possessions. No fewer than

18 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

seven charters under the Great Seal were granted to him of
different lands and baronies ; and when in 1493 he wished
to go on a pilgrimage, Henry VIII. of England sent him a
special safe-conduct to enable him to pass through his
dominions. James IV. treated him with the highest fscvour,
and in 1499 appointed him Comptroller of Scotland, which
office he discharged till the year 1502. His marriages and
those of his children contributed to the importance of the
family. He died in 1504, full of years and honours, and
was interred with his ancestors in the Collegiate Church of
Dunglas.

By his first wife, Margaret, daughter of Sir John Edmon-
stone of that Ilk, he had one son,

Alexander, his successor.

By his second wife, Ellen, daughter of Sir James Shaw
of Sauchie, and widow of Archibald Halyburton, eldest son
of George, fourth Lord Halyburton of Dirleton, he had,

George, ancestor of the Humes of Argathy in Stirling-
shire.

Alison, married to Sir James Shaw of Sauchie.

Janet, married to Sir Andrew Kerr of Ferniehurst,
ancestor of the Marquises of Lothian.

Marion, married to Sir William Baillie of Lamington.

Margaret, the Abbess of North Berwick.
Sir Robert Douglas (in his Peerage) is of opinion that

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 19

Sir Patrick married, thirdly, a natural daughter of James
III., from the wording of a charter of James IV., confirm-
ing " dilecto fratri suo Patricio Hume de Polwarth " the
lands of Strabraune, Auchintravie, and Glenshean in Perth-
shire, dated May 1, 1499 ; but that this must be an error,
appears from a deed in the Marchmont Repositories dated
1541, in which Ellen Shaw, " the Lady of Dirleton," is desig-
nated " Elena Schaw relicta quond. Dni Patricij Hume de
Polwarth Militis." l

Alexander, the third Baron, married, first, Margaret,
daughter of Robert, second Lord Crichton of Sanquhar
(ancestor of the Earl of Dumfries), and got a charter under
the Great Seal to " Alexandro Hume de Polwarth et Mar-

1 Wood, in his revised and enlarged edition of Douglas's Peerage, confuses this
Sir Patrick with his father, the first Baron of Polwarth, making them out to be
one and the same person, and omitting all mention of Margaret Edmonstone,
first wife of the second Baron. Drummond, in his ' Noble British Families,'
follows Wood ; but Sir Robert Douglas and Crawfurd both agree in distinguish-
ing the father from the son. That they are correct in doing so appears to be
the case, as in the "Birth Brief" of Alexander Hume, brother of Patrick, first
Earl of Marchmont, dated 1668, and prepared under the direction of Earl
Patrick himself, the three earliest generations of the Polwarth family are thus
described : " Qui vero Alexander [that is, Alexander, the husband of Margaret
Crichton] fuit filius legittimus domini Patricij Hume de Polwart dicti regni
nostri thesaurarij inter eum et dominam Mariana Edmonstoun ejus sponsam
filiam Joannis Edmonstoun de eodem genitus. Et qui Patricius Hume fuit
tilius legittimus Patricij Hume de Polwart inter eum et Margaretam Sinclair
ejus uxorem filiam Joannis Sinclair Comarchi de Hermistoun natus."— (Birth
Brief of Alexander Hume, dated under the Great Seal, Edinburgh, May 7,
1668. Original document in the Marchmont Repositories.)

20 MAEGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

garetae Crichton ejus sposse terrarum de Brigamsheills,"
&c., dated July 26, 1511.1
By her he had,

Patrick, his successor.

Alexander, ancestor of the Humes of Heugh.
Gavin, ancestor of the Humes of Rhodes.
He married, secondly, Margaret, daughter of Sir Robert
Lauder of the Bass, and had three daughters,

Margaret, married to Patrick Hepburn of Craig.
Catherine, married to Robert Pringle of that Ilk.
Isabel, the Abbess of North Berwick.
He died in 1532.

Patrick, the fourth Baron, got a charter under the Great
Seal, " Patricio Hume filio et hseredi Alexandri Hume de
Polwarth, terrarum baronise de Polwarth," dated 1536.
He married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Patrick Hepburn of
Waughton, by whom he had,
Patrick, his heir.

Alexander (Sir) of North Berwick, who was chosen
Provost of Edinburgh in 1593, which office he
discharged with such prudence and moderation
that he was selected by James VI. for the post of
Ambassador to England. He died without issue
in 1608.

1 This and other charters granted to the Barons of Polwarth are quoted out
of Douglas's and Crawfurd's Peerages.

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 21

Adam, who was rector of Polwarth at the time of the

Reformation, a man of great virtue and probity.
Margaret, married to John Baillie of John's Kirk.

Anne, married to French of Thornydyke.

Patrick, the fifth Baron, was a great promoter of the
Reformation, and was one of those who in 1560 entered
into an association or league to encourage the sincere
preaching of the Word, and to defend the teachers thereof.
When the civil war broke out, he embraced the young
king's side, and was dangerously wounded in a conflict with
Queen Mary's troops at Cairny, June 1571. He died in
1592.

By his wife, Agnes, daughter of Alexander Hume of
Manderston, and sister (or aunt) to George Earl of Dunbar,
he left,

Patrick, his heir.

Alexander, the rector of Logic, whose book of ' Hymnes
and Sacred Songs,' dedicated to the " faithful and
virtuous Elizabeth Melville, Lady Culross," was
reprinted by the Bannatyne Club in 1832. He
was the author of other religious works, both in
poetry and prose. He died in 1609.
Gavin, of Johuscleuch.

John (Sir) of North Berwick, who inherited his uncle
Sir Alexander's estates, and afterwards, with the
consent of his sons, sold North Berwick to William

22 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Dick in 1633. His eldest son, George, was created
a baronet by Charles L, and was the founder of the
family of Hume of Castle Hume, County Fermanagh,
Ireland.1

David, of Rowiestoun or Rollandstone.

George, of Drumchose.

Jean, married to David Hume of Law.

Agnes, married to Edmonstone of Woolmet.

Margaret, married to Sir Thomas Cranston of Corsbie.

1 Sir George Hume of Castle Hume, County Fermanagh, first Baronet, was
succeeded by his son Sir John. The latter was father of Sir Gustavus Hume,
of Elizabeth Lady Polwarth, and of Mary, Mrs Johnstone of Hilton. Sir
Gustavus, the third Baronet, who was Groom of the Stole to Frederick Prince
of Wales, died in 1731, having had by his wife, Lady Alice Moore, daughter
of the Earl of Droghed'a, four sons, who all predeceased him, and two daughters,
of whom the elder, Mary, married the Earl of Ely ; and the younger, Alice,
George Rochfort, Esq.

The following verses were written by John Hume, Sir Gustavus's second
son, or " Jacky " as his mother calls him, on the occasion of the birthday of
his elder brother, Moore Hume. They were found at Marchmont with the
accompanying letter : —

Mr John Hume's verses on his brother's birthday.

" This day from parsley-bed, I'm sure,
Was dug my elder brother Moore ;
Had Papa dug me up before him,
So many now would not adore him.
But, hang it ! he's but only one,
And if he trips off, I am Sr John.

" Mad1"" — You do me a great honour in desiring my verses. Such as they are, they are
at yr- service. I am sorry they are not better, both for yr- sake and my own, who am,
Mad"1-' yr- Ladyship's most humble servant, JOHN HUME."

The letter and verses are endorsed in the handwriting of Lady Grisell Baillie,
to whom they appear to have been sent, " He is a child of seven or eight years
at most." (Original in the Marchmont Repositories.)

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 23

Sir Patrick, the sixth Baron, during his father's life-
time got three charters under the Great Seal, " Patricio
Hume apparenti de Polwarth," of many lands and baronies,
dated 1587, 1590, 1591. From his youth upwards, he
was greatly in favour with James VI. ; and among the
names of the twenty-five gentlemen appointed to attend
on the King "at all times of his riding and passing to
the field," occurs that of "the young Laird of Polwarth."
In 1591 he was made Master of the Household, a Gentle-
man of the King's Bedchamber, and one of the War-
dens of the Marches towards England. He married Julian,
daughter of Sir Thomas Kerr of Ferniehurst, and sister
to the king's favourite, Robert, Earl of Somerset. By
her he had,

Patrick, his heir.

Thomas of Coldstream.

John.

James.

George of Kimmerghame.

Robert of Hawkslaw.

Elizabeth, married to Sir James Carmichael of that
Ilk.

Jean, married to Christopher Cockburn of Choicelee.

Sophia, married to Joseph Johnstone of Hilton.
Sir Patrick died in 1609, and his widow married
secondly, Thomas, first Earl of Haddington. Between

24 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLIVARTH.

Sir Patrick and his brother Alexander, the rector of
Logie, lies the honour of being the opponent of Mont-
gomerie in that curious poem entitled " The Flyting
betwixt Montgomerie and Pol wart," which begins—

" Pol wart, yee peip like a mouse amongst thornes;
Na cunning yee keepe ; Polwart, yee peip ;
Ye look like a sheipe an' yee had twa homes :
Polwart, ye peipe like a mouse amongst thornes."

The whole piece is in a style of the coarsest invective,
and is barely intelligible at the present day.1 Sir Patrick
also wrote a more serious poem called "The Promine,"
which was addressed to the King, and has been reprinted
in Dr Laing's ' Select Eemains of the Ancient, Popular,
and Romance Poetry of Scotland.'

The seventh Baron, another Sir Patrick, basked in the

1 The earliest edition of this poem was printed in Edinburgh by Andro
Hart, 1621, and is of the greatest rarity. The poem was probably written
towards the end of the preceding century, and is in imitation of the
more famous " Flyting between Dunbar and Kennedy." Captain Alexander
Montgomery, who was Polwarth's opponent, was of the family of Eglinton,
and was author of several poems, including the celebrated " Cherrie and the
Slae." Irving, who edited his poems in 1821, remarks in his preface, "Mont-
gomery and Hume seemed to have been ambitious of rivalling Dunbar and
Kennedy; they have exhausted almost every term of abuse that the language
afforded. Their ' Flyting,' if we may credit the introductory address, was not
the result of a real quarrel, but merely an effort of ingenuity, or what is there
described as generous emulation. If, however, such was their sportive, what
must have been their ireful mood 1 " Dempster has remarked that Mont-
gomery's invectives are equally distinguished by their virulence and their
ingenuity; and those of his antagonist can scarcely be considered as inferior
in either respect.

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 25

sunshine of Court favour. In 1621, James VI. conferred
on him a pension of £100 sterling, and in 1625 he was
made a baronet by the succeeding monarch. He died in
1648, while still in the prime of life, leaving by his wife,
Christian, the daughter of Sir Alexander Hamilton of
Innerwick, five children —

Julian, married to Richard Newton of that Ilk.
Patrick, his successor.
Christian, who died unmarried in 1666.
Alexander, who went to Russia and entered the Im-
perial service. He became a colonel of horse, and
died unmarried at Moscow in 1676.1 To prove
the nobility of his birth, he had in 1668 applied
for what is technically called a "Birth Brief" or
" Bor-Brief," a document that still exists among
the Marchmont Repositories.

Anne, married to Alexander Hume of Manderston.
Lady Polwarth, a few years later, married Robert
Kerr, third Lord Jedburgh, and died at Ferniehurst in
1688. Their only child, Mary Kerr, predeceased them
in 1658 ; and Lord Jedburgh surrendered his honours
to the king, obtaining a fresh patent, dated 1670, by
which the barony of Jedburgh devolved after his death
on the eldest son of the Marquis of Lothian, to be held

1 MS. entry in the Bible of " Lady Christian Hamilton, Lady Jedburgh,
1670." (Marchmont Library.)

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

as a distinct peerage by the eldest son of that house
for ever.1

1 The barony of Jeclburgh is probably the only instance of a peerage trans-
mitted in this manner. The somewhat parallel case of the dukedom of
Cornwall, which is held by the eldest son of the sovereign, differs in one
particular, — it can only be inherited by the sovereign's first-born son. Henry
VIII. after the death of Prince Arthur, and Charles I. after that of Prince
Henry, were Dukes of Cornwall, but by a special new creation (see Greville
Memoirs, Part II. vol. i. p. 404). The barony of Jedburgli passes to which-
ever of the Marquis of Lothian's sons is the heir. From that moment he
becomes de facto and de jure Lord Jedburgh, and as such has the right of
voting during his father's lifetime at the election of a Scots representative
peer.

Site- of the old Castle of Fokvarth.

' Qitrictuj Comes de Cff.i_RCH.MONT.}Jicecomes Je Jlla.tont>errtc?2)anunus Qlmartk Je (A>lrvart/iJ&J/>rsjj
•t Qrttnlan,,Screnifiimo W-infipi GVUELMO D. G.Sttagna Britannia Trancitr etXkcrnia <JlE.GI.ln .1ntu,,u
>*„'„ Seer,* ftyno yROREX."fcotia- .rummiu Cancftlan^fJ)om,n.onimSecret,Concilypoit7'rincipft "Jltgu

^ 't /

ialricL.j? G

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 27

CHAPTER II.

OIR PATRICK HUME, eighth Baron of Polwarth, and
afterwards first Earl of Marchmout, was born at Red-
braes on the 13th of January (St Mungo's day) 1641,
and was thus seven years of age at the time of his
father's death. He was left to the guardianship of his
mother, who spent a good deal of her son's fortune in
paying the debts of her second husband, Lord Jedburgh ;
but for this she was never called to account. She was
an ardent Episcopalian, and brought her children up very
strictly ; so that it is curious that Sir Patrick should
have so soon reverted to the narrower doctrines of the
Presbyterian Church. In that faith he continued all his
life ; and being a deeply religious man, the mainspring of
his actions is to be found in his unalterable belief that
the Protestant faith, and especially that form of it held
by the Presbyterian Church, was the only true one ; and
for this belief he cheerfully sacrificed both home and
fortune.

28 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

He was not of age when, on the 29th of January 1660,
he married Grisell, the daughter of Sir Thomas Ker of
Cavers, with whom he lived in unbroken happiness for
forty-three years. She brought him seventeen children,
many of whom died young. Of those that lived to grow
up, Patrick, afterwards Lord Polwarth, was the eldest,
though actually the fourth in point of birth. He was
born November 11, 1664; and between him and his next
sister, Grisell, born December 24, 1665 — and later so
famous as Lady Grisell Baillie — ever subsisted the deepest
affection. Then followed Christian, born May 7, 1668,
who died in Holland in 1688 ; Robert, born July 10, 1669,
a gallant young soldier, who died unmarried in 1692;
Julian, the wife of Mr Bellingham, born August 16, 1673 ;
Alexander, eventually the heir and second Earl of March-
mont, born January 1, 1675 ; Andrew (Lord Kimmer-
ghame), born July 19, 1676, and died 1730; Anne, born
November 4, 1677, who married Sir James Hall of
Dunglas ; and lastly — youngest of all this immense
family — Jean, the wife of Lord Torphichen, born March
22, 1683, eighteen years after her elder sister Grisell.1

Sir Patrick began his political life in 1665, when, at the
age of twenty-four, lie was sent to the Scottish Parliament

1 These dates of the births of his children are taken from an entry in Earl
Patrick's handwriting in Grisell, Lady Marchmont's Bible. (March inont
Library.)

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 29

as the representative of his native county. In spite of his
youth, he took a decided line of his own, and opposed the
overbearing measures of the Duke of Lauderdale in a way
that brought upon him the enmity of that powerful noble-
man. In company with the Duke of Hamilton and others,
he went to London in 1674 to lay complaints of Lauder-
dale's tyranny before the king, and to protest against the
grievances that the nation suffered at his hands. The
following year he remonstrated against the proceedings of
the Privy Council of Scotland, which had garrisoned
several gentlemen's houses, particularly in Berwickshire,
and required the respective counties to furnish these
garrisons with all necessaries, in direct contravention of
the law. For this he was brought before the Council,
which, with the king's approval, declared him " a factious
person, having done what may usher in confusion, and
therefore incapable of all public trust." He was accord-
ingly imprisoned in the Tolbooth, where he remained for
some months, and was thence removed to Dumbarton
Castle, and finally to Stirling. His imprisonment was
brought to an end in 1679 by the influence of his English
relations, and particularly of the Countess of Northumber-
land.1 On regaining his freedom, he took counsel with

1 Sir Patrick Hume had many influential English relations. The Countess
of Northumberland was his cousin, her mother, the Countess of Suffolk, being
the younger daughter of George Hume, Earl of Dunbar. Sir Patrick's grand-
mother, Julian Kerr, was sister to Robert, Earl of Somerset ; and through the

30 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

other noblemen and gentlemen of Scotland who shared his
political views ; and agreeing that for them it was impos-
sible to continue in peaceful possession of their lands as
long as they remained faithful to opinions that they held
to be right, they came to the resolution, in 1682, to expa-
triate themselves, and found a settlement in the province
of Carolina in North America.

" The prime promoters of this scheme," says Sir William Fraser,
in his 'Memorials of the Earls of Haddington,' "were Sir John
Cochrane of Ochiltree and Sir George Campbell of Cessnock, who
entered into a contract with the Lords Proprietors of Carolina for
a territory composed of thirty-two square plots of ground, each
containing twelve thousand acres, at the rent of one penny an acre ;
and among those who adhibited their names to the contract were
the Earls of Haddington and Callendar, Lords Tester and Car-
dross, Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth, with George Lockhart and
Alexander Gilmour, Archibald Cochrane and Archibald Douglas,
advocates. Each of the undertakers pledged themselves to pay
£10 sterling to Sir Kobert Baird, the cash-keeper, before 1st
October 1682. They sent Sir John Cochrane and Sir George
Campbell to London to obtain the consent of the king to the
enterprise ; and this they got, Charles writing to the Privy Council
to give its promoters their encouragement. But before the pro-
posal was carried into effect, discovery was made of plots against
the life of the king and his brother, the Duke of York and Albany,
in which some of those who had embarked in the Carolina settle-

marriage of the latter's only child, Anne, with William, first Duke of Bedford,
a blood relationship was established between the families of Hume, Russell,
Cavendish, and Manners.

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 31

raent appear to have been implicated, so that the project was at
once put an end to."

The conspiracy referred to was the Kyehouse Plot,—
although to the end of his life Sir Patrick protested that
he was guiltless of participating in any design against the
life of the king or the Duke of York. He always declared
that the object of the long and close conferences held with
the Duke of Monmouth, Lord Shaftesbury, and Lord Eus-
sell, was to consider what might best be done to secure
the kingdom of Scotland against the Papal supremacy and
the exercise of arbitrary power, in the event of the succes-
sion of a Roman Catholic to the throne. In consequence
of the discovery of this plot, Sir Patrick's intimate friend,
Mr Baillie of Jerviswoode, was thrown into prison, which
he only quitted for the scaffold. Sir Patrick escaped a
similar fate by concealing himself in the vault beneath
Polwarth Church. Lady Polwarth1 was living with her
children at Redbraes, about a mile off, and she and her
eldest daughter, Grisell, then a girl of eighteen, alone
knew where he was hidden. They admitted James

1 Though Sir Patrick Hume was not created Lord Polwarth till 1690, his
wife from the first was styled Lady Polwarth. It was the custom of the day
for the laird's wife to be called by her husband's territorial appellation. Thus,
for instance, Sir George Campbell's wife was always " Lady Cessnock." The
custom was recognised even in formal documents. In. the grant of Sir Patrick
Hume's forfeited estates to Lord Seaforth, his wife is styled "the young Lady
Polwarth," though, strictly speaking, that title was not hers till four years
later.

32 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Winter, the house -carpenter, into their confidence, and
with his help got a bed and bed-clothes carried by night
to the vault. The bed is still preserved at Marchmont,
and is of black walnut, in good preservation, bearing the
date 1660. It folds up, and the four short legs also fold
down with hinges when not required, but have strong
springs to keep them erect when in use. The whole
goes into very little space.

For a month (so Lady Murray, Lady Grisell Baillie's
daughter, relates in her ' Memoirs,' from which most of
these particulars are gathered) Sir Patrick lived in this
dismal hiding-place. The only light that reached him was
through the narrow slit at the end of the vault, as it was
too great a risk to have any artificial light inside. Read-
ing was impossible ; but he got through the long hours by
repeating to himself Buchanan's version of the Psalms,
which he knew by heart, and which he remembered to his
dying day. Every night his daughter Grisell came by
stealth, carrying him food and drink, and enlivening his
solitude with the home news, stories of his children, their
sayings and doings, and anything she could think of to
cheer and amuse him. The first glimmerings of dawn
sent her hurrying homewards, fearful of being surprised
by one of the parties of soldiers that were scouring the
country in search of her father. Her dread of this over-
fame her natural fear of crossing the churchyard after

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 33

dark. The first night that she went there she was
terrified by the barking of the minister's dogs (the
manse then stood much nearer the church than it does
now), and feared they might give the alarm ; but her
mother next morning sent for the minister, and under
pretence of a mad dog being loose in the country, induced
him to destroy them. The little lantern that she carried
still exists,1 of very rude make, three-sided, and with
hinges of roughly tanned cow-hide. For fear of exciting
the suspicions of the servants, she had to convey part of
her own dinner off" her plate into her lap, in order to
secure food for her father ; and it was on one of these
occasions that her little brother, Sandy (afterwards the
second Lord Marchmont), turned to Lady Polwarth in
consternation and complained, "Mother, will ye look at
Grisell; while we have been eating our broth, she has
eaten up the whole sheep's-head ! " When Sir Patrick
heard of this he was greatly amused, and desired that
Sandy should have his share next time.

Sir Patrick never lost his cheerfulness and composure
under these trying circumstances ; and his daughter
appears to have inherited these qualities, as well as his
calmness and presence of mind amid dangers. This was
a time when women's minds ripened early ; for the neces-
sities of life, and the dangers that surrounded those they

1 In the Antiquarian Museum, Edinburgh.
C

34 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

loved, taught them to rely on their wit and their physical
courage. Grisell Hume was not the only heroine of her
day. A year later another Grisell, as young as this one,
saved her father's life at the risk of her own, by disguising
herself as a highwayman, and robbing the messenger of the
mail-bag that contained the death-warrant. Alike in their
heroism, they are not far separated in their last resting-
places. Grisell Baillie sleeps at Mellerstain, and a few
miles to the north, at Legerwood, lies Grisell Ker, Sir
John Cochrane's devoted daughter.

After a month spent in the gloom of the burial-vault,
it was thought safe for Sir Patrick to return to his own
castle of Redbraes, as the search made for him in the
country had become less vigorous. Lady Polwarth and
her daughter took the precaution first of providing a
hiding-place to which he could retreat in case of necessity.
They chose a room on the ground-floor ; and beneath the
bed they lifted the boards and dug a hole in the ground.
Even this had. to be done with great secrecy ; and at night
Grisell Hume, helped by the faithful James Winter, used
to set to work, using her hands to scrape up the earth —
for fear of making a noise — till her nails were worn down
to the quick. They put the earth, as they lifted it, into a
sheet, which they carried out of the window into the gar-
den, till at last the hole was sufficiently large to contain a
box in which Sir Patrick could lie. This was provided

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 35

with bedding, and holes bored in the planks above so as
to admit air. Trial was made for some time to see that
no water oozed into the hole, because of the dampness of
the situation ; and then, all being secure, Sir Patrick ven-
tured home. He had not been back more than a week or
two, when his daughter, going as usual one morning to see
that all was right, lifted the boards, and the bed bounced
to the top, the box being full of water. This caused the
greatest consternation, as they felt they had no safe re-
treat to fall back on in case of a sudden alarm ; so Sir
Patrick, telling his family they must tempt Providence no
longer, bade them farewell, and set off to make his escape
to foreign parts. He was accompanied on the first part of
his journey by his grieve, John Allan, an old and attached
servant, who up till then had been ignorant that his master
was in the house, and on being told the news, fainted away
from alarm. The fugitive waited till night fell, and then
got out of a window in the stables unnoticed by any one.
A local tradition relates that after leaving Redbraes he
met with a man named Broomfield, the miller of Green-
law, who was repairing a slap in the mill-cauld. Address-
ing him by the occupation in which he was engaged, Sir
Patrick said, " Slap, have you any money ? " Upon which
Broomfield supplied him with what he required. On his
return some years later, he did not forget the help he was
given in his time of need, but settled Broomfield and his

36 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

family in a free house for as long as the)7 lived ; and from
that day they commonly went by the name of Slap in-
stead of their own.1 This was in September 1684. Sir
Patrick travelled by byways to London, thence by Ireland
to France, and eventually reached Holland in safety, where
he sought the protection of the Prince of Orange, and
establishing himself at Utrecht, sent for his wife and
children to join him.

The Polwarth estates were confiscated in 1686, and
granted to Lord Seaforth, but burdened with Lady Pol-
warth's jointure, the same as if her husband were already
dead ; and on this slender pittance — about £150 a-year —
they subsisted during the three and a half years they spent
in Holland. Julian, the third daughter, had been too ill
to go abroad with the rest ; so a few months later Grisell
returned to Scotland by herself to collect some money that
was owing to her father, and fetched her sister. They had
a wretched voyage, and underwent every discomfort that
an overcrowded ship, a rough and brutal captain, and a
violent storm could inflict. Though they had paid before-
hand so as to secure the cabin-bed to themselves, they
found the captain had disposed of it to others of the
passengers, none of whom, however, were permitted to

1 The last of the family died early in this century. Frequent mention is
made in the kirk-session records of Broomfield of Slap. See 'New Statistical

Account of the Parishes of Scotland.'

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 37

enjoy it, as the captain ended by taking possession of it
himself, and lay down in the midst of them, after gor-
mandising on their little private store of provisions. The
two sisters took what rest they could get on the floor,
using as a pillow the bag of books that they were carrying
to their father, till a violent storm put them in terror for
their lives. Fortunately, a gentleman on board, who like
themselves was taking refuge in Holland, befriended them,
and proved of the greatest assistance. When they landed
at the Brill they had to proceed on foot to Rotterdam. It
was a cold wet night, and Julian, still weak from her
recent illness, was little able to walk, and soon lost her
shoes in the mud ; whereupon Grisell took her on her back
and carried her, the gentleman accompanying them and
carrying their luggage. At Rotterdam their troubles
ended, for their eldest brother Patrick and his friend
young Baillie of Jerviswoode were waiting there to convey
them safely to Utrecht, where they found the rest of the
family.

The anxieties of the next three years passed lightly over
the happy contented little household. Poor in this world's
goods, they were rich in mutual affection, and not a
murmur or complaint was heard. They could not afford
servants, beyond one little girl to help; so the elder
daughters did the household work, while Sir Patrick
taught the younger children. He was a very cultivated

38 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

man, and gave them lessons in Latin, French, and Dutch,
as well as in the more ordinary branches of education ;
while by their mother they were instructed in needlework.
During all this time Sir Patrick went by the name of Dr
Wallace, and seldom stirred abroad ; but it was pretty
well known who he was, and his house was a favourite
resort of those who, like himself, were exiles for the sake
of their political opinions. Grisell, who was the house-
keeper, had many a time a difficulty to make both ends
meet, with all these guests to entertain. One by one the
bits of plate and other valuables that they had brought
with them were disposed of, and with difficulty were
recovered before the final return to Scotland. The second
daughter, Christian, was an accomplished musician, and
her playing and singing helped to pass the evenings ;
while Grisell mended the children's clothes, or got up the
point-lace cravat and cuffs of her brother Patrick, so that
he might bear as brave an appearance as any of his com-
rades. In after-years, to show how poor they were, she
used to relate how one night the bell was heard which was
accustomed to be rung from door to door to give notice
that a collection was being made for the poor. There was
nothing in the house but an " orkey or doit " (the smallest
of coins), and they were all so ashamed, no one would go
and give it, till at last Sir Patrick said, " Well, then, I'll
go with it ; we can do no more than give all we have."

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 39

Patrick Hume and young Baillic of Jcrviswoode had en-
listed in the Prince of Orange's Guards ; and being great
friends, they generally arranged if possible to take their
turn of standing sentry at the gate together. At that
time the Prince often dined in public, when any one who
chose was admitted to see him ; and Lady Grisell used
to tell laughingly in later years how, when any pretty
girl presented herself, the boy-soldiers would cross their
halberts before the door, and demand toll of a kiss. In
spite of the poverty and the makeshifts, these were happy
days, and were often looked back on afterwards with
regretful pleasure. The only time they had any real
anxiety was during the months in 1685, when Sir Patrick
joined Argyle's ill-fated expedition, by which he had hoped
to create a diversion in the West of Scotland in favour of
the Duke of Monmouth. He has left a detailed and inter-
esting account of his adventures,1 from which he narrowly
escaped with his life. After some weeks of wanderings and
hardships, he made his way to Bordeaux ; and from there
went to Geneva, where he spent some months, eventually
returning to his family in the summer of 1686. He re-
mained in Holland till the Eevolution of 1688 brought the
Prince of Orange to England. Sir Patrick and his eldest
son accompanied him ; and when affairs became more

1 Sir Patrick Hume's Narrative of the Earl of Argyle's Expedition—
Marchmont Papers, vol. iii

40 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

settled, the children were sent direct to Scotland, and Lady
Polwarth and her eldest daughter came over in the suite
of the Princess, who wished to keep Grisell Hume per-
manently with her as Maid of Honour. This offer she
refused, — partly from affection for her family, which would
not allow her to leave them ; partly, perhaps, for the sake
of one still dearer, who, from being like her own father an
exile, was now returning to his home, not so many miles
distant from Eedbraes. She therefore went back to Scot-
land with her mother.

Sir Patrick's estates were speedily restored to him by
King William ; and before long the exiles found them-
selves again at Redbraes. One out of the band was
missing. Christian, the second daughter, had died in
Holland of a sore throat, just as they were preparing to
start on their homeward journey. Gradually the home-
circle narrowed. Grisell's was the next empty place ; for
in 1690 she married George Baillie, her brother Patrick's
dearest friend, and their constant companion in Holland,
to whom she had long been secretly attached. Thus be-
gan the forty-eight years of happy married life, of which
their daughter, Lady Murray, has left such a touching
record. Her marriage removed her only to Mellerstain —
not very far away — and she seems to have been constantly
backwards and forwards between her new home and Red-
braes, where they never really learnt to do without her.

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 41

The Revolution was the turning-point of Sir Patrick's
fortunes. Ingratitude to his adherents was not one of
William III.'s faults, and he showered favours on the
family of Hume. In 1690 Sir Patrick was made a
member of the Privy Council, and then created a Peer
of Scotland by the title of Lord Polwarth. In the
patent, William granted him a peculiar mark of personal
esteem and regard, by assigning to him, in addition to
his armorial bearings, " an orange proper ensigned with
an imperial crown, to be placed in a surtout in his coat
of arms in all time coming, as a lasting mark of his
Majesty's royal favour to the family of Polwarth, and
in commemoration of his Lordship's great affection to
his said Majesty." Thus it is that the crowned orange
pervades everything at Marchmont, from the eastern
gable of the church down to the backs of the books
in the library. The king sent him at the same time a
large single diamond set in a ring, still preserved as an
heirloom, and which, in the portrait painted of him by
Kneller in his Chancellor's robes, is represented on his
finger.

Among the Marchmont papers is a MS. in Sir Patrick's
writing, giving a list of dates and of the honours be-
stowed on him, which may fitly be reproduced here :—

" Sentence of Forfeiture, 22d May 1685.

I had gone off the kingdom, llth September 1684.

42 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Returned with Prince of Orange, 5th November 1688.

Forfeiture rescinded by Parliament, 22d July 1690.

Made of Privy Council by King William and Queen Mary, also

Lord Polwarth by King William and Queen Mary, 1690, with

a crowned orange in my arms.
Extraordinary Lord of Session by King William and Queen

Mary in 1693.

Sheriff of Berwickshire by K.W. and Q.M. in 1690.
Bailiff of Lauderdale by K.W. and Q.M. in 1694
Chancellor of Scotland by King William in 1696.
Commissioner to Parliament of Scotland by K.W. in 1698.
Commissioner to General Assembly of Kirk by K.W. in 1702.
Chancellor of Scotland for Queen Anne in 1702.
Commissioner of Police by King George in 1714.

Created Earl of Marchmont by King William on the 23d
April 1697."

It would appear, from a letter of Lord Marchmont's to
Secretary Ogilvie,1 that the title of March was the one
he would have preferred, as being a lineal descendant of
its ancient earls ; but he had refrained from asking for it,
thinking that — like Albany and Fife — it had been re-
served by the king for his own family and near relations.
Since the forfeiture of the Dunbars (temp. James I.), it
had never been granted outside the Eoyal family, except
for the short time when, as the Duke of Hamilton ex-

1 Patrick, Earl of Marchmont, to Secretary Ogilvie, April 29, 1697 — March-
uiont Papers, vol. iii.

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 43

pressed it, "the Duke of Lauderdale had stolen it from
the king." James VI. 's favourite, Sir George Home,
pressed his master to give it to him, but had to content
himself with the earldom of Dunbar instead ; and Charles
I. had always refused to bestow it on a subject. It was
therefore a surprise and a mortification to Lord Marchmont
to find — a few days after his elevation to the peerage—
that the coveted title had been asked for by the Duke of
Queensberry for his next brother, Lord William Douglas,
and had been given to him. No one quite knows why
Sir Patrick selected the title of Marchmont, unless the
similarity of sound between it and the old name had
something to do with it. He was created at the same

time Viscount Blazonberrie, and Lord Polwarth of Pol-
warth, Redbraes, and Greenlaw. The title of Blazon-
berrie l is taken from a wooded hill on the west side of
the Blackadder above Greenlaw. Shortly before this time
Sir Patrick had acquired a good deal of property round
this little town, having bought the inheritance of the
Homes of Spott from the creditors of that impoverished
family, and having also purchased the lands of Green-
lawdean from Sir David Home of Crossrigs, a cadet of
the family of Manderston.

1 It appears from a memorandum in his own handwriting that had Sir
Patrick been advanced a step in the peerage, it was his intention to call
himself Marquis of Blazonberrie.

44 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

A slight sketch of the history of Greenlaw will not
be out of place here. This small but ancient town dates
from the Saxon times. During the eight centuries which
have since gone by it has increased little in size, though
with the lapse of years it has crept down from the grassy
hill to the south — the Green Law — where its first rude huts
were built, to its present position on the sheltered haugh
beside the Blackadder. In the end of the eleventh or
early part of the twelfth century, this barony, together
with Lauderdale, the country about Earlston, and the
greater part of the Merse, came into the possession of
Cospatrick, the father of the first Earl of Dunbar. This
powerful leader, who traced his descent from the ancient
princes of Northumberland, appears to have accompanied
Edgar Atheling into Scotland, and to have entered the
service of Malcolm Canmore. From this king he received
offices of high trust and confidence, together with ex-
tensive grants of lands. His chief residence south of the
Lammermuirs was at Lauder ; and the lands about Green-
law, with the exception of the baronies of Greenlaw and
Whiteside, were distributed by him among his military
followers, to be held by them in terms of feudal service.

In this way the barony of Halyburton (Holy -burg -tun,
the holy fort or village) was granted to a Saxon knight
named Tructe, whose descendants followed the usual cus-
tom and adopted the name of their lands, calling them-

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 45

selves Halyburton. About the middle of the thirteenth
century Philip de Halyburton married the daughter and
heiress of De Vaux of Dirleton (an offshoot of the family
of De Vaux of Gilsland). During the struggle between
the Earls of Dunbar and Douglas as to whose daughter
should marry the unhappy Duke of Rothesay, and there-
by secure to her family the supremacy in the kingdom,
the Halyburtons, like the Homes, deserted the cause of
their feudal superior, and espoused that of the Douglases,
under whose patronage they greatly prospered. About
1440 the head of the house was created Lord Halyburton
of Dirleton, a title now extinct.

In a similar manner the barony of Lambden (the vale
of the lamb) was held by John de Strivelyn, a North-
umbrian knight, whose descendants, known in charters
as " De Lambdene," remained faithful to the Dunbars, and
suffered heavily in consequence. In the fifteenth cen-
tury their barony was broken up, and their lands passed
almost entirely into the hands of Lord Home.

The baronies of Greenlaw and Whiteside were retained
by their feudal superior until Cospatrick, the third Earl of
Dunbar, bestowed them on his second son Patrick, who
built Greenlaw Castle, or "'The Lord's House," as it was
then called, and made it his residence. About 1230
Patrick's son, William de Greenlaw, obtained permission
from the Abbot of Kelso, superior of the church of

46 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Greenlaw, to have a private chapel attached to it. He
married, his cousin Ada, the daughter of Waldave, fourth
Earl of Dunbar, and of the Countess Ada, natural
daughter of William the Lion. The younger Ada was the
childless widow of one of the great but unfortunate family
of Courtenay, whose motto still bewails their fallen splen-
dour.1 On her first marriage she had been endowed by
her father with the castle and barony of Home, and this
dower she brought to her second husband. From her and
William de Greenlaw descend the numerous and powerful
Border family of Home.2 During the troubles that befell
the latter after the battle of Flodden and under the
regency of the Duke of Albany, many of the possessions
of the head of the house were dispersed, and came into
the king's hands. In 1451-52 the lands of Greenlaw
were erected into a free barony, and granted by James II.
to Thomas de Cranston of Cranston. Shortly after his
death — in or about the year 1470 — the lands appear to
have passed into the possession of the Redpath family,
who obtained a confirmation of their barony, 1508-9.
In 1596 William Redpath resigned his barony into the
hands of the king, in favour of Sir George Home of

1 " Ubi lapsus, quid feci ? "

2 William de Greenlaw bore the paternal arms of the Earls of Dunbar, but
carried the white lion on a green instead of a red field, so as to differ from the
head of the house, and to allude to his territorial designation. See Nisbet's
Heraldry.

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH, 47

Spott, a cadet of the Home family by his descent from
George, third son of Sir Alexander, the eighth baron.

Sir George Home of Spott, Lord High Treasurer to
James VI., and created by him in 1604 Lord Home of
Berwick, and in 1605 Earl of Dunbar, obtained a royal
charter from the king (1596), which was ratified by
Parliament (1600), to the effect that "the town of Green-
law being a centrical place in the county, and so con-
venient for holding courts, publications of all summonses
and royal letters, &c., should be erected into a free burgh
or barony, with privileges equal to the privileges of the
royal baronies, and that all such proclamations, &c.,
should be made at the 'mercat cross' of the said burgh
of Old Greenlaw, as the primary and principal burgh of
the whole county of Berwick." George, Earl of Dunbar,
died in 1610, and his ashes lie beneath the splendid and
costly monument raised to his memory in the church of
Dunbar. Most of his possessions — including the lands of
Eccles, which had been bestowed on him by the king-
passed to his eldest daughter Anne, the wife of Sir James
Home of Coldingknowes, and mother of James, third Earl
of Home. His titles, being granted to the heirs male of
his family, were claimed some years later by his grand-
nephew, Sir Alexander Home of Manderston, who also
succeeded to the baronies of Greenlaw and Whiteside ;
but, on his becoming greatly impoverished, these lands

48 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

were seized by his creditors immediately after the Restora-
tion.1 At the same time — about 1661 — a private bill was
passed through Parliament making Duns the chief burgh
of the county; and a few years later — in 1670 — another
Act divided this honour between Duns and Lauder, the
only royal burgh in Berwickshire. Fortunately for Green-
law, the possessions of the Homes of Spott were purchased
from their creditors — as has been already said — somewhere
between the Revolution of 1688 and the year 1696, by Sir
Patrick Hume of Polwarth ; and by his exertions the Acts
of 1661 and 1670 were repealed, and Greenlaw restored to
its position as head burgh of the shire of Berwick.

There remains no trace to-day of the ancient castle of
Greenlaw, nor of the chapel attached to it. It stood about
half a mile to the east of the town, between the road and
the river. Eighty years ago part of the building, then
known as " The Tenandry," was still standing ; but now the
very foundations are ploughed up, and the only thing that
recalls its existence is the name of the Castle Mill, a little
farther down the Blackadder. In 1617 the Rev. David
Home, minister of Greenlaw, acquired a feu right to The
Tenandry, and from that date, down to the middle of the

1 The last of this family, Alexander Home, Earl of Dunbar, settled in East
Friesland, and was Governor of Embden. He was sent by the prince of that
country as envoy to William III. to congratulate him on his accession to the
English throne. He died abroad early in the eighteenth century, and his
only son having predeceased him in 1703, the family became extinct.

MAECHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 49

last century, notices of the Homes of Greenlaw Castle
occur in contemporary records. Sir Everard Home, the
famous London surgeon, was born here in 1746.

The patronage of the church of Greenlaw was given
in 1147 by Cospatrick, second Earl of Dunbar, to the
Abbey of St Mary at Kelso. It was repaired and almost
entirely rebuilt about 1713, when the present steeple was
added, westward from which extended another building
similar to the church in size and appearance, in which all
law and county business was transacted before the erection
of the present county buildings early in this century.
The rooms in the steeple were used as a prison. Hence
the saying —

" Here stands the Gospel and the Law,
Wi' HeU's Hole atween the twa ! "

When the new prison and county courts were erected
about 1830, at the whole expense and by the liberality
of Sir William Purves, the additional building was pulled
down, and the steeple and church restored to their original
state.

Besides the church, two chapels in the parish of Green-
law belonged to the Abbey of Kelso— that of Halyburton
and that of Lambden (built by Walter de Strivelyn) ;
but no trace remains of either, nor of the populous vil-
lages that surrounded them. The chapel of Rowiestoun,
which was connected with the Abbey of Melrose, has

50 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWAETH.

likewise vanished ; but its site is still marked by the
deeper green of the turf and the line of ancient ash- trees
which define the precincts of the small rectangular en-
closure. It lay a little to the south-east of the Rowie-
stoun entrance to Marchmont, or the Lynx Lodges, as
they used to be called, from the great stone lynxes — the
supporters of the Purves arms — that surmounted the side
gate-pillars, and which, with the Hume lions that crowned
the centre pillars, are now in the garden at Marchmont.
The lodges have been done away with for many years,
and only the round gate-house at the top of the hill
is left.

Lantern carried by Lady Grisell Baillie.

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 51

CHAPTER III.

rPHE happiness and prosperity of the Marchmont family
reached their height during the latter years of the
seventeenth century. The office of Lord Chancellor of
Scotland, which was bestowed on Earl Patrick in 1696,
was quickly followed by his elevation to the highest
official position in the kingdom, that of the King's High
Commissioner to the Parliament, to which he was ap-
pointed in 1698. This necessitated his spending a part of
the year in Edinburgh. He had apartments in Holyrood,
which he and Lady Marchmont furnished sumptuously,1

1 In Mr George Home's MS. Journal (preserved in the Marchmont Library)
occurs the following note, dated July 11, 1698: "I went with my Lord
Polwarth to the Abbey, where I saw some furniture they had put up which
is very fine. The hangings of the drawing-room have silver in them, and
chairs of crimson damask. The bed of state is very fine, the curtaines of
damask blue and white, and lined with green satin and orange fringes. I
never thought blue and green suited well near each other before. . . . There
are also two cabinets, two tables, two large glasses and stands, all finely Japand.
I saw the coach, which is very fine and very high ; but they say the painting
was spoilt in the ship, but it is done np again, tho' not so well. My Lady has
also a very fine chair Japand. They tell me they have spent 1200 Ms. more
than their allowance."

52 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

and where they entertained in a princely fashion, as
appears from a bundle of bills of fare which have been
kept at Marchmont ever since, and a few of which are
printed in the Appendix.1 The food seems to have been
simple and abundant, though with such an enormous
number of dishes served at each meal there could not
be much variety in the dinners of the different days.
Forty consecutive bills of fare have been preserved, ex-
tending from the end of July to early in September
1698 ; and on studying them, it appears that every second
day a great banquet was served, and on the intervening
days dinners of more moderate proportions, though even
the smaller feasts seem gigantic to our present ideas.

The rest of the year was spent in their Berwickshire
home, the Castle of Eedbraes, which, though ruthlessly
swept away when the new house of Marchmont was built,
seems, from a picture still existing of it, to have been a
fine and imposing edifice. No one knows when or by
whom it was built, but it was the third house in which
the lords of the soil had lived. The tower of the old
Barons of Polwarth stood, as has been said before, near
the village. When that was deserted, a second house
rose near the eastern end of the great avenue. Irregu-
larly shaped hollows, where mighty blocks of stone crop
out of the ground, the ruins of old foundations, are all

1 See Appendix I.

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 53

now left to show the site of the Mains House.1 Kedbraes
stood in a more sheltered situation, at the top of a steep
bank facing the south, and was approached by a noble
beech avenue. All that remains of it are the two back
wings, now collectively known as "The Offices." The
eastern wing held the kitchens ; the other, which now
houses the shepherd and the gardeners, was the laundry.
The sculptured facing stones on the angles of the walls are
of a similar character to, though less ornate than, those on
Heriot's Hospital, and seem to suggest that part of Red-
braes may date from the period of Inigo Jones. What is
at present an empty grass-plot between the wings was then
covered by the main edifice with its central tower of im-
posing height and its lines of building on either side
flanked by corresponding towers. Farther away to the
west was the stable-court, now used for farm purposes, and
on the sunny slopes in front lay the garden. The box-
edgings of the old flower-border have grown into a tall
hedge, and the long rectangular lines of clipped yews are
now large single trees. And that is all that is left of the
old garden, unless the sheets of snowdrops, which every
spring hang like a snowdrift on the steep red bank below,
grew there formerly, and now bear silent witness how

1 Julian, Lady Newton, Earl Patrick's eldest sister, was born at the Mains,
as appears by an entry in her mother Lady Jedburgh's Bible. The younger
children were all born at Redbraes.

54 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

far more tenderly mother Nature clings to the old mem-
ories than does ungrateful man. Some of the carved
stones with arms and mottoes have been built into the
wall of the present garden ; and in the life-sized picture
of "Mars," Lord Polwarth's favourite dog, there is a stiff
and formal — therefore probably accurate — presentment of
the old castle depicted in the background.1

Quantities of family portraits were removed from Red-
braes to the present house of Marchmont, and by their
help the former generations of Humes reveal themselves
to their descendants. The bare record of their names
and doings becomes clothed with a living and gracious
personality, as one by one the shapes arise : Earl Patrick,
with his shrewd kindly face and clear blue eyes ; Lady
Marchmont,* serene and placid-looking ; the bluff honest
features of their soldier son, Lord Polwarth ; and so
through a long line of family pictures, few of any great
artistic merit, and yet all so unmistakably like their
originals.

Of all these portraits, none is fraught with so pathetic
an interest as that of the sweet face, with deep blue eyes

1 "Mars" was a smooth-coated black-and-white mastiff of immense size, as
is shown by his collar, which is still treasured among the family relics. It is
of pierced ironwork, the letters of his master's name, " Patrick, Lord Pol-
warth," forming the pattern. "Mars" was again painted some years later by
the side of little George Hume, Lord Polwarth's eldest nephew. The boy's
hand is stretched out to caress the dog, which, turning away, looks out of the
picture as if watching for the master who was never to return.

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 55

and waving fair hair, which still smiles down from the
Green Room walls. This was Lord Polwarth's passionately
loved first wife, whose death caused such grief to the
whole family and made the first break in the even pros-
perity of their existence. She was a distant cousin of his
own, — Elizabeth Hume of Castle Hume, in Ireland, — rand
he had loved her from the time that she came, when
just grown up, to stay with her Scottish relations, whose
ward she was, and to share with them in the gaieties of
the capital. The claims of his profession delayed the
marriage for a time, as he was ordered to Flanders with
his regiment; and it was not till December 1697 that
the wedding took place. Their happiness lasted just four
years. A chill from an accidental wetting brought on
consumption, and with the first December snows of 1701
the young wife passed away. Lord Polwarth never re-
covered her loss ; and from nursing her, he contracted
the seeds of the same fatal illness, which eight years
later carried him off.

"The death of my kind, and, upon all accounts, be-
loved daughter Bettie, your sister, is a weight upon me
still ! " writes Lord Marchmont years after her death to
her brother Sir Gustavus ; and in truth a warm and
close tie had subsisted between them. Both thought
deeply on religious subjects ; and most touching letters
exist, written to her by Lord Marchmont during that

56 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

sad autumn of 1701, when each day found her weaker,
and her hopes of earthly happiness more surely slipping
away.1

From these sad thoughts Lord Marchmont was roused
by political events. He greatly felt the death of William
III., which occurred in 1702. The king had always
treated him with the highest consideration and esteem,
and, in addition to his other marks of favour, had been
pleased to give him, under the Great Seal, a very ample
approbation of his services, dated April 19, 1700, declaring
" Quod prsefatus Comes, in omnibus muneribus a nobis
concreditis, candore et integritatse summa, cum appro-
batione et satisfactione nostra sese gessit et exoneravit."
His advice was constantly sought on matters connected
with Scottish affairs, and especially with Church gov-
ernment ; and it was largely owing to his representations
that the Presbyterian form of worship was appointed
by law to be the Established Church of Scotland. In
1702 he attended the opening of the General Assembly
as Lord High Commissioner. This was the last service
he rendered his master, who died in the month of March
while the Assembly was still sitting. Queen Anne con-
tinued him in this office, and also in that of Lord
Chancellor, but he only retained them a few months.
A bill that he brought in for the abjuration of the so-

1 Marchmont Papers, vol. iii. pp. 221-233.

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 57

called Pretender (James, Prince of Wales) was obnox-
ious to the Court party, and was put a stop to. The
Great Seal was then taken from him, and given to Lord
Seafield. His removal from office did not interfere with
his advocacy of his principles, and in 1703 he succeeded
in getting a measure passed for the security of the
Presbyterian government.

Immediately on Queen Anne's accession to the throne,
an Act had been passed by the English Parliament set-
tling the succession to the Crown on Princess Sophia and
her heirs. The failure to pass a similar measure in Scot-
land doubled Lord Marchmont's anxiety to see a Treaty
of Union drawn up between the two countries. Nothing
else, in his opinion, could secure the Protestant succession
in the event of the queen's death ; and for this end he
worked with heart and soul. His letters to his cousin
the Duke of Devonshire, to Lord Somers, Lord Wharton,
and other prominent English statesmen, show the im-
portance he attached to this measure ; and it was greatly
owing to his advice on the selection of commissioners to
treat on the different articles, that the affair was so suc-
cessfully carried out. His second son, Sir Alexander
Campbell, who had taken his wife's name on her succession
to the Cessnock estates, and his son-in-law, Mr Baillie of
Jerviswoode, were both on a sub-committee which consid-
ered the various articles in detail ; while Lord Marchmont,

58 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWAETH.

as one of the most distinguished leaders of the party in
the Scottish Parliament known as " The Squadron," from
its acting independently of either side, used his influence
in a way which, on the conclusion of the treaty, called
forth the following letter from the queen : l —

" KENSINGTON, Novr. ye 5th.

"The many assurances you have given me yourself of your
zeale for my Service, and the accounts I have received from the
Duke of Queensberry and all my other Servants of ye proofes you
have shewn of it in your harty Concurrance wth them in ye great
affaire of the Union, gives me soe much satisfaction y* I can not
but return you my thanks my Self, and assure you I shall be
glad to shew you on any occasion how sensible I am of your friend-
ship, being Sincerely Your very affectionate freind, ANNE K.

"To the EAELE OF MARCHEMONT. " "

With the Union ceased Lord Marchmont's parliamentary
life. Though he offered himself as a candidate at the
election of Scots representative peers in 1707 and 1708,
it was in each case without success. The politics of Queen

1 Lord Marchmont has been accused by Lockhart, Tindal, Smollett, and
other historians, of taking English gold as a reward for his share in furthering
the Union, and the exact sum is stated, ,£1104, 15s. 7d. — a pitiful sum for
which to sell one's country ! The accusation has been thoroughly gone into
and refuted by Sir George Rose in his ' Defence of Patrick, Earl of March-
mont.' He shows that, far from being a bribe, the sum paid fell short of
arrears owed to him by the Government for his salary as Chancellor and his
pension from King William of £400 a-year, and was paid in discharge of that
debt. For full details the reader is referred to ' The Marchmont Papers,'
vol. i.

2 Holograph letter at Marchmont.

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 59

Anne's Court became more Tory as time went on ; and
the queen's friendly feelings towards Lord Marchmont
sensibly diminished, till in 1710 he was deprived of the
office of High Sheriff of Berwickshire, which on being
taken from him was given to Lord Home.

For some years previously he had greatly withdrawn
from public life, and events had happened in his family
which, to so keenly affectionate a nature, had brought
much sorrow. Poor young Lady Polwarth's death was
the first grief ; and not two years later this was followed
by the loss of Lady Marchmont. She had lived just long
enough to see the restoration of Polwarth church, a pious
deed probably thought of in the long dark hours during
which Sir Patrick had found shelter in the vault, and
which he hastened to carry out when more prosperous
days arrived. Lady Marchmont had been in bad health
for some time, but when the serious nature of her illness
— a cancer — was discovered, Lord Marchmont removed
her to Edinburgh for further advice. She died there
the llth of October 1703. All her children were with
her at the last ; but Lady Grisell, in an agony of grief,
hid herself behind the curtains of the bed. Her mother,
missing her, asked, "Where is Grisell?" and when she
came forward, took her by the hand, and said, " My dear
Grisell, blessed be you above all, for a helpful child have
you been to me ! " To the end of her life Lady Grisell

60 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

never spoke of her mother without tears, any more than
she did of her eldest brother — she had been so devotedly
fond of them both.

Lord and Lady Marchmont's married life had been a
very happy one. Her husband wrote the following de-
scription of her in her Bible, which he gave to Lady Grisell
in memory of her : —

" Grisell Lady Marchmont, her book. To Lady Grisell Hume,
Lady Jerviswood, my beloved daughter. My Heart, in remem-
brance of your mother, keep this Bible, which is what she ordin-
arily made use of. She had been happy of a religious and virtuous
education, by the care of virtuous and religious parents. She
was of a middle stature, of a plump full body, a clear ruddy
complexion, a grave majestic countenance, a composed, steady,
and mild spirit, of a most firm and equal mind, never elevated
by prosperity, nor debased or daunted by adversity. She was a
wonderful stay and support to me in our exile and trouble, and
a humble and thankful partaker with me in our more prosperous
condition ; in both which, by the blessing of God, she helped much
to keep the balance of our deportment even. She was constant
and diligent in the practice of religion and virtue, a careful
observer of worship to God, and of her duties to her husband,
her children, her friends, her neighbours, her tenants, and her
servants ; so that it may justly be said, her piety, probity, virtue,
and prudence were without a blot or stain, and beyond reproach.
As, by the blessing of God, she had lived well, so by His mercy, in
the time of her sickness, and at her death, there appeared many
convincing evidences that the Lord took her to the enjoyment of
endless happiness and bliss. She died the llth of October 1703,

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 61

at Edinburgh, and was buried in my burying - place near the
Canongate Church, where I have caused mark out a grave for
myself close by hers, upon the left side in the middle of the
ground. MARCHMONT."

Only nine of the seventeen children his wife had borne
him lived to grow up, and of these Christian and Robert
had long been dead, and the rest all married with homes
of their own. The great red castle overlooking the Merse
was a lonely dwelling now, and Lord Marchmont's life
would have been a dreary one had it not been for his
political schemes, which, till the Union was an accom-
plished fact, gave him much care and anxiety. His
favourite daughter, Grisell, was now, as always, his great-
est comfort. Her energy was as unflagging as her affection
was warm and unwearied, /and she came constantly from
Mellerstain to help and advise her father in his private
affairs, though her own hands were already full. Her
husband, absorbed in politics, had long ago made over
to her the entire management of his estates ; and her
two daughters, Grisell and Kachel, who were just growing
up, claimed a good deal of her care.

Lord Polwarth's second marriage (which took place in
the April preceding his mother's death) was a great satis-
faction to the whole family. His grief at the loss of his
first wife was so excessive that it gave Lady Grisell much
anxiety, and both she and Lord Marchmont constantly

62 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWAETH.

urged him to marry again. For some time his bad health
and the memory of the past made him very averse to the
idea ; but at last, wearied by his father and sister's impor-
tunities, he gave way, and made proposals to the bride
they had selected — Lady Jane Home, the eldest daughter
of Charles, sixth Earl of Home, a young and beautiful
woman, commonly known as "Bonnie Jean o' the Hirsel."
It was a curious marriage for her to make ; and one
wonders now what was its secret history, and what in-
ducement there could be to persuade a woman of high
rank and great personal attractions to marry a man
much older than herself, in broken health and spirits,
who evidently did not care in the least for her. In
fact, he made it no secret that he married solely to please
his family, and that he recked not who the lady was,
provided he had no trouble in courting her. Can it be
that the few verses that survive of an old and half-
forgotten ballad give a hint of the truth ?—

" Bonnie Jean o' the Hirsel,
Bonnie Jean o' the Hirsel,
She has slighted baith lairds and lords,
And ta'en up wi' the Laird o' Stichill.

Stichill never will get ye, Jean,
Stichill never will get ye ;
For a' his gear and his bonnie black horse,
He may come but he'll gang without ye !

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 63

Bonnie Jean o" the Hirsel,

Bonnie Jean o' the Hirsel,

She's forsaken baith lairds and lords,

An' she's off vri' the Laird o' Stichill." l

Had Lady Jane loved before, not wisely but too well ?
and did she now want to shelter herself beneath the un-
blemished reputation of the Marchmont family ? Tradition
is silent ; but whatever may have happened, she made Lord
Polwarth a faithful and devoted wife during the few years
that their married life lasted, and after his death she con-
tinued to retain the affection and respect of his family.
Her picture is still at Marchmont, a handsome imperious-
looking woman, but wanting in the charm that clings to
the first Lady Polwarth.

As early as the year 1708, Lord Marchmont's letters
betray the anxiety caused to him by his son's health. Lord
Polwarth got so rapidly worse during the summer of 1709,
that he found himself obliged to ask permission from the
queen to dispose of his regiment (the 7th Queen's
Dragoons, of which he had been made colonel, April 28,
1707). Repairs and alterations to the house were being
made at Redbraes that autumn ; and it was thought that
the damp and cold caused by the new building might be

1 Stichill in Roxburghshire, the ancient seat of the Pringles of Stichill,
is about ten miles from the Hirsel. Lady John Scott got these verses
from Betty Thorburn, an old woman at Spottis\voode, who used to sing
them long ago.

64 MAECHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

dangerous in his weak state. Lady Polwartli and he
therefore removed to Kelso for the winter, as being a
warmer and drier spot ; and there, on the 25th of Novem-
ber, he expired, to the inexpressible sorrow of his relations.
His father's letters are very affecting. Writing to his
cousin. Mr Pringle, the following day, to tell him the sad
news, he ends, " Wishing that you may never be under
such a weight of grief as I now am ! " And a few months
later he writes as follows to Sir Gustavus Hume : —

" The sense of my loss lay heavy upon me, doth so still, and will
do so till I die. I had long thought that no grief would be equal
to that of young parents for the death of their young children,
whereof I had much experience in my younger years; but now
I am taught to think otherwise ; for when kind and dutiful children
add to the natural tie those of continual marks of affection in
obsequiousness and all manner of kind services to the parents,
enough to engage the affection even to strangers, that doth greatly
add to the natural obligation. Besides, this grief, however sharp,
sticks not so long with younger people — time wears it off; but
when it comes upon aged people, there is no getting it shaken off.
Indeed my good son had so many excellent qualities in him, as
gained him the goodwill and kind affection, not only of his nearest
and all others, his relations, but even of strangers who came to be
of his acquaintance, whereof there are many witnesses ; so that it
may be guessed that I, a father of seventy years, must be much
weighted by being deprived of such a son in the forty-fifth year of
his age." l

1 Patrick, Earl of Marchmont, to Sir Gustavus Hume, July 8, 1710.

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 65

Elsewhere he says of him that " he was a good man,
having the fear of God in his heart ; that he was a person
of great probity and honesty ; that he was a most dutiful
child to his parents, and a good husband to his wife ; that
he was a faithful and steady friend, where he professed it ;
and that, as a soldier, he was both diligent and daring,
composed and courageous, brave and benign ; and that he
had been well educated in the learning fittest for a gentle-
man." l Few fathers have been more blessed than Lord
Marchmont in their children, not one of his three sons
having ever given him a moment's real care or anxiety ;
but Patrick, the eldest, had ever been the best beloved,
and his death was. a heavy blow.

The following year — 1710 — brought the excitement
of a wedding, that of the eldest of the grand-children,
Grisell Baillie, who married young Murray of Stanhope.
Though she had for some time been courted by Mr Murray,
nothing was settled till a certain Thursday in August,
when the young couple became engaged. They were cried
thrice on the next Sunday, and married very quietly on
the following Wednesday. Never did the proverb come
more true, "Marry in haste and repent at leisure," for
a more ill-omened unhappy marriage has seldom been.
Mr Murray's infirmity of temper showed itself in very

1 Patrick, Earl of Marchmont, to George Baillie of Jerviswoode, March 27,
1710.

66 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

early days ; and less than four years later — in 1714 — a legal
separation became necessary, as his wife was in actual
danger of her life from his fits of jealous rage. From
some of Mr Murray's own letters to his father-in-law,
which were produced in court, it appears that at his
marriage he had been attended by an intimate friend and
companion of his own, a Mr Hamilton, who was till then
unknown to the Jerviswoode family, and had never since
been seen by them ; that on the second evening after the
marriage there was music and dancing, when Mr Hamilton
had danced several times with Mrs Murray, whereupon
Mr Murray felt himself overpowered by the most appalling
apprehension that his bride had transferred her affections
to his friend ; that he had drawn Mr Hamilton aside and
besought him not to dance any more, a request the latter
made light of, and proceeded to finish the dance ; that
during supper he had tried to suppress his feelings, but
that on retiring to his room they had burst forth in a
way very deeply to offend his wife, and to call for the
immediate interposition of her mother. All this he freely
confessed in his letter, and also that he could not in any
way accuse his wife of the slightest impropriety of con-
duct ; but that from time to time he was tortured with
the conviction that he had lost her love, and incurred
her unalterable displeasure. These ideas almost amounted
to insanity; and the gloomy fits of depression into which

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLIVARTH. 67

he fell periodically filled her with terror. One day he
put into her hands a paper of the 'Tatler,' which he
desired her to read, in a way which seemed full of sig-
nificance. She found it contained the story of the murder
of Mrs Eustace by her husband, and the similarity in
the characters and circumstances of the parties made a
deep impression on her mind. In spite of this extra-
ordinary conduct, he appears to have been passionately
attached to her ; and there is a tradition that when Mrs
Murray sat for her picture in London long after the
separation, the painter told her that a gentleman came
frequently to his house, and would stand for an hour
with his arms folded, gazing at her likeness. This person
was discovered to be her husband. In 1724, by the death
of his father, he became Sir Alexander Murray of Stanhope,
but this made no difference in his relations with his wife.
He displayed the same folly in the management of his
property as in his domestic affairs, and by his wild and
chimerical schemes rapidly dissipated the family estates.
He died in poverty in 1743.

After her separation from her husband, Lady Murray
passed much of her time in England, in intimate associa-
tion with the most refined and cultivated society of the
day. In Gay's well-known verses of congratulation to
Pope on his having finished his translation of 'The
Iliad,' the " sweet -tongued Murray" is named as one of

68 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

the "goodly dames" who advance to hail the return of
the poet :—

" What lady's that, to whom he gently bends ?

"Who knows not her ? Ah ! those are Wortley's eyes !
How art thou honoured, numbered with her friends,

For she distinguishes the good and wise !
The sweet-tongued Murray near her side attends.

Now to my heart the glance of Howard flies !
Now Hervey, fair of face, I mark full well,

With thee, Youth's youngest daughter, sweet Lepel ! "

Her friendship with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was
no more destined to be lasting than that of the latter with
the poet. It was brought to an end in the following
manner. Lady Murray had had a narrow escape in 1721
from the violence of a drunken servant of Lord Binning's,
who broke into her room when the household were asleep,
and. but for her presence of mind might have killed her.
Lady Mary chose to amuse herself by the composition
of an infamous ballad on this accident ; but Lady Murray
was quite able to hold her own, and resented Lady Mary's
malice in a way which gave her no small disturbance, as
appears from her letters on the subject to her sister,
Lady Mar.

A very different friend was Lady Hervey, " sweet Molly
Lepel," to whom Lady Murray was deeply attached.
Even when, by her mother's death, and her owrn succession
to the Mellerstain estates, of which Lady Grisell had held

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 69

the life-rent, the greater portion of her year had to be
spent in Scotland, distance proved no bar to their intimacy.
In the summer of 1757 Lady Hervey made a journey to
the North on purpose, as she wrote, to pass a few months
with her "dearest and oldest friends, Lady Murray and
her family." Two years later, in June 1759, Lady Murray
died ; and beyond her nearest relations, by no one was she
lamented so deeply as by this friend of forty years' stand-
ing, who gives the following charming picture of her in
one of her letters :—

" Never in my long life did I ever meet with a creature, in all
respects, like her : many have excelled her, perhaps, in particular
qualities ; but none that ever I met with have equalled her in all.
Sound good sense, strong judgment, great sagacity, strict honour,
truth, and sincerity ; a most affectionate disposition of mind ; con-
stant and steady ; not obstinate ; great indulgence to others ; a
most sweet cheerful temper; and a sort of liveliness and good-
humour that promoted innocent mirth wherever she came; and,
with all this, her nature, or her understanding, or both, gave her
such an attention to everything and everybody, that neither when
she was most vexed (and many vexations she had), nor when in her
highest spirits, did she ever say or do a thing that could offend or
hurt any one. In forty years, and as much as we lived together,
she never said or did the least thing to me that, from any reason
in the world, I could have wished undone or unsaid. Of no other
person that I ever had any connection with can I say the same.
Inadvertence, ill-humour, or too much spirits, will, in most people,
at some time or other, make them do or say what may hurt at
least for a time their best friends. But she had a kind of delicacy

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

in her way of thinking, accompanied by a reflection so quick, that
though she seemed to speak without considering beforehand, she
could not, had she considered ever so long, have more dexterously
and more effectually avoided the least thing that could either
directly or obliquely have made any one uneasy or out of coun-
tenance. Oh ! she was — what was she not ? — but 'tis all over ! " 1

1 Mary, Lady Hervey, to the Rev. Edmund Morris, July 17, 1759.

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 71

CHAPTER IV.

/~\N the accession of George I., Lord Marchmont was
restored to his old office of High Sheriff of Ber-
wickshire, and was appointed a Lord of the Court of
Police. He was as devoted an adherent of the house of
Hanover as he had been of the Prince of Orange ; and
by his prompt action, in 1715, in forbidding a meeting
of the gentlemen of Berwickshire whom he suspected of
sympathy with the Stuart cause, he afforded great assist-
ance to the Government. Two years later, in 1717, he
was persuaded by his children to give up living at Red-
braes, which they thought too cold and lonely a residence
for one of his advanced years, he being then nearer
eighty than seventy. He bought a house in Berwick,
where he spent the remainder of his life. Lady Julian
Bellingham, now a widow, came to live permanently
with him; but it was still the devoted Lady Grisell
who looked after his affairs. In spite of the trouble
which the management of her husband's property gave

72 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

her, she found time to go regularly through her father's
accounts, settling matters with his steward, and gener-
ally superintending all his business.

Nor was this all. Her brother Alexander, now Lord
Polwarth, was in 1716 sent on a mission to Copenhagen,
and during his absence it was to his elder sister that
he gave everything in charge — a trust which she scrupu-
lously carried out. It does not appear certain whether
his wife accompanied him to Denmark ; but whether or
not, Lady Grisell proved an excellent guardian to his
children. With some trouble and difficulty she got the
famous Colin Maclaurin — the pupil of Sir Isaac Newton,
and already, at the age of twenty -one, the foremost
mathematician of the day — to go abroad with George,
the Master of Polwarth, a young man of extraordinary
promise, who, to the grief of his family, died of a fever
at Montpelier in 1724, just two months after the death
of his grandfather. She sent the twins to school in
London till they were old enough to go to Holland-
finding a tutor for them, buying their clothes, and pro-
viding them with every necessary they could require.
In short, she was a woman who never spared herself
thought or trouble where anything affecting the good
or the happiness of her family was concerned. When
absent from her father she wrote to him constantly and
regularly, sending him newspapers and any books or

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 73

pamphlets she thought might interest him ; for advanc-
ing years had not in any way dulled his faculties, and
he retained his light-hearted disposition and sunny cheer-
fulness to the last.

Lady Murray relates in her ' Memoirs ' that two or three
years before his death her mother and she went to visit
him at Berwick. A good many of the relations had
gathered to meet them ; and as there were no fewer than
fourteen children and grandchildren present, they indulged
in their favourite amusement, a dance. Lord Marchmont
was too weak to walk down-stairs, but he had himself
carried into the room where they were assembled ; and
saying though he could not dance with them he could yet
beat time with his foot, did so, and bade them dance as long
as they could, as it was the best medicine he knew, giving
exercise to the body while it cheered the mind. At his
usual time for going to bed he was carried up-stairs, but he
would not allow the music and dancing to stop, desiring
them to continue, for he said the sounds, far from disturb-
ing him, would lull him to sleep. He never wished to
interrupt the innocent pleasures of others, for there was
nothing morose or severe in his piety, and he often used
to say, "None had so good a reason to be merry and
pleased as those that served God and obeyed His com-
mandments." He died of a fever in the eighty-fourth
year of his age, on the 1st of August 1724. Lord Binning,

74 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

the husband of his granddaughter, Kachel Baillie — who
chanced to be the only member of that family in Scotland
at the time — went to him at the first intimation from
Lady Julian of his illness, and stayed with him to the
last. Even then his cheerfulness did not forsake him.
As Lord Binning sat by his bedside not many hours
before the end, he saw him smiling, and said to him, " My
lord, what are you laughing at ? " and he answered, " I
am diverted to think what a disappointment the worms
will meet with when they come to me, expecting a good
meal, and find nothing but bones ! " Like all his family,
he was a man of slight make and active habits, and in his
old age had become very thin and worn. The end was
most peaceful. He passed away without a groan, and
seeming happy to go.

Thus died Patrick, first Earl of Marchmont, and brought
to a close an honoured and beloved old age. He lived at
a time when men's passions ran high, and party opinions
were strong and vehement. Hence it is that such different
views of his character are presented to us by his contem-
poraries. By his own side he was revered as a saint, and
by his opponents he was branded with the stigma of
having sold his country. More than two hundred years
have passed since the Revolution, and Time has cleared
away the mists. We can look back and weigh the events
of that period, and the characters of the persons concerned

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 75

in them, with a clearer judgment than could those who
lived nearer that day. Some of his descendants may
regret that Lord Marchmont was not found among the
faithful few that remained steadfast to the ancient Royal
line ; but they must do him the justice to say — at least
he was no turncoat. The opinions which in later life
brought him honours and riches were the same as those
he had professed from the beginning, and for which he
had imperilled his life and property at a time when there
seemed little prospect that a different state of affairs
would ultimately prevail. His character is an easy one
to understand. Perfectly frank and open, there are no
complexities to unravel. With much shrewd common-
sense, he was honest and upright in his dealings with
strangers, while to his own family he was ever warm-
hearted and affectionate, sharing keenly in their joys and
sorrows. His piety was genuine and unassumed, and
there was nothing of the gloom of the Puritan about him.
He took thankfully and unquestioningly the blessings
that fell to his lot ; ancf when reverses came, he bowed his
head and accepted them without a murmur. His firm
faith in God's mercy and goodness never deserted him, so
that in the darkest hour he never lost heart. Perhaps the
saddest moment of his life was when, still weighed down
with grief for the loss of Lady Polwarth and Lady March-
mont, he had to mourn his eldest and favourite son, cut

76 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

down in the prime of life. Even then he could write,
" Yet I thank God I am supported by a Christian and
hearty submission to the will of the Lord, to which, I
hope, I am perfectly and totally resigned."

Among the Marchmont MSS. is a paper in his writing
containing the following characteristic advice to his chil-
dren : —

"The chief thing to be regarded (God is judge, your Mind and
Conscience witness), that your motive and design be upright, that
you aim not at Honor from selfish pride and vain ambition, but
that you may have a leading capacity in doing good ; nor wealth
that you may live high, but that you may provide for your Family
decently, and engage Friends and Neighbours to follow and assist
you chiefly in things for the Public Government. Hospitality is
good, barring sumptuousness in Provision, and all excess in the
use ; no solid Friendship was ever made or supported by Eating
and Drinking; if you lend your Neighbour or Friend, in need,
Fifty or a hundred Pounds, it engages more than five hundred
Feasts. Affability, Humility and Sobriety, with Consideration and
Forethinlung, are indispensible ; if God so guide your Heart, he
will employ, furnish, support, and give you success, you still doing
your part and duty diligently and faithfully (God grant you may
follow such a course). Let never disappointments discourage you ;
God rules ; submit cordially to what His Providence determines ;
His Time is not then come ; do your Duty, attend opportunities,
and wait for it."

Lady Griscll survived her father many years. Her only
boy had died in childhood, but his loss was made up to

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 77

her by the affection of her son-in-law, Lord Binning, the
husband of her youngest daughter, Rachel. To him she
was warmly attached ; and on account of his health she
and her daughters went abroad with him in 1731. As
they passed through Holland, she revisited her old haunts
at Utrecht, and took great delight in showing to her chil-
dren the place where in her young days she had been so
poor and yet so happy. She would have liked to take
them over the house that her parents had lived in, but no
persuasion nor offers of money could induce the owner to
let her enter it. The reason he gave was his fear lest she
should dirty it. In vain she offered to take off her shoes,
but nothing would mollify him. Although she had never
spoken the Dutch language since she left Holland in 1688,
it rapidly came back to her ; and she was able to make
herself understood, and to transact all necessary business.
She appears to have had the gift of languages, for on arriv-
ing at Naples — their eventual destination — she could not
speak a word of Italian ; but, by the help of a grammar
and a dictionary, she soon obtained such a command over
the language that she was able to direct her Italian ser-
vants, and to go to shops and buy everything for which
the household had occasion. Lord Binning died at Naples
in 1732, and her grief was so excessive that she wore
mourning for him to the end of her life. With pleasure,
she said, she would have begged her bread to have saved

78 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

his life. Her affection for him was now transferred to his
children, her grandsons, to whom she could deny nothing.
They were educated at Oxford, and to be near them she
lived there for some years, and there Mr Baillie died in
1738. " The best of husbands, and the delight of my life
for forty-eight years," as she calls him. He left to his
wife a life-interest in his property, so as to keep it out of
the hands of his son-in-law, Sir Alexander Murray, who
fortunately predeceased her.

The last years of Lady Grisell's life were embittered by
some misunderstanding with her nephews and nieces of
Marchmont — her brother's children — to whom in their
younger days she had been a second mother. Nothing is
now known of what caused this disagreement, as Lady
Murray gives no particulars, merely saying that it caused
her mother much pain ; while Sir George Rose only men-
tions that amongst the Marchmont papers and letters he
found nothing bearing on the subject. Lady Grisell died
in London on the 6th of December 1746, having almost
completed her eighty-first year. Lady Hervey, who knew
her intimately, writes : "I saw and heard old Lady Grisell
six months before she died, as lively, as entertaining, as
sagacious, and with all her senses as perfect as ever." By
her own wish she was carried back to Mellerstain to lie
beside her husband. She was so anxious on this point
that she was in the habit of always carrying sufficient

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

money for the purpose in a black purse with her, in case of
her dying away from home. Lady Murray was childless,
and on her death the Mellerstain estates passed to her only
sister, Lady Binning, and eventually to the latter's second
son, George, who took his grandfather's name of Baillie.
Two of Lady Grisell's songs are printed in the Appendix.
On them rests her claim to be numbered among the sweet
singers of Scotland, for though she is known to have
written others, these are all that have been handed down
to later generations.1

1 See Appendix II.

Baillie Arms.

80 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

CHAPTER V.

A LEXANDER, the second Earl of Marchmont, born in
1675, was the third son of Sir Patrick Hume (after-
wards first Earl), and was younger than his sisters Grisell,
Christian, and Julian. During his father's exile in Hol-
land he spent between two and three years at the
University of Utrecht, studying — as he tells us himself —
"civil law, philosophy, and other parts of learning, but
especially the civil law, that being the profession he
designed to follow." In later years, and in his diplomatic
career, he reaped the advantage of his foreign studies, and
probably owed to them a good deal of the success that
attended his appointments abroad as Ambassador. On
his family's return to Scotland in 1688, he accompanied
them, and continued reading for the law in Edinburgh.
During his residence there he courted and married the
daughter of Sir George Campbell of Cessnock. He was
only twenty-two years of age at the time, and his marriage
helped greatly towards his advancement in his profession.

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 81

Margaret Campbell was a great heiress, and on her father's
death, in 1704, her husband succeeded him, not only in his
Ayrshire estates, but also in his place on the Scottish
Bench, where he sat under the same title of Lord Cess-
nock. He had previously been known as Sir Alexander
Campbell, having adopted the name of his wife's family,
and having in 1696 been knighted by the king's com-
missioner, the Duke of Queensberry. In addition to his
legal work, he early threw himself into political life, and
sat in the Scottish Parliament before the Union, first for
Kirkwall and then for Berwickshire. He had been bred
up in the Whig and Presbyterian traditions of the family,
and the house of Stuart found in him as stern and uncom-
promising an adversary as his father had been before him.
Sharing the same views as to the great importance of the
Union of the kingdoms, he zealously promoted that meas-
ure, and took an active part in the work of the sub-
committee to which the Articles of Union were referred.
The political line of conduct, originating from his strong
Presbyterian bias, which Earl Patrick laid down for him-
self, and which in early life had exposed him to so many
dangers and reverses, proved ultimately the source of
fortune to his family. The princes he served so faithfully
were never slow to reward their adherents. First William,
then Anne, then the house of Hanover, heaped honours on
the Marchmont family. In quick succession Sir Alexander

82 MAECHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Campbell was made a Lord of Session, a Privy Councillor,
and a Lord of Exchequer. The death of his elder brother
in 1709 gave him the courtesy title of Lord Polwarth.
Three years later — in 1712 — having obtained leave from
Queen Anne to repair to Spa to drink the waters, he went
from thence to Hanover to ascertain whether the reports,
prevalent in England, were well founded that the Elector
was indifferent to his chances of succeeding to the English
Crown. A correspondence ensued between him and the
Electoral Court. The death of the Electress Sophia in
May 1714 caused a great change in the sentiments of her
son, who now became as earnest as she had been in the
hope of succeeding to this rich inheritance. Lord Pol-
warth threw himself heart and soul into the Hanoverian
interests, and in 1715 was rewarded for his devotion by
being appointed Lord Lieutenant of Berwickshire, in which
capacity he raised two troop of horse and two battalions
of foot to help in the suppression of Lord Mar's rising.
With one battalion of foot he marched to Falkirk to join
the Hanoverian force, but was hurriedly despatched from
there by the Duke of Argyle to render assistance to the
garrison of Edinburgh.1

1 Lord Polwarth's nephew by marriage, Lord Binning, alludes to tins in his
song, " In prai.-e of Emilius " : —

" Some cry up pretty Polwarth for his appearance great,
For wi' his Orange regiment the rebels he defeat ;
But of all the pretty gentlemen of whom the town do tell,
Emilius, Emiliu.s, he bears away the bell."

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 83

In 1716 he vacated his seat in the Court of Session in
favour of his brother, Sir Andrew Hume (who took the
title of Lord Kimmerghame), and was appointed Minister
Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of
Prussia. At the last moment his destination was changed,
and he was sent instead as Ambassador to the Court of
Denmark ; and thus the letters from George I. and
Caroline, Princess of Wales, recommending him warmly
to the King and Queen of Prussia, still repose undelivered
in a cabinet at Marchmont.1 With his appointment at
Copenhagen began the diplomatic life for which his early
familiarity with foreign ways, his courtly manners, — which
concealed great firmness of purpose and reticence of
opinion, — and his calm judgment, made him eminently
suited. This total change of duties did not altogether
sever his connection with the legal circles of his native
country, as in the December of the year in which he left
Scotland he was made Lord Clerk Kegister, an office
formerly held by his father-in-law. He remained at
Copenhagen till the spring of 1721 ; and there at
different times Lord Carteret and Lord Glenorchy were
his colleagues in the Embassy. From the many scarce
and valuable historical works in the Marchmont Library,
containing his book-plate of this date, he appears to
have devoted much of his time abroad to the cultivation

1 See Appendix III.

84 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

of letters and the research of curious editions. It is also
probable that it was at Copenhagen he acquired the por-
trait of Charles XII. of Sweden, by Lionel, Count de
Dysert, which is now let into a panel in the saloon at
Marchmont, and of which several replicas exist in England.
A practical recognition of the value of his services was
given in January 1722 by his nomination to the post of
First Ambassador on the part of England to the Congress
held at Cambray. Lord Whitworth was associated with
him in this high position, but in a subordinate capacity.
By the curious irony of Fate, the day in March on which,
with the utmost pomp and magnificence, he made his
public entry into the city of Cambray, was the very day
on which his wife died in Edinburgh.

Margaret, Lady Polwarth, does not appear, even by her
own daughter's account, to have been a very lovable
person. A spoilt child from infancy, with an inordinate
idea of her own importance, she had grown up a fair-
haired, supercilious-looking woman, who never seems to
have fitted into her husband's family. She is rarely men-
tioned in their letters, and her death does not seem to
have caused great sorrow. She had seldom accompanied
her husband on his foreign missions, and during his
absences abroad he appears to have relied more on the
affectionate good sense of his sister Grisell in the manage-
ment of his affairs than on his wife's capabilities. Even

MAEGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 85

her boys had seen but little of their mother, and at the
time of her death they were abroad with their tutors.
Lord Polwarth remained at Cambray till the Congress
broke up in the spring of 1725, when he returned home,
bringing with him a curious memento of his labours in
the form of a series of pastel portraits representing the
envoys of the different countries, which are still preserved
at Marchmont. In his own portrait he is represented
wearing a light-blue ribbon with the badge of the Thistle,
that order having been conferred on him by commission
in 1725.1

The home to which he returned had greatly altered in
his absence. His wife was dead, and had been quickly fol-
lowed to the grave by her two elder sons and two of her
daughters. His father had died in 1724 — the same year
that deprived him of his boys — and he was now Lord
Marchmont. He never married again, but passed the
remainder of his life between London and Berwickshire.
For some years he occupied himself greatly with political
life ; but his enmity to Sir Eobert Walpole, and particularly
his joining the Opposition against the excise scheme, proved
his downfall, and in 1733 he was deprived of all his offices.
Both on public and private grounds, he disliked and op-
posed the all-powerful Minister. His pride as a Scotsman

1 This corroborates the assertion sometimes made, that at one time the
ribbon of the Thistle was a bright pale blue, instead of green as now.

86 MAEGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

was humiliated by the way in which Sir Eobert and his
Lieutenant, Lord Islay, governed Scotland, more as a con-
quered country than as one which, by the Treaty of Union,
was expressly admitted to have equal rights with her larger
neighbour ; and he justly repudiated the theory that the
sixteen representative peers of Scotland should be the
nominees of the Minister, instead of being the free choice
of their equals. To expose the corruption and intimidation
employed in the peers' election of 1734, he joined the
Dukes of Hamilton, Queensberry, and Montrose, the Earls
of Stair, Strathmore, Dundonald, Rothes, and many others
of the Scottish nobility, in a petition to the Crown. The
leading English members of the Opposition acted with
them, but to no purpose, Sir Robert's power being too firm-
ly seated to be easily overthrown. Lord Marchmont like-
wise disapproved strongly of the way in which the Minister
fomented the quarrels between George II. and Frederick,
Prince of Wales. In a memorandum which he drew up in
1737, on the occasion of the Prince of Wales having

' O

removed the Princess suddenly from Kew to London, at —
as the King's friends gave out — the needless peril of her
life, he plainly gives his opinion that Sir Robert had set
down in writing — and incorrectly — a conversation he had
had with the Prince ; and that by showing this paper
to the King, he had greatly increased his Majesty's ire
against his son. Lord Marchmont ends his memorandum

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 87

with these significant words : " What does one deserve who
goes and puts in writing what passes in private conversa-
tion, to make a bad use of it ? But what does he deserve
who puts a private discourse in writing, and reports it to
the King, to alienate and inflame against a Prince of
Wales, the apparent heir of the Crown ? "

Though Lord Marchmont's exclusion from the number
of representative peers at the election of 1734 debarred
him from taking an active part in public life, he continued
to support his party by his letters and advice, even when
failing health compelled him to lead the existence of a
semi-invalid. He died at Redbraes in February 1740,
and almost the last act of his life was the planting of
the great avenue at Marchmont. His son and he seem
to have often discussed the plan of building a fourth
and last house, more magnificent than any of its prede-
cessors ; but he finally decided to leave that to Lord
Polwarth to carry out, and to content himself with plant-
ing the stately approach, a mile and a third long, that
should lead up to it.

Alexander, the second Earl of Marchmont, died secure
in the esteem of all who had ever come in contact with
him. Of a less open and transparent nature than his
father, he was in consequence more difficult to know ; but
his courtly if somewhat reserved manners covered great
kindliness of heart, and his high sense of honour and

88 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

firmness of principles commanded universal respect. Like
Earl Patrick, he thought deeply on religious matters. In
his Bible, beneath his name and the date " Cambray, 1st
May 1725," is this note in his own writing — "To be read
thrice a-year : first, 1st January ; second, 1st May ; third,
1st September ; " and following it is a plan for dividing
the volume into portions for every morning and evening
throughout the given four months. In person he was a
tall, slight, handsome man, perhaps the best - looking of
the three Earls of Marchmont. To a nature whose
warmest affections centred themselves in his nearest
relations, the death of his two eldest boys was a great
sorrow. He wras survived by the twin brothers, who
through life preserved such a bewildering likeness to each
other. Over and over again their pictures were painted.
First as boys of four years old, hand in hand, dressed in
tunics and sandals, and carrying their bows and quivers,
while behind them in the distance rise the towers of Eed-
braes. Next they look down on later generations as
young men with fowling - pieces ; and, except for the
different colours of their long-skirted coats, equally in-
distinguishable. Lastly, they appear as calm sedate per-
sonages in their robes of state — Hugh in his peer's
velvet and ermine, and Alexander in the richly em-
broidered gown of the Lord Clerk Register, and still
with the same strong likeness of feature and expression.

<2J ^(

a/nd

Swan tlectpir Er.gravmg Co

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 89

This perplexing resemblance gave rise, as may be sup-
posed, to many mistakes, an amusing example of which
has been preserved by Sir George Kose, and is as
follows : —

The Chevalier de Eamsay was in England, and about
to publish his ' Travels of Cyrus ' by subscription. The
two brothers had each undertaken to procure a certain
number of subscribers. Lord Marchmont had completed
his list, and had notified to the author his having done
so ; while his brother, deeply occupied in legal as well
as political pursuits, had wholly lost sight of the matter.
Hume Campbell, passing through Westminster Hall, but
not in his professional dress, met a nobleman for whom
he was retained in an important cause, and who took that
opportunity of talking to him much at length respecting
it. Whilst this was passing, the Chevalier de Ramsay,
coming towards them, saw, as he imagined, Lord March-
mont in his brother, accosted him as such, and over-
whelmed him with a profusion of thanks and compliments,
which he thought it better to accept quietly, than, by
setting him right, to lead to an explanation which must
have brought to light his own small deserts, and neglect
of his undertaking. As soon as the Chevalier was gone,
the nobleman, who was well acquainted with both the
brothers, turning to Hume Campbell, exclaimed, "My
dear lord, I entreat your pardon for my extreme stupidity

MARQHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

and want of observation. I took you for your brother,
and have been thus annoying you with my tiresome
lawsuit, on which you have heard me with so much
patience." l

1 Marchmont Papers, selected by Sir George Henry Rose, vol. i., Preface.

Panel of hammered iron-work with cypher of Alexander,
second Earl of Marchmont.

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 91

CHAPTER VI.

twin brothers were born on the 15th of February
1708, and they entered Parliament in 1734 — Hugh,
Lord Polwarth, representing Berwick-upon-Tweed, and
Alexander Hume Campbell the county of Berwickshire.
The same election which gave them seats in the Lower
House had deprived their father of his as a representative
peer ; but, in the words of Sir George Rose, the brothers
" rushed at once into the conflict with the Minister
who had thrust Lord Marchmont out of public life, and
achieved for themselves a splendid reputation ; and their
father had the gratification to see them acquire it with
singular rapidity in a career which to them was one of
filial piety as well as of public duty." Gifted with
brilliant abilities and great oratorical powers, they are
among the few instances of twins who have both been
remarkable men.

It was said of Hugh, the elder, who- became Lord
Marchmont in 1740, that " he was distinguished for

92 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

learning, for brilliancy of genius, and for parliamentary
experience." The estimation in which he was held by his
contemporaries early in life may be judged of by his
close and intimate friendship with Lord Cobham and
Sir William Wyndham, — the former of whom gave his
bust a place in the Temple of Worthies at Stow,1 — and
by the mention of him in Pope's well-known lines : —

ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM.

" Thou who shalt stop where Thames' translucent wave
Shines a broad mirror through the shadowy cave ;
Where lingering drops from min'ral roofs distil,
And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill,
Unpolished gems no ray on pride bestow,
And latent metals innocently glow :
Approach. Great Mature studiously behold,
And eye the mine without a wish for gold.
Approach : but awful ! Lo ! the /Egerian grot,
Where, nobly pensive, St John sate and thought ;
Where British sighs from dying Wyndham stole,
And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's soul.
Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor
Who dare to love their country, and be poor."

Through life lie remained an intimate friend of Pope,
who appointed him one of his executors.2 He filled the

1 This bust is now in the saloon at Marchmont, having been bought at the
Stow sale by Sir Hugh Hume Campbell, Bart.

- In justice to Lord Marchmont's memory, it is fair to say that he had noth-
ing to do with the neglect of Pope's papers, for which he has been blamed by
l)r Johnson. All his manuscripts and imprinted papers Pope left to Lord

MAROHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 93

same office to another person, also a celebrity in her time.
This was Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, a warm and
consistent friend of Earl Alexander. She had named
him as her executor ; and, on his death, begged his
son to take his place. The sincerity of her feelings
towards the family is shown by the warm-hearted im-
pulsive letter she wrote to Earl Hugh on his father's
death. Thinking that at the moment he might be short
of money, she offered to send him £1000 then and there,
being half the legacy which she had always intended to
leave him. She eventually left him £2500.

The six years that Lord Polwarth passed in the Lower
House gave proof of his talents in debate.1 Sir Robert
Walpole, it is said, " used frequently to rally his sons,
who were praising the speeches of Pulteney, Pitt, Lyt-
telton, and others, by saying, 'You may cry up their
speeches if you please ; but when I have answered Sir John

Bolingbroke, "committing them to his sole care and judgment, to preserve or
destroy them ; or in case he should not survive him, to the above said Earl of
Marchmont." As Lord Bolingbroke survived Pope, the papers never came into
Lord Marchmont's possession.

1 The opinion expressed by Earl Stanhope respecting Lord Polwarth is
worthy of notice. Speaking of the severe blow which the removal of this
accomplished debater from the House of Commons, on the death of his father
in 1740, dealt to the Opposition, he says : " Polwarth was a young man of
distinguished abilities, of rising influence in the Commons, of great, perhaps
too great, party warmth — an opinion in which the famous Sarah, Duchess of
Marlborough, did not concur. ' I have heard some say,' she wrote, ' that Lord
Polwarth and his brother are too warm ; but I own I love those that are so,
and never saw much good in those that are not.' "

94 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Barnard and Lord Polwarth, I think I have concluded the
debate.' " The whirligig of time brings many changes to
pass, and the animosity felt by Alexander, Lord Marchmont,
against Sir Eobert Walpole, threw his son into the arms
of men whose political opinions — in their earlier years at
any rate — differed widely from the hereditary principles
of the Marchmont family. Lord Bolingbroke and Sir
William Wyndham both entered life as adherents of the
house of Stuart ; and even after their reconciliation to
the reigning family, they headed the old Tory party.
To their ranks Lord Polwarth and his brother were
warmly welcomed. His removal from the House by
his succession to his father's title was a great loss to
the Opposition, coming as it did at the same moment
as Sir William Wyndham's death.1 Pope writes to him
on this occasion : —

1 Sir William Wvndham (father of the first Earl of Egremont) was a most
upright and amiable man, and warmly attached to the royal family of Stuart.
Born of a Tory family, and " imLued," says Coxe in his ' Life of Sir Eobert
Walpole,' " from his earliest years with the notions of divine right, he
uniformly opposed the succession of the house of Brunswick." He was born
in 1686, and under Lord Oxford's Administration was made Master of the Buck-
hounds, and afterwards Secretary of War and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
In 1715 he was sent to the Tower for his Jacobite opinions, in direct violation
of a promise made to his father-in-law, the Duke of Somerset, on the Duke's
engaging that he should be forthcoming if required. He told Lord March-
mont in later years that, on entering the Tower, the white horse (the arms of
Hanover) struck him forcibly, it having been predicted to him that he would
suffer by a white horse. He added that once, when hunting, he dismounted
from a white horse he rode, in order to turn him over a leap, and received a
severe kick from him. Sir William Wyndham died in 1740.

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 95

" If God had not given this nation to perdition, he would not
have removed from its service the men whose capacity and in-
tegrity alone could have saved it."1

And Lord Bolingbroke in a letter to Pope breaks out : —

" What a star has our Minister ? Wyndham dead — Marchmont
disabled ! The loss of Marchmont and Wyndham to our country !
I take for granted that you have a correspondance with Lord
Marchmont. I writ to him the other day, but do you write to
him. I wish the event of Wyndham's death may not determine
him to settle in Scotland. God forbid ! Do not fail, when you
write, to tell him how much I honor his virtue and his talents, and
love his person. He, and you, and I are by different causes in
much the same situation ; lovers of our country ; grieved at her
present state ; and unable to help her."

For some years Lord Marchmont remained out of
Parliament ; but the diary he kept during that time
shows how closely be followed the course of events, and
how much his opinion and advice were sought by those
who were able to take a more prominent part in public
affairs. In 1744 he was sounded by Lord Chesterfield as
to whether he would accept an appointment abroad as
Ambassador, and the Court of Prussia was hinted at.
But he refused to entertain any such idea, alleging as a
reason that his father had ruined his political chances by
remaining abroad till all his friends were dead and he
himself forgotten ; and that he was averse to running the

1 Mr Pope to Hugh, Earl of Marchmont, February 29, 1740.

96 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

same risk. In 1747 he was appointed First Lord of
Police, and in 1750 he was elected one of the sixteen
representative peers, and from that time sat continuously
in the Upper House till 1784. But he had waited too
long, and the bright promise of his early days was never
fulfilled. Circumstances had greatly changed during the
ten years in which he had to submit to be a mere looker-
on at the arena ; and in political life he must be reckoned
as a disappointed man. In his youth he had been the
chosen companion of men older than himself, who appre-
ciated to the full the keenness of his intellect, and a calm-
ness of judgment beyond his years. One by one death
had removed these early friends, and when Lord March-
mont again entered Parliament he found himself the last
survivor of the brilliant set with which he had become
so identified. His friendship with Lord Bolingbroke was
the closest and most intimate of his life, and subsisted
without a break till the death of the latter in 1751. In
1764 Lord Marchmont was made Lord Keeper of the
Great Seal of Scotland, and this was the last office
bestowed on him.

Earl Hugh's first wife, Anne, the daughter of Sir Thomas
^^'^estern, whom he married in May 1731, was a gentle,
pretty woman, whose sixteen years of wedded life have
left little trace in the family history. Her portrait, with
its soft brown eyes and small delicate features, hangs in

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 97

one of the rooms at Marchmont ; and in Polwarth church
a marble slab records that her husband raised this monu-
ment to the eternal memory of the most obedient and
incomparable of wives.1 She died at Redbraes in 1747,
and was buried by the side of her only son. Lord
Marchmont's grief was not inconsolable. Within a year
her place was filled by the beautiful woman whom he
first saw in a London playhouse, where he was so struck
by her loveliness that he inquired who she was, made
her acquaintance the following day, and then and there
proposed to her.2 This was Elizabeth Crompton, the

1 "MEMORLS

ANN^E WESTERN,
HUGO COMES DE MARCHMONT,

CONJUGI INCOMPARABILI,

OBSEQUENTISSIM.E
ET OPTIME DE SE MERITS

POSUIT

EJUSQUE CORPUS IN ARCA
HIC CONDIDIT."

2 David Hume to Mr Oswald of Dunnikier, London, January 29, 1748.
" Lord Marchmont has had the most extraordinary adventure in the world.
About three weeks ago he was at the play, where he espied in one of the boxes
a fair virgin, whose looks, airs, and manners had such a powerful and undis-
guised effect upon him, as was visible by every bystander. His raptures were
so undisguised, his looks so expressive of passion, his inquiries so earnest, that
every person took notice of it. He soon was told that her name was Crompton,
a linen-draper's daughter that had been bankrupt last year, and had not been
able to pay above five shillings in the pound. The fair nymph herself was
about sixteen or seventeen, and being supported by some relations, appeared in
every public place, and had fatigued every eye but that of his Lordship, which,
being entirely employed in the severer studies, had never till that fatal moment
opened upon her charms. Such and so powerful was their effect, as to be able

98 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

daughter of a linen-draper in Cheapsicle ; and the marriage
that was brought about in so odd a way proved a happy
one. A portrait of her, said to be by Sir Joshua, hangs
in the dining-room at Marchmont. The hair turned
back from the forehead, and dressed high in the fashion
of the day, suits the perfect oval face, faultless alike in
feature and colouring. Small wonder that the recollection
of " the beautiful Lady Marchmont " lingered long in the
home to which she came as a bride in 1748. "Just the
fairest creature that ever trod this earth!" was the descrip-
tion her old housekeeper, Mrs Blackwall, gave of her more
than sixty years afterwards to my great-grandmother, then
newly married.

Two years later, in 1750, came the crowning joy of Lord
Marchmont's life, the birth of the son on whose future
such hopes were built.1 The welcome news brought the
following letter from Lord Bolingbroke, pathetic in its
strain of exultant joy — doubly pathetic to those who know
that this was the last of the lengthy series that had passed

to justify all tlie Pliaramonds and Cyruses in their utmost extravagances. He
wrote next morning to her father, desiring to visit his daughter on honourable
terms ; and in a few days she will be the Countess of Marchmont. All this is
certainly true. They say many small fevers prevent a great one. Heaven be
praised that I have always liked the persons and company of the fair sex ! for
by that means I hope to escape such ridiculous passions. But could you ever
expect the ambitious, the severe, the bustling, the impetuous, the violent
Marchmont, of becoming so tender and gentle a swain — an Artamenes — an
Oroondates ! " — Oswald's Correspondence.
1 Alexander, Lord Polwarth, was born in London, July 30, 1750.

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 99

between the friends. His infirmities made writing almost
impossible to him, and the following year Lord Bolingbroke
was no more.1

"BATTERSEA, Tuesday, Jvly 31, 1750.

"MY LORD, — I would give one of my hands to have the free
use of the other on this occasion, that I might be able to tell
you, under my own hand, the transport of pleasure which your
letter gives me. My Lady is well, the child is well, and you have
a successor. May he be such, and I trust he will be such, to all
your virtues !

" Believe, my Lord, your own joy cannot be greater than that
of your devoted humble servant, H. ST J. BOLINGBROKE."

Simultaneously with the birth of the heir, Lord March -
mont began the new house which he and his father had
planned. It took ten years for that stately mansion to rise
from its foundations. The building was only carried on in
summer, and the unfinished works were carefully covered up
during the winter months. When at last it was completed,
Lord Marchmont was asked by a friend why, with so much
fine stone at his command, he had not ordered ashlar
building instead of contenting himself with rubble-work.
" Because I intend to live in the inside of my house and not
on the outside," was the answer. Yet the decoration of the
interior was not carried out on the scale of lavish magnifi-
cence which Adams had planned, and the designs for which

1 Lord Bolingbroke died November 15, 1751.

100 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

are still preserved at Marchmont. The saloon and the
great drawing-room are the only rooms finished according
to the original intention. The tower at the farther end of
the avenue — a pigeon-house — was built at the same time.
Lord Marchmont took a great interest in his estates, and
was a generous and considerate landlord, encouraging
agricultural improvements. He laid out a great deal of
money on his property, and very much increased its ex-
tent by the purchase of Home Castle and its surrounding
lands, and also of other farms lying nearer the Tweed.
This he was enabled to do by the sale of his mother's
estates of Cessnock. Home Castle till now had belonged
to Lord Home, the head of the family, since the days when
Waldave, fourth Earl of Dunbar, bestowed it as a marriage
portion on his daughter Ada. During the eighteenth
century the parent house had fallen on evil days, and as
its star declined that of Marchmont rose and shone with
greater lustre. The younger line had absorbed into itself
by degrees the hereditary possessions of other branches of
the family. It has been already said how Earl Patrick
had acquired the lands of Greenlaw and Whiteside — for
nearly a hundred years the patrimony of the Homes of
Spott, Earls of Dunbar of the last creation, — and now, by
the purchase from Lord Home of these rich lands lying to
the south and west, Earl Hugh made himself master of the
finest, if not the largest, property in Berwickshire.

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 101

The precious only son, for whom this was so carefully
gathered together, grew up very like his mother in face,
with the same regular refined features. His picture hangs
next hers, a pale handsome man, with powdered hair and
dark melancholy eyes. Lady Marchmont's ambition was
even greater than her affection for him ; and though she
attained her desire, she broke her son's heart. The romance
of his life was Lady Georgina Spencer (afterwards the
beautiful Duchess of Devonshire), but in his mother's
eyes no one less than the greatest fortune of the day was
worthy to mate with the heir of Marchmont. She married
him, when barely twenty- two, to Lady Amabel Yorke,
Lord Chancellor Hardwicke's granddaughter ; and, on her
mother's death, Baroness Lucas in her own right. Lord
Polwarth submitted in silence; but from that moment life
lost its interest. He fell into bad health, and nine years
later died of a decline at Wrest, his wife's place in Bedford-
shire, on the 9th of March 1781. His marriage was child-
less, and the coveted English estates passed away for ever
from the Marchmont line. In 1776 he had been created
a peer of Great Britain by the title of Baron Hume of
Berwick, which title expired with him. His widow never
remarried, but as Countess de Grey — which she was
created in 1816— survived her husband forty-nine years.

Lord Polwarth's death left his parents desolate indeed.
The beautiful Lady Marchmont had never had but that

102 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

one child; and the three little daughters that she had
found at Kedbraes on her marriage had long ere this left
the paternal home. Lady Anne, the eldest, who was very
like her mother, had not wandered far afield when, in 1755,
she married Sir John Paterson of Eccles. Six miles of
pleasant country roads with broad grass edges, and wind-
ing between hedges thick with wild roses, and pink in the
spring-time with apple-blossoms, lead from Marchmont to
the little village of Eccles, which is situated about six
miles to the north-east of Kelso.

The home of Lady Anne's married life boasted of great
antiquity. Cospatrick, third Earl of Dunbar, planted a
colony here of Cistercian nuns in 1156, and granted to
them the church of St Cuthbert and St Andrew, which
in 1248 was rededicated by Bishop David de Bernham.
He endowed a convent, which he dedicated to Our Lady ;
and there his grandson, Patrick, fifth Earl of Dunbar, lies
buried.1

During the wars which devastated the Borders in
the following century, the nuns trembled for the safety
of their convent. Ada de Eraser, their Prioress, swore

1 Patrick, fifth Earl of Dunbar, died in 1232, after enjoying his earldom for
fifty years. His end was somewhat singular, and is thus related in the
'Chron. de Mailros': "After spending the festival of Christmas with hia
children and neighbours, he sent for his relation and friend, the Abbot of Mel-
rose, and receiving from him extreme unction, with the religious habit, he
(jiiietly expired at the extremity of an honourable life."

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 103

fealty to Edward I. in 1296, and received his protection
and that of the two succeeding English monarchs. Till
the middle of the sixteenth century the little community
was left in peace;1 but on the 27th of September 1544,
the English, under Sir Brian Latoun, took the church
of Eccles by assault. They slew eighty persons within
the nunnery and village, and burned and despoiled the
place. Exactly a year later, it was again plundered and
burnt by Hertford. The remains of the convent can
still be seen at the back of Eccles House, where they
form the wall of the east gable of the house and two
vaulted cells, contiguous to the churchyard, the walls
of which are 3 feet 9 inches in thickness.

Sir John Paterson was a racing man, and the fine
stables, which now seem disproportioned to the size of
the house, were built by him out of money won at
cards from the Duke of Roxburghe. He was not over-
particular as to the means he took to improve his pro-
perty. A sycamore - tree, of great size and antiquity,
still flourishes in the south-east comer of the curious
square orchard, with very high walls and a pond in
the centre, which is one of the most striking features
of Eccles. This tree was one of a row which formerly

1 The convent of Eccles was visited November 13, 1523, by the Duke of
Albany when retreating from Work Castle. He stayed till midnight, and
then inarched to Lauder.

The revenue of the convent previous to 1560 was £647, 13s. Sd.

104 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

lined the public road. The story goes that Sir John
invited the other heritors to dine with him, made them
drunk, and staked off a fresh plan of the road, to which,
in their muddled state, they readily agreed. By this
means he enlarged his orchard at the expense of the
parish, and the tree, which formerly stood outside, is
now within the walls. The same thing occurred in the
churchyard, where he had the eastern boundary moved
some feet farther west ; in this case placing the row
of ash-trees — of the last of which only a stump remains
— outside the churchyard fence. He was less successful
in his attempt to move the ancient cross at Deadrigs,
which he wished to set up as an ornament on his own
lawn. The workmen whom he sent to remove it in
1788, dug several feet into the earth on either side,
but were fortunately unable to raise the stone on which
it stands.1

1 This ancient monument stands close to the farm of CrosshaU, about half
a mile to the north-west of Eccles, at a place formerly called Deadrigs. It is
a pillar with a circular top hewn from one block of hard white sandstone, and
is inserted into a l>ase of the same material. The measurements, as given in
the 'N"ew .Statistical Account of Berwickshire,'' by Dr B. D. Thomson, are as
follows : " The column above the base measures 10 feet high. 1 foot 6 inches
broad on :h~ we-st and east sides at the bottom, and 1 foot on the north and
south. The Te-destaL which is a large solid block of sandstone, is 2 feet
fj inch— L:_'h. and 3 feet square on its upper surface, and is raised 1 foot
(j :n;lr- a":. :ve :Le ground, so that the whole elevation of the cross is 14 feet."
On ":. -::h e.a.s: and west -ides of the circle at the top is engraved a plain cross.
On the east side of the pillar is the effigy of a man, his feet and knees turned
inwards, and Lis hands applied to his breast, attended by a greyhound with

MABGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 105

In his time there was a flourishing ale-house at Orange
Lane, to which most of the neighbouring lairds resorted
in the evening, and finished their potations, much after
the manner of the Baron of Bradwardine and his friends.

pricked-up ears and long sweeping tail. On the opposite or west side is a
shield bearing three chevrons ; and below, a St John's Cross 5 feet 2 inches
high. The south and north sides are a third part narrower than the east and
west. On the south side the same shield is repeated, and beneath is a two-
handed sword. On the north side is a cross Calvary, the top of it enclosed
in an ornament resembling a shield. By the country-people it is often called
u Percie's Cross," from a tradition that it marks the grave of one of that family.
Another popular story relates that a governor of Home Castle was killed on
this spot ; and there is a tradition that a battle between the Scotch and English
was fought close by, during which the burn ran with blood for twenty-four
hours. The shield bearing three chevrons proves that the cross was set up
when the science of heraldry was pretty far advanced, and after the first
Crusade — 1096; for it was not till then that the Scottish nobility assumed
coats armorial. The repetition of so many crosses on the stone probably shows
that the person whose monument it is had been at the Holy War. This would
fix the date still later ; for the first time that any number of Scotsmen went
to the East was to the second Crusade — 1144. Mr Roger Robertson of Lady-
kirk, whose account, printed in vol. i. of the ' Transactions of the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland,' 1792, is the earliest detailed notice of the cross,
concludes, from the arms on the shield, that it was raised to commemorate one
of the Soulis family, and suggests that it is the monument of the father of
that Sir John Soulis who was lieutenant to John Baliol. This appears
improbable, as Sir John's father was Nicholas de Sules (or Soulis), the erector
of Hermitage Castle and Sheriff of Roxburgh, who, although the wisest and
most eloquent man in the kingdom, fell into disgrace and was exiled in 1255,
and died at Rouen in 1264. The Soulis family were lords of Liddesdale, and,
as far as is known, never held possessions in this part of Berwickshire. It is,
however, quite possible that some distinguished scion of the race may have
fallen here in some unrecorded skirmish, of which tradition is the only
chronicler. Detailed accounts of this cross may also be found in Muir's
' Notes on Remains of Ecclesiastical Architecture,' p. 35 ; in ' Proceedings of
the Society of Antiquaries,' vol. iv., 1863 ; and in 'Proceedings of the Berwick-
shire Naturalists' Club,' voL x., 1883.

106 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

It was after some little tiff that arose there between
him and his neighbour, Sir Alexander Purves, that Sir
John revenged himself by improvising a variety on the
well-known Bemersyde prophecy — the new version run-
ning thus, —

" Whato'er betide, whate'er befa',
There'll aye be a gowk in Purves Ha'."

The origin of the name of Orange Lane has never been
clearly made out, but it may possibly refer to the crowned
orange in the Marchmont arms. Near the inn, to the
west of the road, was a small plantation marked on
old maps, but now cut down, which was called " Anne's
Grove," after Lady Anne. Sir John and she had an
only child, another Anne, who married Sir Philip An-
struther in 1778, but died childless. Lady Anne Paterson
died at Newcastle, July 27, 1790.

Lord Marchmont's second daughter, Lady Margaret
Stuart, had also died childless in January 1765, little
more than a year after her marriage ; and the youngest,
Lady Diana, became completely estranged from her father
during the last fourteen years of his life. She was born
in 1733, and married in 1754 Walter Scott of Harden,
the head of the great Border family of Scott. His pol-
itical opinions differed from his father-in-law ; and in
1780 he allowed his only son, Hugh, who had just come

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 107

of age, to be nominated as candidate for the county, in
opposition to Sir John Paterson, Lord Marchmont's son-
in-law, whom he had selected as his nominee. This was
a bitter affront, for long usage had accustomed Lord
Marchmont to consider himself all-powerful in the man-
agement of political affairs in Berwickshire. From 1734
till his death in 1760, Alexander Hume Campbell had
represented the county without a break ; and since then
his brother's nominee had been elected as a matter of
course. Party feeling ran high, and Lord Marchmont
never forgot or forgave his grandson's successful op-
position to his choice, or the rejoicings with which the
victorious party celebrated their triumph. A bonfire
was lit at Greenlaw the night after the declaration of
the poll, and beer and whisky flowed among the crowd.
It was an unfortunate victory for Mr Scott. Young
Lord Polwarth's death the following year left him in
the ostensible position of heir to his grandfather; but
Lord Marchmont refused ever to see him again, or to
have anything to do with Lady Diana. It was said
at the time that matters had been made much worse
by Mr Scott of Harden having inadvertently misdirected
a letter, which thus came into Lord Marchmont's hands,
and which contained remarks of a personal nature
which his son-in-law could never have intended him
to see.

108 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

These different occurrences contributed to Lord March -
mont's withdrawal from Scotland. The latter years of
his life were spent at Hemel Hempstead, where he had
a house he was very fond of, and where he devoted him-
self greatly to his books. His favourite studies seem to
have lain in legal and historical subjects, and the mass of
papers that he left behind him proves the depth and
thoroughness of his researches.

The sight of a man who has survived all the friends
and companions of his youth must always be a melan-
choly spectacle, especially where no younger interests are
growing up around him, in whose hopes and ambitions
he may live the old days over again ; and the circum-
stances of Lord Marchmont's entrance into political life
made it certain that, by the time he should reach middle
age, all his early associates would have passed away, and
that he must find himself the last of that brilliant circle
whose talents had illumined the first half of the eight-
eenth century. He was equally unfortunate in outliving
his own family. His brother, Alexander, with whom he
had been closely knit in ties of friendship as well as
relationship, died in 1760, after making for himself a
great reputation as a lawyer and as a skilful debater.
He had been appointed Lord Clerk Register in 1756,
and was thus the third in direct descent who had held
this office. From 1734 till his death he sat contin-

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 109

uously in Parliament for his native county.1 He married
Miss Elizabeth Ferris, but died in London, leaving no
children. Of Lord Marchmont's two sisters, the younger,
Lady Jane Nimmo, died childless in 1770. The elder,
Lady Anne, resembled her brother both in person and
in the vigour of her understanding. She had married

1 A song was composed on one of his returns to Parliament, which till
recently was still sung in Polwarth. It ran as follows : —

" Brave Polwarth on the Green,
Thy fame doth thee adorn ;
Thy blithe ancestors took delight
To dance around the Thorn.

And now Hume Campbell of renown,

One of that family,
Must south advance, plead against France,

And leave the Thorn-tree.

On the eighteenth day of July

Our Marshals did convene,
To choose a Parliamenter

They met on Greenlaw Green.

They shone like gold, fine to behold,

A pleasant sight to see :
It was confessed by all the rest

Hume Campbell bare the gree.

Sir Hume Campbell, President,

Sat like a bishop grave ;
What he did speak was mild and meek,

His judgment forth he gave.

The quickest wit that e'er did sit !

Admire his eloquence !
His learned words are sharp as swords,

And true refined sense.

His face was fair, fine to behold,

Most comely to be seen ;
And that fine spring made Greenlaw ring,

Brave Polwarth on the Green !

110 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Sir William Purves, Bart, of Purves Hall — the head of
an ancient Berwickshire family — and she died in 1784,
aged eighty -six. To the last she preserved her powers
of observation and her retentive memory; and the year
before her death, by the desire of her only son, Sir Alex-
ander Purves, a number of curious anecdotes concerning

There's nothing but rejoicing

Was heard in Greenlaw town ;
Each person they were voicing

Hume Campbell of renown.

And with great joy and pleasure

That afternoon was spent,
Springs to the highest measure,

Healths swiftly round they went.

Old man and wife did dance for life,

The like was never seen !
And that fine spring made Greenlaw ring,

Brave Polwarth on the Green !

There were pipers and bagpipers,

The pipes did loudly blow,
Hume Campbell is a-coming

From his London Courts, Ho ! ho !

That night Hume Campbell's party

Assembled round the Cross ;
Strong liquor made them hearty,

They danced with all their force.

Syne fiddles they were jinking,

Which made a pleasant sound ;
And glasses they were clinking,

His health went sweetly round.

Some's drouths were drowned made them sleep sound

All night until the morn ;
They all did cry, ' Until we die

We'll dance around the Thorn ! ' "

MAEGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. Ill

the Marchmont family were written down from her dic-
tation. They are printed at the close of this account
from the original MS.

Lord Marchmont was thus left the last of his genera-
tion. All his children were dead but one, and she was
more widely separated from him than if the grave had
closed over her. His lonely life was cheered by Lady
Marchmont's companionship, and by the affectionate atten-
tions of one who showed him the devotion of a son,
and who was credited by rumour with a close though
unacknowledged relationship. This was Mr George Kose,
afterwards a Secretary of State, who was left his sole
executor, and to whom Lord Marchmont bequeathed his
personalty, comprising his family papers, and the library
at Kernel Hempstead. A selection from these papers
was published in 1831 by Sir George Henry Rose, Mr
Rose's son ; and in his preface he thus alludes to Lord
Marchmont's last years :—

" He was an accomplished and scientific horseman, and a theo-
retical and practical husbandman and gardener. He pursued his
rides and his visits to the farm and garden as long as his
strength would suffice for the exertion, and some hours of the
forenoon and frequently of the evening were dedicated to his
books. . . . His Dutch education had given him method,
which was the best possible auxiliary in exertion to an ardent
and powerful mind, such as his was. . . . His vigorous in-

112 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

tellects possessed their strength and acuteness undiminished by
years ; and the high and honourable feelings, which were so warm-
ly eulogised by his distinguished friends in his youth, retained
all their keenness to the last."

Such are the words of one who had every opportunity,
through his father, of knowing about the closing scenes
at Hemel Hempstead. Very near the end, when Lord
Marchmont was over eighty, Lady Diana made a last
attempt to obtain his forgiveness, and went up to London
in the hope of persuading him to see her. It was all in
vain. Her father sent her a message that it was useless,
and that she might thank her son for that refusal.

Lord Marchmout died in January 1794. His wife sur-
vived him for three years, and also died at Hemel Hemp-
stead (February 1797). She had been in bad health for
some time previously, and suffered from a painful and
disfiguring ailment. On opening the will, it was found,
as had been expected, that Lady Diana Scott and her
son were completely cut out of the inheritance. On the
death of Lady Anne Paterson, Lord Marchmont had
made a final settlement of his estates ; and by this deed,
executed November 5, 1790, he called to the succession,
failing heirs male of his own body, 1st, the heirs male
or female of the body of Lady Diana, his daughter,
except those procreated between her and her then hus-

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 113

band; whom failing, any other daughters of his body,
and the heirs male of their bodies. 2d, The heirs male of
the body of Sir Alexander Purves, baronet, the son of
his sister, Lady Anne. 3d, Charles Lord Sinclair, and
Matthew St Clair his brother, grandsons of Elizabeth
Hume, daughter of Lord Kimmerghame, and the heirs
male of their bodies. 4th, Andrew, William, and John
Wauchope, children of Helen Hume, also daughter of
Lord Kimmerghame, and the heirs male of their bodies.
5th, Thomas, seventh Earl of Haddington, and his
brothers, the grandchildren of Lady Grrisell Hume,
daughter of Patrick, first Earl of Marchmont, and the
heirs male of their bodies ; whom failing, a series of
heirs in like manner descended from other daughters of
Patrick, first Earl of Marchmont.

In virtue of this settlement, Sir William Purves, the
grandson of Lord Marchmont 'a eldest sister, Lady Anne,
eventually succeeded to his granduncle's immense landed
property. The estates were placed in the hands of
trustees till 1812, when the debt which burdened them
having been paid off, Sir William entered into posses-
sion, and took up his residence at Marchmont. The
place had been looked after for many years by two old
servants, who ruled supreme over the underlings. Mrs
Hannah Blackwell, the housekeeper, was a great char-

114 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

acter. She had been at Marchmont for over forty years.
Sir William had her picture painted, and it still hangs
in the housekeeper's room where she so long presided,
and represents her as a clever, kindly-looking old woman,
with a muslin cap and apron, and a blue silk kerchief
pinned across in front. Everything out of doors was
under the care of a man named Tom Shepherd, who,
when Sir William arrived to take possession, received
him at the top of the steps and began doing the honours,
till quietly dismissed with the remark, "Tom, you have
been master here long enough. Sir William is coming
now, and will be master himself." He retired to Home,
where Sir William gave him a house and a pension,
and kept him in great comfort for the remainder of his
life.

Except pictures and books, there are not many traces
at Marchmont of its former possessors. The library is
the happy hunting-ground of those who seek for links
with the past. There stand the books in which the
dead and buried Marchmonts have inscribed their names
in ink that is now faded and brown. In their Bibles
are noted the births and deaths of their children, and
the little family details which meant so much to them,
interspersed with comments on the Scriptures, and direc-
tions of how many pages to read a - day, so as to go
through both Testaments in a given time, for both the first

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. IIS

and the second Earls were essentially " God-fearing men."
Earl Patrick's signature is the most common ; at first,

P. Hume, with the P. and H. ingeniously twisted into
one letter, and almost invariably followed by the motto —

" Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci. — H. D. A."

Sometimes more briefly written—

"Omne tulit punctum. — H. D. A.,"

the final letters being an abridgment of "Horace, De
Arte Poetica." This device appears impartially on Bibles,
law-books, grammars, histories, and shows a wide range
of reading. His son Earl Alexander's "Marchmont"

is shaky and feeble compared to his father's, though he
died a much younger man; but his latter years were
racked with ill health. Earl Hugh's books are not here.

116 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

His fine library, which he collected with great care at
Hemel Hempstead, passed with the rest of his person-
alty to Mr George Eose, his executor ; and was eventu-
ally bought back by his grandson, Hugh, Lord Polwarth,
and is now at Mertoun. Consequently there are fewer
traces of the last Earl in the house that was his creation
than of either of his predecessors. One or two books,
with the clear graceful signature, " Elizabeth Marchmont,"
show that they belonged to his beautiful second wife ;
and in a glazed cabinet in the drawing-room is almost
the only other thing that can now be identified as having
been hers — a little tarnished tinsel wreath, doll-like in
its smallness, to which is still attached a slip of paper
inscribed in the same beautiful unmistakable handwriting :
" I took this from the head of a little Jesus belonging
to an image of ye Virgin Mary that is opposite to
Charlemane's Chair in the Church at Aix la Chapel,
Sept- 1769.— E. M." Had she brought it home as a
relic ? or why was it so carefully treasured ? There it
lies beside the small wax baby with long satin robes —
once white — and a real lace cap, which was little Lord
Polwarth's doll, and which the mother must have kept
in recollection of that precious only child. It has out-
lasted them both ! A few seals, one or two pieces of
plate,1 and there the list of the relics ends.

1 In former days the plate used at a coronation banquet was divided after-

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 117

Lady Diana lived to a great old age, and died in 1827,
having long survived her husband. The latter part of her
life was spent at Woodside, near Kelso.

"Lady Diana Scott," writes Sir Walter Scott in his journal,
" widow of Walter Scott of Harden, was the last person whom I
recollect so much older than myself, that she kept always at the
same distance in point of years, so that she scarce seemed older to
me (relatively) two years ago, when in her ninety-second year, than
fifty years before. She was the daughter (alone remaining) of
Pope's Earl of Marchmont, and, like her father, had an acute mind
and an eager temper. She was always kind to me, remarkably so
indeed when I was a boy."

In another passage, when describing his idea of his task-
mistress Duty, he represents her " with a figure and coun-
tenance something like Lady D. S.'s twenty years ago."
She exercised considerable influence over Sir Walter's
literary tastes in youth.

"She had conversed," says Lockhart, "in early days with the
bright ornaments of the cycle of Queen Anne, and preserved rich
stores of anecdotes well calculated to gratify the curiosity and
excite the ambition of a young enthusiast in literature. Lady
Diana soon appreciated the minstrel of the clan, and surviving
to a remarkable old age, she had the satisfaction of seeing him at
the height of his eminence, the solitary person who could give the
author of ' Marmion ' personal reminiscences of Pope."

wards among the peers. The pepper-casters which fell to Lord Marchmont's
share at the coronation of George III. are still at Marchmont.

118 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

The barony of Polwarth, granted to Sir Patrick Hume
in 1690, had been settled on the heirs male of the first
Baron and their heirs; while the later creations of 1697,
the earldom of Marchmont, &c., were restricted to heirs
male altogether. Mr Hugh Scott accordingly presented a
petition to the House of Lords in 1835, claiming the
barony of 1690, which was granted to him. His grand-
son is now the sixth Baron Polwarth.

Cross at Dcadrigs, near Eccles.

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 119

CHAPTER VII.

" The frost has nipt the heather-bloom,

The brackens hing their dowie leaves —
The hips are red upon the briar,

An' paitricks whirr amang the sheaves :
Nae mair the bees roam o'er the muir,

Or, laden wi' their sweets, return,
As I, tae sniff the cauler air,
Stray up the glen by Polart burn."

— CALDER.

TTAVING brought the history of Polwarth and its owners
down to the early days of this century, there remains
but little to add. My grandfather's birth in 1812, and
his succession to the property in 1833, are almost the only
landmarks in a succession of peacefu] prosperous years.
Most of the scenes described in the earlier chapters of this
book were laid to the south of the village, where March-
mont lies hidden among the woods ; but there is a large
part of the parish which ought not to be forgotten in any
attempt to sketch its history — that is, the moorland tract,
which, beginning at Kyles Hill, reaches nearly to Greenlaw.

120 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Westwards, on leaving the village of Polwarth, the road
mounts immediately up a long straight hill. On one side
are the half-blown-down plantations of the Craw's Entry,
where the blaeberries and the heather grow thick among
the fir-trees, and the young birches are fast veiling the
havoc wrought by the gale of 1881. Over the hill to the
right stretch the mysterious recesses of the Back Lea, an
immense fir- wood which even now, when decimated by the
storms of many winters, covers a great extent of ground,
and harbours many a stout moorland fox. Down this
western road in the summer evenings come the sound of
a horn, and the slow soft tread of many hoofs, as the
Polwarth cows straggle leisurely into sight, returning
from the moors, to which they are daily driven in charge
of the village herd. As they reach the outskirts of the
village, one by one the patient animals leave their fellows,
and turn unbidden up the little lanes and paths that lead
to their owners' cottages. From time immemorial the
Polwarth people have pastured their cows on the moor —
or Polwarth Common, as it is sometimes called — and close
and fine is the grass that grows on the edge of the
heather. Through the oak wood that clothes the sunny
slopes of Kyles Hill the cows can wander out unchecked on
to the open moor beyond. Away to the west is the Hule
Moss, with its twin pools, to which in the autumn even-
ings the wild geese wing their way. High aloft against

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 121

the sunset sky they fly in single file from their feeding-
grounds down on the low-lying stubbles, and through the
still air comes floating down the clamour of their cry, like
that of a pack of aerial hounds.

From Kyles Hill the wide expanse of Cheviot lies un-
folded to the view, till the rugged outline of the Carter
Fell melts into the far hills of Liddesdale. The Black
Hill of Earlston and the twin peaks of Eildon (for from
here the third summit is hidden) rise singly out of the
western plain ; while away to the north stretch the long
brown ridges of moorland, running east and west, and
rolling one behind the other till they dip at last into the
fertile plains of East Lothian. For a few short weeks
each year the flush of the heather dyes every hillside
purple ; but for the most part the monotony of these bare
brown slopes is only broken by the snow-wreaths. Pol-
warth merely hangs, as it were, on the edge of the moor-
land. The faint green track wandering down the north
side of Kyles Hill soon reaches the march that divides
this parish from that of Longformacus. Close by flows a
little shallow burn that ripples gaily over the pebbles,
glancing in the sunlight, as if unconscious of the tragedy
once enacted here, the shadow of which still rests on the
Foul Fords, as this spot is called.

The beginning of the story takes us back to the early
days of the century, when a blacksmith, named John

122 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Neale, lived with his family in the secluded and romantic
village of Longformacus. He was by that time a man of
middle age, with sons approaching manhood. All through
the country he was known for his dissolute habits and
intemperate language. One day he went to Greenlaw,
about eight miles off, to attend the funeral of a sister,
fully intending to be home in the course of the afternoon.
As time wore on and nothing was seen of him, his wife
and family became somewhat alarmed, and they sat up
all night to wait for him. In the early hours of the
morning a heavy weight was heard to fall against the
door of the house, and on opening it to see what was
the matter, Neale was discovered lying in a fainting-fit
on the threshold. He was put to bed and means used
for his recovery ; but when consciousness returned, he
was raving mad, and talked of such terrible things that
his family were horrified. He continued till next day
in the same state, but at length his senses came back,
and he desired that the minister might be sent for ;
and when he came, insisted on seeing him alone. After
a long conversation with Mr Orel, Neale called his family
round his bed, and required from his wife and children,
in turn, a solemn promise that none of them would ever
pass over that particular place on the moorland track
between Longformacus and Greenlaw that was known as
the Foul Fords. He assigned no reason for this demand,

MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 123

and the required promise was freely given. After this
he spoke no more, but died the same evening.

About ten years after his death, his son, Henry Neale,
who had succeeded to his business of blacksmith and far-
rier, and who led as bad a life as his father had done, had
occasion to go to Greenlaw. It was late in the afternoon
before he was ready to return home. The last person who
saw him, as he was leaving the little town, was John
Mickie, the Spottiswoode shepherd. Neale tried to per-
suade the latter to accompany him home, which Mickie
refused to do, as it would take him several miles out of
his way. Neale begged him most earnestly to go with
him, as he said he must pass the Foul Fords that night,
and then used the strong expression that he would rather
go through hell-fire than do what was before him. Mickie
asked him why he said he must pass the Foul Fords, when
by going a little to the east or to the west he might easily
avoid the place altogether; but Neale persisted in his
assertion, and the other left him at last, a good deal sur-
prised at what he had said, for the circumstances of old
Neale's death, and the promise he had exacted from his
children, were well known throughout the country. Henry
Neale was never seen alive again. Next morning a labour-
ing man named Adam Eedpath, who was on his way from
Cattleshiels (the nearest farm) to his daily work, digging
sheep-drains on the moor, found him lying stone-dead at

124 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

the Foul Fords. There was no mark of violence on his
body. He appeared to have run for his life, for his hat,
coat, and waistcoat were lying about a hundred yards'
distance from him, on the Greenlaw side of the Fords.
His death made a great stir in the neighbourhood, and
Mr Ord, the minister of Longformacus, feeling that
since the son's death his pledge of secrecy was removed,
told what the father had related to him, which was as
follows : —

Neale said he was returning from Greenlaw in the after-
noon of the day of his sister's funeral, when, just as he
reached the Foul Fords, his attention was suddenly roused
by hearing the trampling of horses behind him. Looking
round, he saw a large company of riders coming down the
moorland track, two by two. As they approached, what
was his horror to perceive that one of the two foremost
was the sister whom he had that day seen laid in her
grave. Among other riders he recognised many friends
and relations long since dead. When the two last horses
came up, he saw that one was ridden by a dark man,
whose face he had never before seen. He was leading
the other horse, which, though saddled and bridled, was
riderless ; and on this horse the whole company tried to
compel him to mount. Neale struggled violently, he said,
for some time, and at last only purchased his freedom by
promising that the first of his family who should cross the
Foul Fords should go instead of him. That doom he had

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH. 125

tried in vain to avert, and when the time came the soul
of the son was claimed and taken in place of the father's.

Years have passed away since then, and nothing remains
to tell of this ghastly struggle but a tall grey stone set up
by my great-grandfather, Mr Spottiswoode, to mark the
place. And at this lonely spot my history of Polwarth
conies to an end. As it began with a verse of the oldest
song with which the village is associated, it may fitly close
with the lines written by a Polwarth man of to-day : —

" Hoo aft tae me she has recalled

The quiet sylvan scene
By Marchmont's bonnie woods and braes,

Or Polwarth-on-the-Green !
The auld kirkyard by Lounsdale's haughs,

The bonnie wimplin' burn,
The hills an' howes, the glens an' knowes,

Tae which her heart wad turn."

ANECDOTES

THE FAMILY OF MARCHHONT
1

Lady Anne Pnrves, from a Miniature.

ANECDOTES OE THE FAMILY OF MABCHMONT.

Dictated by Lady Anne Ptirves in the last Year of her Life. She
was Eighty-six Years old when she died in the Year 1784.

Wrote in this Connected state by Sir Alexar- Purves's particular de-
sire, who often heard them Narrated by his Mother.

FT!HE Family Name was at first Polwarth, which was

near being extinct as there remained two Sisters, one

Heiress of Polwarth, the other of Polwarth Mains;1 they

were run away with and married by two Brothers of the

1 A slight mistake. Margaret, the younger sister, was heiress of Polwarth ;
Marian, the elder sister, of Kimmerghame.

130 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Humes of Wedderburn or Goukscroft, and on that account
changed the Name of Polwarth into that of Hume. Their
Descendant was created a Baronet in the Year 1626.
There was a succession of them who all bore the Name of
Patrick till the time of King James the First of England,
when one of them married Julian Carre, Sister to the
famous Earl of Somerset. He died whilst his Son Patrick
was still a Minor ; his Widow then married Thomas Earl
of Haddington, who was commonly called Tom of the
Cowgate. She had a Son by him who was also named
Patrick. She wrote to her Brother, my Lord Somerset,
then in great favour with King James, to obtain a Grant
of the Abbey Lands of Coldstream for her Son Patrick
Hume ; but the Earl of Haddington opened the Letter,
and inserted the name of Patrick Hamilton, by which
means the Family of Haddington came into possession of
the Lands of Coldstream. She, in revenge, threshed him
heartily, and once tossed him over a Stair, where he would
have paid very dear for his deceit, if the Butler had not
by accident been in the way, and preserved him.

Patrick Hume, their Son, married Christian Hamilton,
Daughter of the Laird of Innerwick. They had two Sons
and two Daughters : Patrick, who afterwards became Earl
of Marchmont ; Alexander, who went to Eussia, and died
in the Service of the Czar of Muscovy ; Julian, married Sir
Richard Newton of that Ilk, a gentleman from East

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT. 131

Lothiau ; and Anne, who married Commissary Home. He1
was so much struck with her Beauty, as to fast two Lents
to gain her Affections. They had one Son, who was ac-
cidentally killed at Edinburgh, and two daughters, Helen
and Christian ; Helen married Captain Newton of Stand-
hill, Christian died unmarried. Lady Newton was very
ill treated by her Husband, and was obliged to fly from
him, with her infant Son, to Patrick her Eldest Brother's
house, who was exceedingly kind to both. She had no
more children, but spoiled her Son so much by her Over-
fondness as made him also a Pest to Society. He was
named Richard, and succeeded his Father in his Estates
and Titles. He married Helen Livingston, but had no
Children by her, and left the large Estate of Newton to
Lord William Hay's Son, who was no Relation, but a near
Neighbour. He shewed no gratitude in any shape to his
Uncle's Family, but left the reversion of his Fortune to
Alexander Hume Campbell, Lord Register of Scotland.

Alexander Hume, who went to Muscovy, was to have
been married to a Russian Lady, of a great Family, but
came to Scotland to get his Pedigree ascertained, and
before his return the Lady died, which broke his Heart,
and he died also. Alexander, Earl of Marchmont, was
named after him.

Patrick, the next Heir of the Family, was left a Minor

1 Sir Richard Newton.

132 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

under the Guardianship of Christian Hamilton, his Mother.
His Father on his Death-bed gave Lady Polwarth a Penny,
or Scotch Shilling, saying that would pay all the Debts he
owed in the world ; but she, swayed by an ambitious de-
sire of Grandeur, paid the Debts of Lord Jedworth,1 who
was in Jail for Debt, married him, and bestowed the
greatest part of her Son's Estate upon that worthless
Fellow, who treated her very ill. Patrick, her Son, was a
very roguish Boy, and used to play a thousand tricks to
his Mother, who was a bigotted Episcopal. She frequently
had the Scotch Bishops with her, who used to say Prayers
in the Family. Mr Patrick commonly fell asleep, and
seldom joined in singing Psalms. His Mother was very
angry at him ; he therefore contrived the next time the
Bishop came to shut his Eyes, and sing on without stop-
ping, whilst his Lordship was reading the Line. Some of
the Bishops, of better humour than her Ladyship, used to
pat his head and say he would support their Cause. Her
Husband had as little relish for devotion as her Son ; how-
ever, she prevailed on him some time to retire into her
closet, but instead of reading or praying, he used to eat
up her Sweetmeats, for which she told him that he was
preeving, instead of being private. In short, he spent a
great part of the Estate of Polwarth.

When Sir Patrick came of Age, his Friends proposed

1 Robert, third Lord Jedburgh, d.s.p., 4th August 1692.

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT. 133

calling his Mother to account, which he would by no
means consent to. When he was about 18 Years old he
married Mrs Grizel Carre, Daughter of Sir Thomas Carre
of Cavers and of Grizel Halket, who was Daughter to Sir
James Halket of Pitfirran. Grizel Halket died young, and
left one Son and two Daughters. The Son was afterwards
Sir Andrew Carre of Cavers ; one of the Daughters married
Mr Scott of Gala. Sir Thomas Carre married a second
Wife, by whom he had several Daughters, one of whom
was married to Mr Bell of Belford, who had only one
Daughter, Mary, who married Mr Oliver of Smailholme ;
she had two Daughters — Mary, who married Mr Hepburn,
and Isobel, who married Mr Home of Fogo. One of her
Daughters or Granddaughters married Mr Hay of Bellshill,
commonly called Sheriff Hay.

Sir Andrew Carre had only one Son, a healthful, pro-
mising Boy ; and Mr Carre of West Nisbet, his near Rela-
tion, had a tender, sickly Boy. Sir Andrew Carre, in
hope of his Son's inheriting the Estate of West Nisbet,
made a reciprocal Entail that the longest Liver of the
Boys should inherit both Estates, which was no sooner
done than his Son fell into a violent Fever. His Tutor,
a pious Divine, prayed most earnestly for his recovery,
'till he got a sign from Heaven, which stopt his Devotions,
and he endeavoured to bring Sir Andrew and the rest of
the Family to submit to the Will of Divine Providence.

134 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

His Pupil died when he was just 21 Years of Age. Sir
Andrew afterwards married his eldest Daughter, Mrs
Nance Carre, to Mr Carre of West Nisbet, who took the
Title of Cavers. Mrs Nance Carre had three Sons and
two Daughters. Her eldest Son, Robert, married a Miss
Milne from Aberdeen. He was rather wild, had formerly
kept a Mistress, whose Picture he always wore at his breast,
which gave Mrs Carre great Anxiety ; but was kept a Secret
for a long time, 'till a natural Son (whose likeness to his
Father discovered him) accidentally came into the House.
Mrs Carre mourned the Circumstance 'till she brought a Con-
sumption upon herself, of which she died. Mr Carre after-
wards married Mrs Helen Riddel, Daughter to Sir Walter
Biddell, by whom he had one Son, who died at Rome when
abroad on his Travels. Her Daughter was married to John
Hume, Esq., of Nine wells. The estate of Cavers fell next to
Mr John Carre, second Son to Mrs Nance Carre, who had in
his infancy got a large Legacy from Lord Jedburgh, and
likewise from a Maiden Aunt of his Mother, a Mrs Chris-
tian Carre ; but his Father charged so large a Sum for his
Education and Maintenance as consumed the whole. He
married a Miss Montieth, an heiress, and had by her
several Sons. The Eldest married a Miss Reed without
the Consent of his parents, who never would be reconciled
to him, altho' lie broke the Entail which Sir Andrew Carre
had made of the Estate of Cavers in order to relieve his

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARGHMONT. 135

Father, who was in bad circumstances by his own Extra-
vagance. The Third Son of Mrs Nance Carre was a Cap-
tain in the Army. Her Eldest Daughter, Mrs Jane Carre,
married Mr Drummond of Blair; Margaret, her Second
Daughter, married Sir Alexander Don of Newton. Sir
Andrew Carre's Second Daughter Jane married Lord Minto.
His third Daughter married Mr Drummond of Megginch,
who was Mother to the present Duchess of Athol. His
fourth Daughter married Dr St Clair of Hermiston.
Another of his Daughters was Mother to Col. Stewart,
who was killed by Sir Gilbert Elliot of Stobs for a satirical
Jest when they were both drunk. Col. Stewart's Daughter
Elizabeth married Hugh Scott of Gala, Son to Sir James
Scott of Gala. His Sister Anne married Mr Scott of Rae-
burn, by whom she had one Son and one Daughter ; she
afterwards married Harry M'Dougal of Mackerston, and
had one Daughter by him, who married Sir George Hay
M'Dougal. Upon Harry M'Dougal's Death, she married
for the third time, Mr James Home of Eccles. Her Mother,
Lady Gala, was very kind to Lady Marchmont's (her Sis-
ter's) Children during their distress, and kept the two
youngest Sons, Alexander and Andrew, in her House for
several Years.

Sir Patrick Hume, afterwards Earl of Marchmont, soon
after his Marriage was chosen one of the Members to the
Scotch Parliament for the County of Berwick, was en-

136 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

gaged in many disputes with the Lords, of Articles rela-
tive to the Liberty of his Country. As they never could
prevail with him to vote agreeable to their wish, he was
a long time confined in the severe Prison of the Bass, a
perpendicular Eock in the Eiver Forth, along with Sir
Hugh and Sir George Campbell of Cessnock. Sir Hugh
Campbell was put there by means of a false witness, who
swore that he encouraged the People of the Shire of Ayr
to go to the Fight of Bothwell Bridge ; but when ques-
tioned afterwards by Sir Hugh, he confessed he never had
seen his Face till that moment, and required that his Oath
should be tore, as was then the Law. But those unjust
Judges would not consent, but confined Sir Hugh and his
Son for many Months in that most severe Jail. Mr Car-
stairs, the noted Friend of King William, made use of
every endeavour to cause Sir Patrick Hume and Sir Hugh
Campbell to join the Privileges of the Civil and Ecclesias-
tical Liberties together ; but they found enough of diffi-
culty to defend one Cause without involving themselves
with the other. In consequence their Estates were for-
feited, and Lady Polwarth and Lady Cessnock had their
Jointures granted to them, as if their Lords had been dead.
Under this oppression Sir Patrick Hume concealed him-
self and lived a twelvemonth l in his own Burial Place, in

1 Lady Murray, in her ' Memoirs of Lady Grizel Baillie,' says Sir Patrick
was concealed there for a month only, which appears more probable.

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARGHMONT. 137

a Vault which extends the whole way under the Church of
Polwarth. His Wife and Grizel, his Eldest Daughter,

* O "

carried his Victuals and other Necessaries from his House
at Redbraes to the mournful place of Concealment, where
he durst not light a Candle, or have the Comfort of a Fire,
and his only Amusement was walking about the Aisle, and
to repeat a Latin Version of the book of Psalms, wrote by
Buchanan, and which he had got by Heart at School.
One Day he thought he observed a Death's head or Skull
which lay on the Window to move itself. Wondering at
the Power of Imagination, he went near it and took it up,
when a Mouse jumped out of it, which had occasioned the
motion. He often heard the Country people, when they
came to Church of a Sunday, enquiring anxiously after
good Sir Patrick, and fervently wishing every blessing on
his head wherever he went. In this Situation he wished
to send a Message to Mr Baillie of Jerviswood, who was
confined in Prison in Edinburgh for the same Cause. He
instructed his Daughter Grizel to dress herself in a
Countrywoman's Dress, and go into Edinburgh under that
appearance with the Common Carrier, in order that she,
without suspicion, might get into the prison and deliver
his Message to Mr Baillie ; which she accordingly did, and
returned to the Country under the same appearance, and
by the same Conveyance. After a considerable time the
Soldiers and Troops, who had been in search of him

138 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

everywhere without Success, became remiss and gave up
their Search for him ; he came out of his Burial Place, and
got a small retirement dug under Ground, under one of
the Eooms of his own House, that he might conceal him-
self more commodiously in case of another alarm. After
living retired for some time in his own house, he said to
his Wife, It was necessary that he should look at his
hiding Place, which he found half full of Water, and this
he looked upon as a Warning. He likewise just then
received a Letter, with only a feather inclosed, from Mr
Hume of Halyburton, who was a good man, altho' his
principles of Government differed from Sir Patrick's. He
had delayed a Party of Soldiers, that were sent to seize
Sir Patrick, 'till he sent him this Intelligence in so extra-
ordinary a way.

Sir Patrick immediately quitted his House, and sent
his trusty Servant, James Allen, to procure a Boat to cross
the Tweed by Coldstream ; and he rode slowly on himself,
meditating on the distrest state of his unhappy Country.
Altho' perfectly well acquainted with the Eoad, he missed
of it, and never observed his mistake 'till he came to the
Hirsel Law, or Lennel Hill, where he saw his Servant,
James Allen, crossing the River in a Boat along with a
Party of Soldiers, who were sent in pursuit of him ; so
that lie looked upon his mistaking the road as an especial
Act of Providence. The Soldiers had searched his house,

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MAROHMONT. 139

looked most narrowly into his new hiding Place, which
he found full of Water, and run their Swords through
the whole Feather Beds of the house, that they might
discover him. After some time his Servant returned, and
told him how much he was afraid least he shou'd come up
as the Party of Soldiers were enquiring minutely after him
of every one they met. Sir Patrick during his whole Life
repeated his extreme thankfulness to Divine providence
for so many remarkable interpositions in his favour. He
at last got on board a Ship, and went to Ireland under
the name of Tom Middlemost and sometimes of Dr King.1
One of the Sailors fell from the Mast and broke his Leg
when he went under the last appellation. The Captain
brought the poor fellow to Dr King to get his Leg set ;
this gave him great Distress, as he durst not acknowledge
his Ignorance nor attempt to set the Man's leg. After
mature deliberation and fervent prayer to the Almighty
for Assistance, he thought it no Arrogance to attempt to
do what no other could attempt in their present situation.
He, did his best for the Leg, and cured it. The Seaman
afterwards came to the Command of a Ship, and had a
Suit before the Chancellor of Scotland : when he looked at
the Chancellor he knew Dr King, and would not believe
the people about him, that it was the Chancellor. Lord

1 My grandfather tells me he always understood that Sir Patrick went by
the name of Dr Wallace.

140 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Marchmont immediately knew the Seaman, and sent for
him, enquired of him if ever he had seen a Person that
resembled him. The Man was abashed, but said he
thought he resembled one Dr King. " You are right
enough, honest Man," said my Lord, "and I hope to
doctor your Cause better than I could do your Leg."

Sir Patrick passed over Ireland as a Scotch Pedlar, and
came to Castle Hume, which Family were his near rela-
tions.1 An old Widow Lady sent for the Pedlar to enquire
of him about her relation, Sir Patrick Hume; and on her
describing her real concern for his Situation, he made her
a present of several pounds of Scotch Snuff. Sir Patrick
at last got over to France, and passed through all the
Provinces, along with his faithful Servant, James Allen,
as Common Beggars. He came to Paris, and sat on a
Bench used by the Beggars ; when they, seeing him a
Stranger, shunn'd and maltreated him, James Allen said,
"We are come to a fine pass indeed when the very Beg-
gars shun us." Sir Patrick went into a Bookseller's shop
much against the Inclination of his trusty Friend, who
said, " You have only one half Crown left, and you'll be
tempted to Purchase a Book ; so have nothing left to pay
for your dinner and Lodging." He meekly answered,

1 The Humes of Hume Castle in Co. Fermanagh, Ireland, descend from Sir
John Hume of North Berwick, fourth son of Patrick, fifth Baron of Polwarth,
and became extinct in the male line by the death of Sir Gustavus Hume, 1731.

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT. 141

" God will provide ; " went into the Shop and laid out his
half Crown for a Book. On his return to his mean
Lodging the people of the House told him that a Banker
enquired after him under his feigned Name, and who pro-
mised to return in a short time. When he came he en-
quired if Sir Patrick went by such a Name ; he told him
he was ordered by a Banker in Dublin of the name of
Campbell to pay him £200. Sir Patrick asked him if he
was sure to whom the money was to be paid, as he did
not expect any, but that was the name he went by ; and
upon the Banker's insisting upon it, he gave a Eeceipt for
the Money, which he repay'd afterwards when he was
Commissioner to the Scotch Parliament.

Sir Patrick walked thro' a number of the Provinces of
France on foot. One of the Rivers on his way was over-
flown, and there was no Boat. A Soldier offered to carry
him over on his Back ; but as Sir Patrick was like to fall,
the Soldier gave a hitch which broke a rib of the side
upon the hilt of his sword. This gave him great pain,
and he did not get the better of it for years. Sir Patrick
with difficulty got into Holland, and settled at the Hague,
sent for Lady Polwarth and his Eighteen Children. He
kept no Servant, but taught his own Children. Patrick,
the eldest, entered as a Cadet into the Scotch Dutch,
along with Mr Baillie of Jerviswood, both of whom stood
as Common Sentries, and did the duty of private men.

142 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Kobert died young. Alexr- and Andrew lived to be men ;
Grizel, Christian, Julian, Anne, and Jane lived to be
women ; the rest all Died young. Grizel and Christian
acted as Cook and Housemaid ; Alexr- and Andrew as
Butler and footboy. Andrew, who had a great deal of
Humour, came one day from the Cellar with the Spiggot
in his mouth, which made Lady Polwarth angry, as the
Beer was all running over the Cellar.

The Earl of Argyle was then at the Hague in the same
situation. The Duke of Mon mouth wanted much that his
Lordship and Sir Patrick should join his Party; but Lord
Argyle persuaded the Scotch Gentlemen that it would be
more Eligible to make an attempt in the Highlands of
Scotland to try to divide the King's Troops. They con-
sented, but were averse to Land in the Highlands, as the
Gentlemen from the County of Ayr thought with Sir
Patrick Hume and Sir John Cochrane of Waterside that
it was more advisable to Land in a Country they were
acquainted with, than amongst People whose Language
they were unacquainted with. Lord Argyle persisted in
his purpose, and Landed them near Inveraray, where they
were of no use ; they therefore separated, and the Low-
land Gentlemen going homewards were attacked by a large
party of the King's Troops at a place called Muirdyke.
The Gentlemen drew their small party within a Sheepfold,
where they defended themselves a whole day, and made

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT. 143

their escape during the Night. There is a Letter still
existing that Sir Patrick wrote to his wife the day after
the Battle, wherein he says that they were few men in
Comparison of their Enemies ; but that was he to pick
and Choose men at his life's Venture, he could not have
Kejected one of them — that the soundest Sleep he ever
got in his Life was upon the Corpse of his Dearest friend,
as a Pillow after the Action. One of the Gentlemen was
taken, and led Immediately to Execution ; some of the
Babble said, " What, Sir, are you defeated ? " He answered
with spirit, "Yes — defeated, but not Ashamed." Sir
Patrick, with half a dozen friends, got into the Highlands,
where they suffered much from Hunger, Thirst, and
Fatigue. Sir Patrick was so worn out that he laid himself
down in a Glen ; the others climbed up the Rock to a
Shieling, where they got some Milk. They carried some
to Sir Patrick, but it was so full of hairs, he could not
drink it. At last they met with a Charitable old Lady
who concealed them in an old Castle, and carried Victuals
to them during the Night. Once she fell into some water,
so that they were obliged to put her into their own Bed,
whilst they dryd her clothes, which were much wet.

Sir Patrick at last escaped to Holland, where he con-
tinued to teach his own Children ; the whole scheme of the
Revolution was found long afterwards wrote upon one
of their Children's Slates. At last Sir Patrick came over

144 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWAETH.

with King William, and assisted him much with his wise
Councils. Lady Polwarth and Lady Stair (Commonly
called Witch Meggy),1 and several other Scotch Ladies,
hired a vessel to come along with the Princess of Orange ;
but Lady Stair changed her mind, and wanted to persuade
Lady Polwarth to stay at the Hague with her, which,
when she could not do, she cryed, " Go your ways, but
I will be in England before you ! " They met with very
bad weather on their Passage, which detained them ; and
the first person that Lady Polwarth met, on landing in
England, was Lady Stair, who said, " Well ! did I not tell
you I should be here before you."

When the Affairs of Government took a settled aspect
under King William, Sir Patrick Hume was created Earl
of Marchmont, Viscount Blasonbury, Lord Polwarth, Ked-
braes, and Greenlaw, and was appointed Commissioner
to the Scotch Parliament. Lady Polwarth got a large
Diamond King from the King, a Green Emerald from the
Queen, with a handsome flower'd Velvet Bed.

There was a great debate in the Cabinet Council about
settling the Religious principles in Scotland ; most of
the Bishops were for continuing the Church Government,
agreeable to the form of the Church of England. As Lord

1 Margaret, daughter of James Ross of Balneil, and wife of James, first
Viscount Stair. (Douglas's Peerage.)

"A rank witch. She went by the name of Maggy Hendy." — MS. Notes by
C. K. Sharpe.

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT. 145

Marchmont was Commissioner to the Scotch Parliament
he wrote several very Serious Letters to the King, assur-
ing him that the Presbyterian Government had been so
long established, especially in the Southern and Western
Countys, that attempting to change their sentiments upon
religion had been very fatal to the four Kings immediately
preceeding him, and neither he nor any one could answer
for the Consequences if an Attempt was made to establish
Episcopacy. Mr Carstairs went to London on purpose
to speak to the King at the hazard of his own Life, con-
firming what Lord Marchmont had wrote. The Presby-
terian form of Government was Established in its present
form through Scotland, and an allowance was granted to
such of the Episcopal Clergy who took the Oaths to con-
tinue in their Kirks without being obliged to subscribe to
the Confession of Faith — provided they declared it was
not done in Opposition to Government, but agreeable to
their own Consciences. A General Assembly was called,
at which Lord Marchmont presided as King's Commis-
sioner. Mr Hollywell,1 Episcopal Minister of Polwarth,
continued in his Kirk on taking the Oaths. Mr John
Hume of Greenlaw would not take the Oaths, so lost his
Stipend, but permitted all the exercises of his function to

1 George Holiwell, M.A., minister of Polwarth from 1664 to 1704. From
the inscription on his tombstone, let into the wall of Polwarth Church, he
appears to have been tutor to Earl Patrick. His portrait is at Marchmont.

146 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

such of his hearers as chose to join with him at Herdrigg,
and afterwards at Deadriggs ; and was much respected
by all the Gentlemen of the County till the year 1740,
fifty years after his dismissal from his regular charge.1
"When Mr Harry Hume came to be settled at Channell
Church, none of the Clergy would moderate the call.
Lord Marchmont as King's Commissioner went into the
Pulpit, said a short prayer, and moderated the call. Mr
Hume was alwaj^s called afterwards the Earl of March-
mont's Minister.

It was observed by all his Lordship's Acquaintances that
he and his wife were more Affable and obliging to their
former friends than what they were before.2 This was
particularly taken notice of by Lady Wedderburn, daughter
to Sir Patrick Home of Manderston, with whom they were
very Intimate ; she often spoke of dining with them on a
plain Leg of Mutton at their round pond, which they
caused to be dug at Reclbracs during the famine that was

1 Mr John Home was presented to the Church of Greenlaw in 1674 by Sir
Patrick Hume. In Sept. 1689 he was dismissed by the Privy Council for
not reading the Proclamation of the Estates, and not praying for their Majesties
William and Mary, nor observing the thanksgiving. He was succeeded at
Greenlaw by Mr Archibald Borthwick, chaplain of Lord Polwarth's regiment
of Dragoons, who was translated to Polwarth 1709.

2 " I have heard my mother and many others say," writes Lady Murray in
her Memoirs, " that the great sweetness, composure, and evenness of temper
my grandmother showed in all her afflictions, as well as in her high prosperity,
was most singular : that from the highest to the lowest of her acquaintance,
none ever found a difference from the great difference of her situation."

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMOXT. 147

in Scotland about the year 1698. At that time oat meal
sold at 8s. a peck, and they caused a Large Cauldron to be
filled with porridge and carried out in washing Tubs to
the work people. It is still an observation in the Country
that when Meal is high priced, the family of Marchmont
always contrives some work which may give Bread to the
poor.

Mr Baillie of Jerviswood got his Estate restored at
the Eevolution. He married Lady Grizel Hume, but
Mr Carre of Cavers and of West Nisbet (a Widower)
had paid his addresses to her, and was much Encouraged
by his Uncle and Aunt. However, Lady Grizel pre-
ferred Mr Baillie, but kept her own secret, till by Acci-
dent her father found a Letter which she had dropt.
He said to her, " Jo " (his usual appellation), " when did
you hear from Cavers?" She told him, and then he
slyly added, " When did you hear from Jerviswood ? "
She was so much out of Countenance that she prevailed
on him to give his Consent to Mr Baillie, who had a
very small fortune, but enjoyed many Offices under
Government, and by her Attentive Management left an
immense Fortune to his eldest Daughter Grizel, Lady
Murray, and afterwards to Kachel, Lady Binning. To
prevent Sir Alexander Murray of Stanhope to get pos-
session by the Jus-Maritis, he left his whole fortune
to his wife Lady Grizel, who was usually stiled the

148 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

richest Heiress in the Merse. They had one Son who
died young, that was named Eobert after Mr Baillie's
father, who suffered for the Kyehouse Plot at the same
time with Lord Eussel and the Earl of Essex. The
night before he suffered he made his will ; his friends
observed that it was all forfeit. He answered, " Hut,
Hut ! these folks drive too fast. I die in the faith that
my posterity will Enjoy my fortune. They are going to
jugg my Body to pieces, and send my Quarters through
the Land, yet for all that I will rise a Glorified Saint
at the Resurrection." His Sister attended the Execution,
gathered together into her Apron any part of his Body
that was scattered about ; and when they stuck his
heart upon a Spear and proclaimed it the heart of a
Traitor, she pull'd it from the Spear and said, he was
no traitor, but that he was gone where King's Flesh
would be Venison. Mr Bnillie likewise attended his
father to the Scaffold, which gave him a Surliness in
his Look, altho' lie possess* the most Humane heart.
Mr Dundas of Castle Carry married one of his Sisters.
They were not in good Circumstances. Mr Baillie kept
his Nieces, bred one a Mantua-maker, and kept Kachel
after Mr Mowbray her Husband's Death, and treated
her as kindly as if she had been his own Daughter.
Lady Marchmont was of a most attentive disposition,

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT. 149

lookt narrowly into all the Country affairs, but had a
most Compassionate disposition. One day when her
family was all around her she burst out Crying. My
Lord immediately said, "Fill a Glass of Wine to my
wife, she is a Cup too low." She owned she was think-
ing of her good friend Ladykins, who had been dead
many years. This Ladykins was mother to Mr John-
stone of Hilton, and Widow of Mr Johnstone who had
been so basely murdered at the Hirsel. There had a
long friendship subsisted between Mr William Home,
Brother to Charles Earl of Home (who married Anne
Purves, Eldest and favourite Daughter to Sir Wm.
Purves of Purves, the King's Solicitor). Mr Johnstone
and Mr Wm- Home calld one another "Billies" (or
Brothers), and were inseparable Companions. A Dis-
pute arose betwixt them at Cards one night at the
Hirsel, which would have passd off, if it had not been
for an old Maiden (Lady Anne Home), who alleged to
her Brother that Mr Johnstone had given him the Lie,
and roused his passion to such a Degree, that in a
frenzy he ran into Mr Johnstone's Room and stabbd him
behind his back ; while he, turning his head, said, " Billie,
will you murder your friend ! " Mr William Home after-
wards died in Exile in great want. Lady Anne was
drove from the Hirsel, and was glad to live in Depend-

150 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

ance with her Niece, Lady Jane — then Lady Polwarth,
who lived at Eedbraes Castle.1

Lord and Lady Marchmont passed their Summer months
at Kedbraes, and with the greatest Decency and Piety,
he placed over the Chimney piece of his Dining Koom
these Verses : —

This place is set apart
To Worship God with all the Heart
Lord, let this House Established be
So long's the Owners worship thee.

1 The Rev. Daniel Douglas, minister of Hilton from 1650 till 1662, and
again from 1690 to 1705 (" a man so strong in word and belief that he was
said to sow chaff not doubting that wheat would grow "), expressed in preaching
some sentiment which gave offence to Johnstone of Hilton as an adherent
of the Government, whereupon the Laird drew his sword, marched up to the
pulpit, and dragged the clergyman down. Douglas was slightly wounded,
and gave vent to his indignation in an adaptation of Elijah's prophecy against
Ahab, " In the place where thou hast done this, shall dogs lick thy blood."
Some years afterwards — on the 26th December 1683 — Johnstone was "pro-
ditoriously murdered " by Mr William Home, brother to the Earl of Home,
at the Castle of Hirsell in the Merse. Law (Memorialls, p. 259) says that
" the Earl himself being from home, the Lairds of Hilton and Ninewells came
to make a visit to the Earl of Home his house, and went to dice and cards
with Mr William Home, the Earl's Brother. Some sharp words fell amongst
them at their game, which were not noticed as it seemed to them ; yet when
the Gentlemen were gone to their chambers, the foresaid Mr William comes up
with his sword and stabs Hilton with nine deadly wounds in his bed, that he
dies immediately; and wounds Ninewells mortally, so that it was thought he
could not live, and immediately took horse and fled into England." The
prophecy of Douglas is said to have been fulfilled in this way. The remains
of Johnstone were put into a temporary coffin to be conveyed to Hutton Hall
for interment ; and on the way the cortege, being overtaken by a snow-storm,
took refuge in the Church of Hilton, where they were shortly surprised by
seeing blood How from the coffin, which was lapped up by the dogs which
accompanied them.

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARGHMONT. 151

My Lord regularly said prayers in his own family, altho'
Polwarth Church was more properly allotted to that pur-
pose than as a parish Church, as the whole parish was in
my Lord's possession, and this he did exactly every Night
at Seven O'Clock. When he sent his Sons Alexr- and
Andrew abroad, he said, " Lads, there is a great Deal of
folly and Debauchery in the World, but do not forget to
pay your Addresses to the Being who placed you here,
nor to follow the Example I have set you." Alex1"-'
who was bred to the Law, declared afterwards to his
family that this single Sentence had more effect than all
the Books of Morality in the World.

Andrew was not of such a serious disposition, and had
an infinite deal of Wit ; he likewise studied Law. They
run a great risk of being carried abroad to some Convent,
as many other Young Gentlemen were carried off, and
bred Koman Catholics by orders of the Duke of York.
Their friends desired them to conceal themselves, but were
found next day riding behind the Duke of Perth's Coach,
who was employed in this cruel Business, and actually
carried away Mr Pringle of Gray Cross to St Thomas,
who was educated a Koman Catholick, and who after-
wards brought up his Son in the same Persuasion, and
sent his Daughter to a Nunnery. The Son was bred a
Physician, and lived with repute at Morpeth till the year
1745. Whether he had any hand in the .Rebellion at

152 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH

that period is not known, but he found it necessary to
conceal himself even from his Relations and friends, par-
ticularly Sir Wm Purves, who he had recovered from a
Threatened Dropsy about Two Years before that time, and
who regretted his being deprived of his friend and Physician.
Patrick 'Lord Polwarth was promoted in the Army,
served in Flanders during the Wars which King William
and his Allies waged against France and Spain. His
Second Brother was a Captain in the Army. He died
of a fever at Culloden. Lord Marchmont's Third Son
Alexr- studied Law in Holland1 under the famous Professor
Heineccius. When he came back to Edinburgh, he
was unacquainted with almost everybody, Excepting a
Mr Cleyland and a Mrs Christian Dundas.2 He acciden-
tally saw Miss Margaret Campbell at Church, was much
pleased with her, and inquired of his friend, Mr Cleyland,
who she was ; who said, " Faith ! Sandy, you are a good
marksman. She is the best fortune in Scotland. My
mother can be of use to you. She is a great crone of her
mother, Lady Cessnock, and the Gray mare is the better
horse in that family ! She is a Queer Wife, and hates to
have anybody taken notice of in the House but herself."
After some further enquirys Mr Hume went and paid a

1 At the University of Utrecht.

- Christian, daughter of William Dundas of Kincavel, afterwards second
wife of James, first Earl of Bute.

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT. 153

Visit to the old Lady, praised her wonderful Manage-
ment to the Skies, said their families had been Sufferers
in their Country's Cause,1 and it was a pity they were not
better acquainted. As for himself, he admired her Lady-
ship so much, it was not possible for him to Refrain from
paying her this Visit. The old Lady was charm'd with
his address and attention, and as she was remarkably
clever, his praises were not thrown away. Few Women
had a more acute Understanding, but her Temper was not
good. She was Capricious, and if she was once disobliged
no Consideration would ever prevail with her to pardon.
Her Husband, Sir George Campbell, was Lord Justice-
Clerk, a good-natured man, but not so clever as his wife.
She had married him rather to please her Relations than
from Affection. Her Mother, Anne Maxwell, was Niece to
the Marchioness of Hamilton, who had educated her after
her Mother Lady Evandale's death. These Two Sisters
had very different fates. Lord Evandale was a very fond
Lover, but a Cruel Husband ; the Marquis of Hamilton a
very Cool Lover, but the Kindest Husband.2 After Lord

1 Sir Patrick Hume had been confined in the prison of the Bass in 1675, at
the same time as Sir Hugh Campbell of Cessnock and his son Sir George,
afterwards the Lord Justice-Clerk.

2 They were both daughters of James, seventh Earl of Glencairn. Lady
Margaret Cunninghame married, first, Sir James Hamilton of Evandale ; ami,
secondly, Sir James Maxwell of Calderwood. Lady Anne Cunninghame
married James, second Marquis of Hamilton, and was mother of James, first
Duke of Hamilton.

154 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Evandale's death, she married Sir ' William Maxwell of
Calderwood, and had by him Anne Maxwell, who married
Sir James M'Murran of New Hall.1 Anne M'Murran was
their eldest Daughter, and Heiress to their estate. She had
one Sister, Janet, who married- Mr Nisbet of Northfield.

Lady Cessnock had an antipathy at the name of
Campbell, and by her power with her Husband prevented
him from giving his Daughter Margaret in marriage to
the Earl of Loudon, who had been fond of her from her
Infancy. Their eldest Daughter Mary had disobliged her
parents by a run -a- way marriage with Sir Wm Gordon
of Earlstone, a Soldier of fortune, who got himself intro-
duced to the family under the pretence of teaching the
young Ladies French. Anne M'Murran's disposition was
frugal, but she loved show and Magnificence ; wished that
her Daughters should learn every Accomplishment, but
was loathe to pay for proper Masters to instruct them ;
would give any price for showy silks to deck them out
with, but grudged to give them proper Linens, or other
Necessaries ; kept them at a great distance, and would
not allow them to sit down in her presence, but did not
keep up that Dignity which creates respect. She used to
listen at their Door, and got a Slipper thrown at her head,
which was said to be intended for the Cat. This Lady

1 Anne Maxwell, Lady M'Murran, married, secondly, Major Robert Mure of
Rowallan.

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MABCHMONT. 155

was so pleased with Mr Hume's long Visit, that she
condescended to inform her Daughters, Margaret and
Christian, that the Chancellor's son had been to wait
upon her, and that he never asked after any of them.
Her Daughter, Margaret, had very artfully got free of a
troublesome Admirer, Lord Mungo Murray, brother to the
Duke of Athole, and a Relation of her Mother's. When
Lord Mungo came to pay his addresses to her, she put on a
look of Contempt, and sat in sullen silence. Her Mother
was very angry. The next time he came Mrs Margaret
chattered so fast, it was not in his power to get in a
single sylable. He then sent his Brother, Lord Nairn,1 to
speak for him, who was much surprizd that his Brother
should complain of such a sensible and discreet a young
Lady ; but Mrs Margaret knew very well that his Lord-
ship could make no addresses for himself, as he was
married. Lord Mungo, when he found he could not
prevail, went abroad and died.2

Mr Hume took care to be well acquainted with Miss
Campbell before he made his addresses, and that by the
means of Mrs Dundas, who was a great friend of hers.

1 Lord William Murray, fourth son of the first Marquis of Athole, became
second Baron Nairn, in right of his wife, Margaret Baroness Nairn. He was
taken prisoner at Preston in 1715, tried and condemned to death, but obtained
his liberty upon the General Act of Indemnity in 1717. He died in 1725.

2 Lord Mungo Murray, sixth son of the first Marquis of Athole, died
unmarried in the expedition to Darien in 1697.

156 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

She acquainted Miss Campbell that Mr Hume was a lover
of hers ; and as their friend's Admirer, the Miss Campbells
and he became very intimate, especially Miss Christian,
who was of an easy and frank disposition. She soon
suspected Mr Hume had other views than for Mrs
Dundas, which he Confirmed to her in a Whisper at
"Questions and Commands." He begged of her that she
would prevail on her Sister to take a Walk in Hope's Park
next morning. Without letting her Sister know what he
proposed, she said, "Dear Lad, Megg always chooses her
walks, but I will try what can be done." Accordingly,
they came into the park, and walked a great way, when
they saw a Gentleman sitting reading in his Book. This
Gentleman immediately joined them, when they had not
an Opportunity of getting out of his way. Miss Margaret
was very angry, and said she wondered at Mr Hume's
Insolence in pretending to make a Dupe of her, as she
was thoroughly convinced of his Affection for Mrs Dundas.
He only beg'1- one favour of her which she might easily
grant, that she would the first time she was at Mrs
Dundas's conceal herself on hearing other Company
coming in. Miss Christian prevailed on her Sister to
grant his request. She went in her Morning-dress to
Mrs Dundas's, and upon a knock coming to the Door,
Miss Christian and she pretended they could not be seen
in that dress, and must either get out some back way,

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT. 157

or conceal themselves. The fashions of the Houses at
Edinbro' was so small at that time that there was turned-
up Beds with Curtains drawn round them in most of the
best Rooms of the House. The young Ladies got behind
these Curtains ; Mr Hume, seeing their Cloggs at the
Door, was sure they were near, began a discourse to Mrs
Dundas upon the malice of small Towns ; that a young
Gentleman could scarcely visit an Unmarried Lady with-
out people's making an Improper Application ; that for his
part he had a particular regard for Mrs Dundas, but had
not the Impudence of thinking of making any proposals to
her, which never had entered his thoughts ; and wondered
how people should Imagine he should affront her so much
as to make love to her. Mrs Dundas had said so much of
her Lover to the Miss Campbells that she was quite
covered with Confusion. To relieve herself she ran and
withdrew the Curtains, saying, " Help me, Ladies, to
laugh at a Gentleman who has so little Gallantry ! " Mr
Hume gained his aim, and convinced Miss Campbell that
he never had spoke on that subject to Mrs Dundas, who
afterwards married the Earl of Bute.

Soon afterwards a ball was given at the Chancellor's.
Lady Anne,1 his fourth Sister, wished to serve him, went
one morning and without Introduction invites the Miss
Campbells to the ball. They excused themselves as being

1 Lady Anne Hume, afterwards married to Sir James Hall of Dunglass.

158 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

unacquainted with the family, and their Mother did not
choose to allow them much liberty. " Only, Ladies," says
she, "show me your Mother's Eoom," and in she bolted
upon Lady Cessnock, and invited her Ladyship and
Daughters to the Chancellor's Ball. Lady Cessnock said
she did her Daughters great Honour, that she never went
to Balls herself, but would certainly send her Daughters.
Miss Margaret began to suspect, and in order to frustrate
Mr Hume's views, she engaged herself to dance with Mr
Wm- Hall, under promise that he would not yield his
pretensions, even altho' the Chancellor himself was to
ask it. Mr Hall was so proud of this, that he would not
listen to Mr Hume, who was his particular friend, and
which friendship continued upon the Thickest footing
during their whole lifetime.

The Ball brought an Intimacy between the families of
Marchmont and Cessnock. That of Marchmont was then
very numerous. Lord Polwarth had come from Flanders
to pass the winter ; Mr Baillie was Member for the County
of Berwick to the Scotch Parliament ; Mr Hume was
knighted by the Duke of Queensbcrry.1 Sir James Hall
of Dunglass was at that time courting Lady Julian ; Mr
Hepburn of Humbie, Lady Anne ; Sir John Home of
Manderston, Lady Jane, who was then very young, and

1 James, second Duke of Queensberry, at this time (1696) Lord High Treas-
urer of Scotland and Lord Privy Seal.

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT. 159

would have been spoilt by her Mother, as she was her
Darling, if Lord Polwarth had not kept her in order.
One Day he was walking behind her and her Companion,
Julian Craw, without their perceiving it. Julian Craw
said, "Lady Jane, when are you to be married?"
" Troth. I cannot say," replyd she. They then saw Lord
Polwarth, and Lady Jane cryd to her Companion, " Pray
keep your distance ! " Lord Polwarth plagued her much
with this before her father, who was much diverted at
it ; but her Mother thought her favorite had the worst
of it.

Sir Gustavus Hume of Castle Hume and his two Sisters,
Elizabeth and Mary, were left young by their parents.
At this time the two Ladies were Educated in the highest

Style at Dublin by the Archbishop of Armagh. Lord
Marchmont invited the Ladies, his Relations, to live with
his family in Edinbro'. Lord Polwarth fell in love with
the eldest, a most amiable Woman. Mary was tall and
had a fine figure, but was not so Handsome as Elizabeth ;
she, too, had a Lover, Mr Robert Johnstone of Hilton, a
OTeat Nimrod, and who had an infinite fund of Humour.

O '

Lord Marchmont's other son, Andrew, was knighted by
his father as Commissioner, and Mr Swinton of Swinton
was joined with him. Sir Andrew made his addresses to
Mr Johnstone's Sister Kitty, the widow Lady Mangerton.
Lord Marchmont was pleased with Lord Polwarth's choice.

160 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Miss Hume had only One Thousand Pounds fortune ; they
were proclaimed in Church, and Settlements were made,
when a sudden call carried Lord Polwarth to Flanders.
Meantime Anne M'Murran1 convinced her Husband that
if Margaret married Lord Loudon, his name and Estate
would be sunk in the family of Loudon. Margaret was a
Great favorite with her father, who had disinherited his
Eldest Daughter, Lady Gordon, and settled it on Margaret,
who made it her Constant Study to please him. She
became the best Confectioner and Pastrycook, by making
patiscery for him which he liked. She made a pie for
him one day which was observed had no Pepper; she
answered smartly, "My Father eats no Pepper." He
said, "Megg, continue to please your Father, and I'll
make your Sisters to wipe your Shoes for you." He
thought that Sir Alexr- Hume, a Second Brother, who,
tho' he had great prospects from his profession and
from Government, yet would cheerfully take the name of
Campbell, and bear his Arms. On these terms everything
was agreed upon. The Miss Campbells were invited to
spend the last night of the Year 1696 at the Chancellor's,
where was a kind of Masquerade. The younger of the
family (viz., Lady Anne, Lady Jane, and the Miss
Humes) were to set the Miss Campbells home in their
Masquerade dress to the Justice-Clerk's, attended by Sir

1 Lady Campbell of Cessnock,

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MAEGHMONT. 161

Alexr- and Sir Andrew. Lord Loudon had laid a plan
with some of his Companions to carry Miss Margaret
Campbell off from the Masquerade, and would have suc-
ceeded if Lady Anne had not been Informed of it, and
prevailed on Miss Campbell to change dress with her. In
their way to the Justice -Clerk's, Lady Anne walked so
like her, held her plaid so much in the same Manner, that
his Lordship and his friends carried her off, which she
admitted of without saying one word, till they had gone
a great way, when she burst out a laughing, and said,
"You may as well let me join my Company, as I am
not the Lady you take me for ! " They made many ex-
cuses and let her go. Altho' Sir Alexr- had Sir George
Campbell and Lady Cessnock's consent, he could not pre-
vail on Miss Campbell to marry him till the 29th July
1697.

Major Cawfield, a relation of the family of Cessnock,
married a Miss Stewart. They died young, leaving a Son
and Daughter. As he had nothing but his Commission,
he could only give them a good Education, and on his
Death they were left Destitute. The Son died young;
the Daughter came to be Governess to the Miss Homes
of Birgham. She married a Mr Cranston of Coldstream,
by whom she had a Son and several Daughters. The Son
was christened Alexr- Purves, who was put Aprentice to
Mr Johnstone, Surgeon in Coldstream ; and by going to

162 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Greenland as a Surgeon gained as much as to attend the
College at Edinbro'. He, by the assistance of his name-
father, Sir Alexander Purves, got on board the Monarque,
Captain Duncan, and was in the Action with Admiral Kep-
pell in April 1778. Captain Duncan recommended him as
a good officer to Sir Charles Middleton of the Navy Office,
who appointed him Surgeon to the " Queen," armed ship.
He is now settled a Surgeon in New Bond Street, and has
a prospect of making a handsome fortune, and that all by
his own merit.

In the beginning of the Winter 1698, Lady Marchmont
and her Daughters came to Edinbro'. Lady Julian by
the way said, " What an agreeable Winter we are like
to spend, as we have our Sister Lady Grizel's House,
Sir Alexr's-i besides our Father's." Lady Marchmont
answered, " Jo, I wish we may not have Water amongst
our Wine ! " Poor Lady Julian had the greatest share of
the former. Sir James Hall had made his addresses to
her ; when the friends met to Consider the Settlements,
Mr Wm- Hall said "Lady Anne." "What!" said my
Lord, " is Sir James in pursuit of my Daughter Annie ?
I have never spoke to her on the subject, and can say no
more till I have." Whether she was over-persuaded, or
had taken some slight pique at Mr Hepburn of Humbie,
to whom she had been engaged for many years, it is not

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT. 163

certain. However, she married Sir James Hall.1 Lady
Julian thought herself affronted, — got acquainted with a
Charles Bellingham, a Cadet, and of no Fortune nor Birth.
She run away with him, and disobliged her Father and
other Eelations.2 The Marriage made a great noise, and
many songs were made on the Occasion. She was alledged
to live in a House that took in Lodgers ; there was a thin
partition betwixt a Lady's room and hers, who kept a
great deal of Company ; she heard her own story told in
many different ways to the Visitors, and she said a
number of years afterwards to her Nieces, that she suffered
more from those malicious tongues than by all her poverty,

1 Lady Anne Hall did not long survive her marriage, as she died at the
Dean, near Edinburgh, January 24, 1699. Mr George Home thus notes the
sad event in his Diary : " This morning between 5 and 6 Lady Anne Hall
died much regretted by all that knew her ; the pleasantest, sprightliest young
lady I ever knew. I went to my Lord Chancellor's lodging and found him
mightily afflicted, yet still under those sentiments and reflections becoming a
wise man who has experienced the vanity of creature comforts, and a good and
resigned Christian."

2 Lady Julian's runaway marriage with Mr Bellingham, in January 1698,
caused the greatest distress and annoyance to her family. " They say," writes
Mr George Home, " he is a handsome young fellow and dances well, but, for
anything I hear, has nothing." Lady Grisell wrote to a friend in London —
Lady Graden — to make private inquiries about him, and the following account
was not one to allay her uneasiness : " That his father was a poor man who
had enough to live by a glass-work, of which he was overseer ; that this blade
and his elder brother, who was a captain in Lindsay's regiment, had formerly
been in gaol for robbing on the highway, but had made their escape." In
February 1699 Lord Marchmont succeeded in obtaining for his undesirable
son-in-law the post of Deputy-Governor of Dumbarton.

164 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWAETH.

and the Anger of her Relations, who never were perfectly
reconciled to her, altho' my Lord gave her £500, the
fortune he bestowed on his other Daughters, and procured
a Commission for Mr Bellingham, who died young, leaving
his two Daughters — Jane, married to Colonel Jonys, and
Charlotte, married to Mr Hume of Abbey, Minister of
Greenlaw.

Sir Andrew Hume got the Estate of Kimmergham from
his father, which fell by succession to the family.1 Sir

1 The estate of Kimmerghame came into Lord Marchmont's possession in 1710
by the death of Robert Home, the last of the younger branch (descended from
George Hume, 5th son of the 6th Baron of Polwarth). This was the " Robie "
whom his father, George Home, continually refers to with such intense pride
and affection in the curious MS. Diary of which 4 vols. are preserved in the
Marchmont library ; and which, with occasional breaks, extends from May
1694 to September 1705, in which month the writer died. "He was," says
the late Professor Campbell Swinton, in his history of the Swinton family,
"a man of middle age, a widower for the second time, with an only son. In
his picture of Border life, the central figure is always his famous kinsman,
Patrick, Earl of Marchmont. Holding the high position of Chancellor of
Scotland, he is described as a kind friend, a generous host, an active country
gentleman, deeply interested in everything that occurs in Berwickshire, and
consulted regarding the marriage, and revising the settlements, of his every
female cousin in the third or fourth degree. Among Kimmerghame's other
familiars, besides the restored Laird of Swinton, were Sir John Home of
Blackadder, two successive Humes of Niiiewells, the grandfather and father
of the historian, Carre of Cavers, who was also proprietor of Nisbet, and
a whole bevy of lords of Session, including Sir Roger Hog of Bogend, Lord
Harcarse, Lord Mersington, and Sir David Home, Lord Crossrig, who was the
diarist's uncle. The social habits of these Merse lairds seem to have been
sufficiently primitive. Formal invitations and long engagements were unknown,
but friends were constantly dropping in, — sometimes at four o'clock in the
morning, — and forenoon calls were generally paid after dinner. The fare at
these extemporary banquets must often have been somewhat scanty, since we

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT. 165

Andrew made his addresses to Lady Mangerton ; l but as
he was a younger Brother, and her Jointure very small,
she thought it Imprudent to marry him untill he was in

find recorded, as important events, the sending a servant to Berwick for a leg
of veal, or to Kelso for half a pound of tobacco and some bread. Kimmerghame,
going to visit his cousin, Sir John Home, at Blackadder, takes his son Robie
(then about two years old) before him on the black mare, and Robie's woman
behind the serving-man. They dine there and return at night On occasion
of a larger gathering at the same hospitable mansion, 'the gentlemen after
dinner fell to tossing dogs in a blanket, which ' (the journalist adds) ' is a usual
divertisement in other places, particularly among the Swissers.' 'They got
dogs,' he continues, 'at Greenloan. They are not as yet very dexterous.'
Again, Kimmerghame, going to Edinburgh in January 1695, sends to Black-
adder for the loan of his black sword, cloak-bag, saddle, and malle-pillion ;
and taking horse in the morning dines at ' Jinglekirk,' and comes to town at
night, where he lodges ' in Mrs Romes, up Blair's stair, the fourth storey upon
the street.' Returning from Edinburgh in March 1698, he gets a place in Sir
John Swinton's coach, and 'came to Polwarth House' (or Redbraes Castle)
' about eight.' Arrived there, the writer adds, ' Commissary Home and I were
bed-fellows.'"

His Diary, of which copious use has been made in compiling this sketch of
the Marchmont family, is closely written in a small neat hand, and abounds in
details about his neighbours' affairs. First-cousin-once-removed to Earl Patrick,
he was his trusted adviser on business matters, and seems to have filled much
the same office to Lord Home. The younger members of the family, especially
Lady Grisell and Sir Andrew, made him their confidant in every sort of
trouble, the latter pouring into his ears all the details of his unlucky attach-
ment to Lady Mangerton, and his difficulties in setting himself free again.

The state of the weather and the direction of the wind are almost daily noted
in the Journal. George Home was also careful to set down any curious saying
he came across, such as the following, which he picked up from Lord Pol-
warth : " You shall be like the town of Dunbar and have the Word of St Bee.
You shall never want, you shall never lee, and frost shall never your corn
slae."

After Sir Andrew Hume's death, the estate of Kimmerghame was sold in
1738. It had come into the Hume family at the same time as Polwarth by the
marriages of the Sinclair heiresses.

1 Sir Andrew Hume's attachment to the widowed Lady Mangerton much

166 MAEGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

better Circumstances ; and in order that the world might
not make reflections, they agreed to meet at a friend's
house of hers, the Widow Lady Douglas of Cavers, who
had a Large Jointure from Sir Wm- Douglas. As Sir
Andrew went there very often, Lady Grizel Baillie
thought her Jointure would be of use to her Brother, pro-
posed it to her Father, and carried on the Matter with
such Activity (which was her way when she took a thing
in hand) that Sir Andrew was over-persuaded, and had
not the Courage to own his Engagements nor to confess
to her Ladyship the new Connection he had formed, till
Lady Douglas one day said to her, " Indeed, Madam, Sir
Andrew Hume is false to you ; he- is engaged to another."
Lady Mangerton enquired who the Lady was. He
answered, " Indeed, Madam, it is to myselfe, and Lady
Grizel Baillie has been to visit me upon it, which I look
upon as a great Honour." Poor Lady Mangerton fainted

annoyed his family, as on many grounds they disapproved of the proposed
marriage. Sir Andrew was very much in love, but, as he told the lady himself,
" his friends were so much against it, and his father in particular, that he was
obliged to give it over." The affair went on for some time, as appears from
Mr George Home's Diary — which is full of details on the subject — and caused
a certain coolness between Lord and Lady Marchmont and their son. At last,
mainly by Lady Grisell's persuasions, Sir Andrew was induced to transfer his
addresses to the widow of Sir William Douglas of Cavers ; but this affair
seemed to promise no better than the other, as the lady showed herself so
greedy about money. Lord Marchmont proposed to give his son a fortune
of 18,000 marks, but Lady Douglas stood out for 20,000 marks, and endeavoured
to get the money settled upon herself in fee simple, should there be no children.
In spite of this they were married in April 1700, and appear to have lived
together very happily.

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT. 167

•

away, and soon afterwards married Sir Walter Pringle,
Lord Newhall, and was much happier with him than ever
she could have been with Sir Andrew Hume, who was too
volatile. He had two Sons and four Daughters by Lady
Douglas : the eldest Son, Patrick, died young ; the other
Son, John, was cruelly murdered in Ireland, where he was
with his Eegiment : the eldest Daughter married her own
Cousin, Colonel Waite (?) ; the second married Mr George
Carre of West Nisbit; the third married Mr Charles St
Clair of Hermiston ; the fourth married Mr Wauchope of
Niddry.

Lord Torphichen married Lady Jane Hume, Lord March-
mont's next Daughter, and by her had James,1 Patrick,

1 James, Master of Torphichen, eldest son of Lady Jane Hume, fought on
the Hanoverian side at Prestonpans. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe has the
following note respecting him in his MS. notes to 'Douglas's Peerage': —

" After being desperately wounded, he was carried to Colonel Gardiner's
house at Bankton. Mrs Wauchope of Niddrie, whose husband was his rela-
tion, and she herself more nearly related, hearing of his disaster, and knowing
that his family had fled from Calder, went from Niddrie to render him any
aid in her power. She said (as her daughter told me) that the field of battle
was a dreadful spectacle, and so shocked she was, that she became faint, and
was ready to fall. An officer of the Prince's army seeing a gentlewoman in
this condition (her carriage was in attendance) inquired her business. While
telling her errand she was informed that the Master of Torphichen was at
Bankton. The loyal gentleman advised her to throw her apron over her face,
and in that guise led her to the house. Many years after, telling this anec-
dote to Mr Lumsden at dinner in her own house, she expressed her gratitude,
and said she was most desirous to know the name of the person who had been
so kind to her. He said, < I am the man ! ' He had fled to France soon after.
Mr Wauchope was a staunch Jacobite."

The Master of Torphichen never entirely recovered from his wounds, and
died in Edinburgh unmarried, April 2U, 1749.

168 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF PQLWAETH,

Walter, Andrew, Alexr" George and Eobert Sandilands,
and three Daughters. Lord Polwarth returned from Flan-
ders, and married Miss Elizabeth Hume, who had been
call'd Bride at all these different marriages. She soon
afterwards caught a Consumption by being wetted in the
Sea at Dunglass. Miss Kattie Hall, afterwards Lady Pit-
cure, and Lady Polwarth were sitting on a Eock by the
Sea with their Backs to it, and never observed the Tide
till they were surrounded by it. Lady Polwarth, who was
tall, carried Miss Hall out of the Water, went home in her
Wet Clothes, which brought on a Consumption of which
she never recovered.1 Her Sister married Mr Johnstone of
Hilton, and had four sons and five Daughters by him : the
sons all Died young excepting Wynne, who married Miss
Margaret Johnstone, daughter to Captain Johnstone, an
Agent in Dublin, and Sister to General Johnstone. Sid-
ney, the eldest Daughter, married Sir John Sinclair of

1 Elizabeth, Lady Polwarth, died at the Abbey of Holyrood on Thursday,
December 11, 1701. She had been ill for many months. On June 9, 1701, Mr
George Home remarks in his Diary : " Dr Stevenson and Dr Abernethy were
at Polwarth House. My Lady P. is still in danger enough. She inclines to
go to England. I find the family uneasy about it, yet they don't oppose it.
The Drs are not positive about it, — they are neither for baths nor wells, only
think travelling may do her good ; but she might travel at home, that is, go
so far a day and come home at night. The Drs say she will go, and advise to try
Durham a little, but I find she has had the air of Richmond near Thames re-
commended to her by my Lady Dalhousie, and if she be able I fancy she may
go there. However, I pity my Lord Polwarth, who must be obliged to trudge
about."

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT. 169

Longformacus ; Alice married Mr Baird of Newbyth ;
Grizel married Sir James Home of Manderstone ; the rest
died young.1 Lord Marchmont was anxious to have his
son marry again after Lady Polwarth's death, for whom he
mourned sincerely, and from whom he caught the Con-
sumption. He was not fond to change his situation, and
seemed happy that his Brother Sir Alex1'8- children should
inherit his Titles and Fortune. By this time Sir Alexn
was made a Lord of Session under the title of Cessnock.
Lady Cessnock had bore four Sons and four Daughters.
Anne was born the 29th July 1698 ; Grizel, 1701 ; George,
1704 ; Patrick, 1706 ; Hugh and Alexander, Twins, were
born 13th Febry- 1708; Jane, 1710; Margaret, 1712.

In the year of the Invasion, 1708, Lord Polwarth was
Colonel of the Seventh (or Queen's) Dragoons. He was
asked by Lord Leven (General of the small Army assem-
bled at Leith to prevent the Pretender and his French
Troops from Landing) about some movement it was neces-
sary to make. Lord Polwarth, who was displeased at
being under the Command of a Genr- Officer, said : " When
the Queen pleases to intrust her troops to me, I shall
know how to manoeuvre them." Lord Leven, who was not
well skilld in Military Affairs, pretended sickness and

1 A mistake. Another daughter lived to grow up, Sophia Johnstone, who
died unmarried. She was very clever, very eccentric, and a great character ;
and she commonly went by the name of "Aunt Soph." Miss Mary Hume
married Mr Johnston of Hilton in 1702.

170 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

went home ; so left Lord Polwarth to command the
Troops, who prevented the French from Landing, and
assisted Sir George Byng in taking a fine Ship, the " Salis-
bury " ; and his Lordship got a fine Gold Medal for his
share of the prize, which he sent as a present to his Sister,
Lady Cessnock. The Justice-Clerk1 died some years be-
fore, leaving her sole Heiress to his Estate on paying
30,000 Merks to each of her Sisters. Miss Christian lived
some years with her, and afterwards lived with Lady Gor-
don, where she married Dr Francis Pringle, Physician in
Edinbro', and had by him a Son and two Daughters,
George, Margaret, and Mary Anne, who married George
Fullerton.

Lord Cessnock,2 after gaining a disagreeable plea with
Anne M'Murran for the Justice-Clerk's Executory, altho'
she made an Offer of taking her Name-Daughter Anne3 to
Educate, and to leave to her a Fortune ; his Answer was
that parents who were in Ability did best to Educate their
own Children ; and about this time was left to her a Con-
siderable Legacy by Sir Wm- Maxwell of Calderwood,4 a
near Eolation of Lady Cessnock's. He would have left

1 Sir George Campbell of Cessnock, Lord Justice-Clerk.

2 Sir Alexander Hume Campbell, Lord of Session under the title of Lord
Cessnock.

3 Lady Anne Hume Campbell, afterwards Lady Anne Purves.

1 Sir William Maxwell, second baronet of Calderwood, d.s.p. He was first
cousin to Anne M'Murran, Lady Campbell of Cessnock.

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT. 171

her his whole Estate, if she had been a Son, but he took a
prejudice against women from a sad Misfortune his only
child had met with. He had sent her into Edinbro' to be
Educated under the care of his Sister, who made her sleep
in a Room without a Lock, near to where her Husband's
Clerk slept, who Imposed upon her Youth and Simplicity.
When her Father heard she was with Child, he treated her
with the Utmost Severity, boarded her in a farm-house,
and would not be prevailed on to see her, even when she
was dying, altho' she sent a message to him that her
Heavenly Father had assured her of pardon, and hoped her
Earthly Father would not refuse his. He always said after
this, that Women were like Wine Glasses, easily crack't, but
never to be mended. He would have had Lord Cessnock
to contract a marriage between his cousin Wra- Maxwell,
who afterwards succeeded him, and was Sir Wm-' and his
eldest Daughter Anne ; but Lord Cessnock said he thought
parents had no power to Contract marriages for their Chil-
dren, till they were of age to give their own Consent.

Sir William's Fate was very odd. His Father was the
Eldest of Three Sons, whose Father had left his fortune to
them on Condition they contracted no more Debt than
30,000 Merks upon the Estate. Sir Wm-'s Father spent
that sum, and then offered up the Estate to his Second
Brother, who was an Officer, but of so good a Disposition
that he would not accept of it, and desired his Brother to

172 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

keep it, till he spent his 30,000 Merks likewise, which was
soon done. The Third Brother, a Merchant, thought all
the Estate would go the same way, therefore accepted of
it ; he had but one Daughter, who was very rich, inherit-
ing her Mother's Fortune. He took home his Nephew, Sir
William's Son, to be an Aprentice, but took Care to throw
out hints that he would be glad to be nearly Eelated to
him. The young man, who had then succeeded his Father
in his Titles, soon got the young Lady's Consent, but would
not go away with her, contrary to his Uncle's Inclination,
who pretended to be very Angry, but on his wife's Inter-
cession acquiesced, and broke the Severe Clauses of the
Entail. The Officer's son came at last to be Heir to Sir
William in his Fortune and Title.1 He married Miss

1 The above account of the family of Maxwell of Calderwood is so involved
that it is difficult to follow without the help of their pedigree : —
Isabel, 1st wife of=Sir James Maxwell, =rn. 2d, Lady Margt. Cunninghame,

dan. of

Sir A. Hamilton
of Iimerwick.

tenth Baron
of Calderwood,
d. 1622.

claur. of James, seventh Earl
of Glencairn.

1
me,
'Murran.

Sir James,
first Bt.,
d. 1667,
m. Mary Gouts.
1

Colonel John, Alexander (Sir), Ai
d. 1650, a merchant, m. J. M
in. Eliztli. Elphingston. m. Janet Moodie
of Saughton Hall.

1
Sir William,
second Bt.,
m. Jean

Maxwell.

Sir John,
third Bt.,

m. Margaret Wood.

i
Jean,
in. her cousin,
Sir William Maxwell,
second Bt.

Anr
Sir G. (
ofCes

e, m.
Campbell
snock.

A daughter,
died young.

Sir William Maxwell,
fourth Bt.,
m. Christian Stuart
(of Torrence).

Margaret, m.
Sir Alex. Hume,
Lord Polwarth.

Sir William Maxwell,
fifth Bt.

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARGHMONT. 173

Stuart of Torrence, and was Father to Col1- Maxwell of the
20th Eegiment, who died at Level. The Family of Max-
well paid the Legacy of £500 to Sir William Purves in the
Year 1735, upon Lord Marchmont's giving up a Consider-
able Claim upon the Estate of Calderwood. The fine Damask
Table Linen with the History of Joseph, now at March-
mont House, was a gift from old Sir William Maxwell to
Lady Anne Purves.

Lord Polwarth, at last fretted by his Father's and Lady
Grizel's Application, consented to marry if they could find
a Wife who would give him little Trouble in Courting.
His Father proposed Lady Jane Home, Daughter to
Charles, Earl of Home, and to Anne Purves ; she was
called Bonny Jean of the Hirsel. After this he was per-
suaded to sell his Commission in the Queen's Dragoons to
Brigadier Kerr, Brother to the Duke of Roxbrough. My
Lord was then so 111 of Consumption as to be obliged to
leave Redbraes on account of the Smell of the New Lime,
and went to Kelso. He fainted away upon hearing the
Drums of his old Regiment beat off. He died at Kelso
about the year 1709. His Mother had died about Seven
years1 before of a Cancer in her Breast, which she had
Concealed, but Lord Marchmont found it out, and applied
to the Physicians in Edinbro', who gave her Mercurial
Vomits, which threw the Cancer through her Blood. His

1 Grizel, Countess of Marchmont, died in Edinburgh, October 11, 1703.

174 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Lordship regretted her during the remainder of his life,
and said he must now learn to live, for he had Constantly
left his Domestick concerns to her care ; and that he was
persuaded that if his heart was Dissected, her Image would
be seen impressed upon it. Lord Polwarth left the £5000
he got for his Eegiment to his Brother Alexr" who gave it
to his Father, and was very generous to his Brother's
Widow, who from a sense of his kindness gave down one
half of her Jointure. She afterwards married Capt. Bruce,
and had one Sou, who was Christened Home.

Lady Grizel Baillie had married her Eldest Daughter to
Sir Alexr. Murray of Stanhope, who was so distractedly
fond of her that upon reading in the Newspapers that Miss
Baillie was Married, he fainted away, thinking it was Miss
Bailey of Jerviswood. His Temper was so jealous that
even at her Wedding it broke out upon her giving a Kiss
to the Bride-man, who picked up her Garter, which she
had dropt in dancing a Minuet. The garter would have
been returned without the forfeit if the Company had not
lauo-hed at him for not claiming- a Kiss of the Bride.

O O

After living in extreme misery with him — even having a
drawn Sword and Loaded Pistols put into the Bed with
him — she was under Necessity of being separated from
him, upon his writing Letters to her threatening her life.
He afterwards went out in the Rebellion 1715. Lady
Murray secretly caused Lodgings to be found for him in

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MAROHMONT. 175

Prison, and probably got his Pardon. He died in Poverty,
after many Schemes of finding Silver Mines, and other
Projects, in the year 1743.

Lord Marchmont lived at Eedbraes till the year 1717,
till his Friends thought the Damp of the Country would
affect his Health, so prevailed with him to buy a House in
Berwick, and got Lady Julian Bellingham to take care of
him. Alexr- Lord Polwarth was sent Ambassador to
Copenhagen. During his absence Lady Polwarth died
in the year 1722. Her Sons were all then abroad ; her
Daughters came and lived with their Grandfather at Ber-
wick, who died at the age of 85 Years in the Year 1725,
and was Buried in the Cannongate Churchyard, Edinbro1.
She left Two Sons and Three Daughters. Their Father,
Lord Marchmont, had been 5 Years Ambassador at Copen-
hagen, and afterwards three years Plenipotentiary to the
Congress of Cambray, where the whole States of Europe
were assembled to Conclude the peace between the Emperor
Charles Six and Philip the Fifth of Spain. My Lord found
out from the first Ambassador of Spain, that Philip was
going to abdicate his Crown in favour of the Prince of the
Asturias. They agreed to give up several points to the
Emperor, which before that they had obstinately insisted
upon, but they were plagued with the Second Ambassador
of Spain, who was a Weak man, and not to be trusted with
such an Important Secret. By his Immense folly they

176 MARCHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

were prevented from Concluding the peace, till the news
of the Abdication came. My Lord, by certain Intelligence
after this, learned that the Spaniards and Austrians were
negotiating a Separate peace by means of the Duke de
Riperda. His Lordship immediately set off to the Hague
without leave, that Britain might not have such a Slight
put upon her. This separate peace was Concluded as my
Lord judged, and he was obliged to remain at the Hague
till King George the First sent him a pardon. He had
then three Sons and four Daughters ; but Lord Polwarth,
after being at the Academy at Nancy, where the Duke of
Loraine was so pleased with him, that he wrote to my
Lord that it was an Honour to be Father to such a Son
— the celebrated Mr Maclaurin l was with him as his
Governor — his Lordship died of a Fever at Montpelier.2
His Sister Lady Grizel, through perfect Grief, died of the
same kind of Fever, as did Lady Margaret at 12 years of
age of a Consumption. Lady Jane was very ill of a Fever

1 Colin Maclaurin, a famous mathematician and geometrical scholar, born
1698, died 1746. At the age of nineteen he was appointed Professor of
Mathematics in the Marischal College at Aberdeen. He was admitted a
member of the Royal Society when only twenty-one, and in 1725 was ap-
pointed Professor of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh. He pub-
lished several philosophical works, and a life of Sir Isaac Newton, for whom
he had the greatest admiration and affection. His eldest son was the well-
known Scotch judge, Lord Dreghorn.

2 George, Lord Polwarth, born 17th January 1704, died 13th October
1724.

ANECDOTES OF THE FAMILY OF MARCHMONT. 177

at Tyninghame. The very day his Lordship came to
Cambray, his Wife Lady Polwarth died in Edinbro', and
left a number of private injunctions to her Eldest Daughter
Anne relative to her Family and her other Concerns, who
had Conceald the death of her Elder Son from her. My
Lord lost his Father, Son, and 2 Daughters before he re-
turned from Cambray. His Brother Lord Kimmergham 1
was appointed Lord of Session in his room.

Lady Grizel Baillie's family continued to live at Meller-
stain, altho' Rachel her Second Daughter was married to
Lord Binning, Son to Lord Haddington : she had Three
Sons and two Daughters, — the present Lord Haddington ;
George, who took the name of Baillie when he came of
age, and is now in possession of the Estate of Jerviswood ;
Grizel, who married Earl Stanhope.

Lady Julian Bellingham lived many years at Berwick
after her father's death ; and Lady Torphichen died at
Calder House in the Year 1752. Lord and Lady March-
mont2 had two Sons and two Daughters, who survived
them. Hugh, the present Earl of Marchmont, married
Anne Western, by whom he had Three Daughters, — Anne,
who married Sir John Paterson of Eccles, and has one

1 Sir Andrew. Hume, appointed a Lord of Session as Lord Kimmerghame,
November 25, 1714. He died 1730.

2 A mistake. Margaret, Lady Polwarth, did not live to be Lady March-
mont.

178 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

Daughter ; l Margaret, who married Col. James Stuart,
Brother to Mr Stuart of Torrence, and who died suddenly
by a fright in crossing the Forth from Kinghorn to Leith
when she was big with child ; 2 Diana, married Mr Scott
of Harden, and has a son and Daughter.3

My Lord's Second Son Alexr- was a Councellor, had
great success in the Law, and was Created Lord Eegister
of Scotland.4 Anne married Sir Wm- Purves of Purves,
Bar*-' has one Son and Three Daughters.5 Jane married
Mr Nimmo of Edinbro', and died without issue.6

1 Lady Anne Paterson was married at Kedbraes, Oct. 2, 1755, and died at
Newcastle, July 27, 1790. Her only child Anne married in 1778 Sir Philip
Anstruther, Bart., but died childless in 1822.

2 Lady Margaret Stuart was married September 20, 1763, and died childless
in Edinburgh, January 7, 1765.

3 Lady Diana Scott was married at Redbraes, April 18, 1754, and died
July 23, 1827. Her only son, Hugh Scott of Harden, claimed and was
allowed the Barony of Polwarth in 1835. He was the fourth Lord Polwarth.

4 Alexander Hume Campbell, born February 13, 1708, M.P. for Berwick-
shire. In 1756 he was appointed Lord Clerk Register of Scotland for life.
He married Mrs Elizabeth Perris of London, and died without issue in 1760.

5 Lady Anne Hume Campbell married Sir William Purves, Bart, and
died in 1784, leaving one son, Sir Alexander Purves, Bart.

0 Lady Jane Nimmo was married in January 1748, and died October 10,
1770. Mr Nimmo was Receiver-General of the Excise in Scotland.

[179-180]

PEDIGREE OF THE

MARGARET =
2d daughter
and heiress of
John Sinclair
of Polwarth.

MARGARET, daughter Sir PATRICK Hi

of Sir John Edmon-
stone of that Ilk,
1st wife.

Polwarth,
troller of See
1499; d. 1504

MARGARET, daughter of=
Robert, 2d Lord Crich-
ton of Sanquhar, 1st
wife.

— ALEXANDER HUME=
of Polwarth,
d. 1532.

— MARGARET, daughter of
Sir Robert Lauder of
the Bass, 2d wife.

GEORGE Hu
ancestor
the Hume
Argaty.

ELIZABETH, daughter=
of Sir Patrick Hep-
burn of Waughton.

AGNES, daughter=P
of Alexander
Home of Mau-
derston.

1
= PATRICK HUME
of Polwarth,
d. before Dec.
1591.

ALEXANDER HUME,
ancestor of the
Humes of Heugh.

GAVIN HUME,
ancestor of
the Humes
of Rhodes.

MARGARET, m. to C
P. Hepburn of
Craig.

ATRICK HUME
of Polwarth,
wounded at
Cairny; d.
1592.

Sir ALEXANDER HUME
of North Berwick,
Provost of Edin-
burgh 1591 ; d s.p.
1008.

ADAM HUME, Rector
of Polwarth; left
issue.

MARGARET, m.
John Baillie of
John's Kirk.

1
ANNE, TO. -
French of Tr
dyke.

JULIAN, daughter of=
Sir Thomas Kerr
of Feniihurst, sis-
ter of Robert, Earl
of Somerset ; she
m., 2dly, Thomas,
1st Earl of Had-
dington.

= Sir PATRICK HUME
of Polwarth, Mas-
ter of the House-
hold to James VI. ,
and Warden of
the Marches ;
d. 1009.

1
ALEXANDER HUME,
Rector of L/ogie,
left issue.

GAVIN HUME of
Johnscleuch,
left issue.

Sir JOHN HUME of
North Berwick,
ancestor of the
Humes of Castle
Hume in Ire-
land.

DAVID HUME
of Rowieston.

CHRISTIAN, daughter of=
Sir A. Hamilton of
lanerwick ; she m. ,
2dly, Robert, 3d
Lord Jedburgh.

=Sir PATRICK HUME
of Polwarth, cre-
ated a baronet
1025 ; d. 1648.

THOMAS HUME JOHN
of Coldstream.

i
HUME.

JAMES HUME.

GEORGE HUME
of Kimmerghanie.

, 6. 1644 ;
Russian
Moscow,

JULIAN, 6. 1029 ;
m. to Richard
Newton of that
Ilk.

GRISELL, daughters
of Sir Thomas
Ker of Cavers ;
m. 1000 ; d. 1703.

1
:=: Sir PATRICK HUME of Polwarth,
6. 1G41 ; created Lord Pol-
wartli, 1090 ; created Earl of
Marchmont, 1697 ; Chancellor
of Scotland, 1090 ; d. 1724.

CHRISTIAN,
ft. 1643 ;
d. 1666.

1
ALEXANDER HUME
Colonel in the
service ; d. at
1670, unm.

PATRICK, Lord Polwarth, 5. 1004 ;
d s.p. 1709; m., 1st, Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir J. Hume of
Castle Hume ; she d. 1701 ;
m., 2<lly, Lady Jane Home,
daughter of Charles, Oth Earl
of Home. Lord Polwarth was
Colonel of the 7th Queen's
Dragoons.

GRISELL, 6. 1005 ; d. 1740 ; m.,
10'JO, George Baillie of Jervis-
woode ; left issue, two daugh-
ters— Grisell, m. Sir A. Murray
of Stanhope, d.s.p. 1759;
Rachel, m. Charles, Lord Bin-
ning, and left issue.

CHRISTIAN,

6. 1GOS ;
d. unm., 1688.

ROBERT HUME,

6. 1609 ;
d. unm., 1092.

JULIAN,
b. 1673 ;
m,., 1698,
Charles
Bellingham.

ANNE, b.

1098;

d. 1784;

GRISELL,

GEORGE HUME,

Lord

Polwarth.

PATRICK

HUME, 6. 1706 ;

m. Sir

William Pur-

6. 1701 ;

b. 1704; d.,

unm..

, at

Mont-

d. unm..

1724.

ves, Bt. of

Purves-

d. 17-24,

pelier, 1724.

hall.

unm.

Sir ALKXANDKK PCUVKS, Bt.,

d. Ibl2; m. Miss Le Blanc;

left with other issue.

•Sir WILLIAM PUUVKS HUME CAMI-HKLL, Bt..
'/. 1707 ; 'ia. Charlotte, widow of —
Standish ; died 1S33.

Sir llrf;ii HUMK CAMPJIKLL, Bt., '/. 1.M2 ; M., 1st
lv;4, Mar-<ar,:t. dan-liter of John Spottiswoode
uf Spottiswoode— their daughter Helen m.,
l.-OJ, Sir Georgf Warrender, Bt., and <1. 1875,
leaving issue— //(., 2d]y, 1841, Juliana, daughter
"f Gen. Sir J. Fuller. She died 18SO.

PATRICK,
Lord Polwarth,
<L in childhood.

ANNE, m., 1755, Sir John Patterson of
Eccles ; d. 1790 ; her only child,
Anne, m. Sir Philip Austiuther,
1778 ; d.s.p. 1822.

MARGARET,

Gen. Jame

d.s.p. '.

UMES OF POLWARTH.

ATKICK HUME,
)n of David Hume,
grandson of Sir
d Hume, 1st Baron
eddcrburn.

of ELLEN, daughter of Sir James

p- Shaw of Sauchic, and widow

i, of Archibald Halyburton,

2d wife.

ALISON, m,
Sir James Shaw
of Sauchie.

1
JANET, m.
Sir Andrew Kerr
of Feraihurst.

MARION, m.
Sir William Baillie
of Lamington.

MARGARET,
Abbess ol
North
Berwick.

2RINE, m. to

ert Pringlu
tliat Ilk.

ISABEL, Abbess of
North Berwick.

GEORGE HUME
of Drunichose.

JEAN, m. to

David Hume

of Law.

AGNES, m. to
Edmonstone
of Woolmet.

MARGARET, m. to

Sir Thomas Cranston

of Corsbie.

ROBERT HUME
of Hawkslaw.

ELIZABETH, m.
Sir James Carmiehael.

JEAN, m.

Christopher Cockbuni
of Choicelee.

SOPHIA, m.

Joseph Johnstone

of Hilton.

ARGARET, =

ghter of Sir
ge Campbell
Cessuock ;
fw. 1697 ;
d. 172-2.

=Sir ALEXANDER, 2d Earl of March-
nioiit, K.T., b. 1075 ; Lord
Clerk Register ; Ambassador
to Denmark, 1710 ; Ambassador
Extraordinary to the Congress
of Cambray, 1722 ; d. 1740.

Sir ANDREW HUME (Lord Kimmer-
ghame), b. 1070; rf. 1730; m., 1700,
Dowager Lady Douglas of Cavers ;
left issue — Elizabeth, who m. G.
St Clair, and left issue ; and Helen,
who m. Andrew Wauchope of Nid-
drie, and left issue.

ANNE, 6. 1677;
m., 1698,
Sir James Hall
of Dunglas ;
d. 1699.

JEAN, 6. 1«83;
m. Lord Torphichen,
1703;
left issue.

|jr — H4

aughter of Hucn, 3d Earl of Marchinoiit,^= ELIZABETH, daughter

ALEXANDER HUME CAMPBELL,

1
JEAN,

1
MARGARET,

omas Wes-
m. 1731 ;

b. 1708 ; Lord Keeper of the
Great Seal of Scotland 1704 ;

of
m. 1748

Crompton ;
; rf. 1797;

twin with HUGH, b. 1708;
Lord Clerk Register; m.

6. 1710 ;
James Ximmo ;

6. 1712 ;
d. 1724,

'; 1st wife.

rf. 1794.

2d wife.

Miss Elizabeth Ferris ; d.s.p.

d s.p, 1770.

unm.

1700. QQ

1763, DIANA, m., 1754,

ALEXANDER, Lord Polwarth, b.

1750;

art ; Walter Scott of

created Baron Hume of Berwick,

1770;

Harden ; rf. 1827.

7iL, 1772, I.ady Amabel Yorke,

after-

wards Countess de Grey ; d.s.p.

1781.

HUGH SCOTT, b. 1758, who
successfully claimed
the Barony of Pol-
warth in 1835 ; 4th
Lord Polwarth ; d.
1841.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX I.

THE COUNTESS OF MARCHMONT'S BILLS OF FAIR

WHILE HER HUSBAND THE LORD CHANCELOR WAS COMMISSIONER
TO THE PARLIAMENT IN 1698.

SATTURDAY THE 23 DAY OF JULLY 1698.

Pottaig suntie.

Host Ham & Chickns, 6.

Sum stued Rabets.

Rost mutton with cuttlots.

Dooh pay.

Hotch potch of mutton.

Rost tung and udder.

Vaille La Sture.

Rost beefe.

Rost wyld foull, 16.

Rost Rabets, 6.

Lobesters, 6.

Rost old buck & 6 young.

Goulard Salmond.

Rost geese, 3.

Could ham and tungs.

Rost pigs, 3.

a dish of tarts.

BILL FOR DINNER.

frigasie of chickns, 6.
Suiet breads,
boyld powding.
grand sellet.
Scotts Collops.
a Ryce powding.
stued trouts.
ollives of vaill.

2 dish of fish to relieve.

portigall egges.
Artichocks.
Tansie.
sust pige.
maron powding.
beefe alia mode,
pprtiegall egges.
pies.

beefe Royell.

Rost Vaille.

boyld tung & udder.

minth paye.

Cods head.

Rost mutton.

Calves head with Barkon.

Rost Lambe.

Pottaige.

a dish of tarts.
Kattie warks, 12.
Rost piges, 3.
Rost Rabets, 6.
Rost Chickns, 16.
fish marnott.
Rost ducklings.
Soles.
Wyld foull, 16.

TO THE COMPTROLLER'S TABLE.

beefe alia mode,
vaill paye.
Lamb collopes.

boyled beefe.

pottaig.

Rostmutton.

To relieve.

Ragow of Rabets.
boyled salmond.
green sellet.

a dish of foulls of all sorts, 16.
A dish of tarts.

184

MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

FELDAY THE 26 DAY OF AUGUST 1698.

pottaige.

Rost beefe.

Patatie paye.

A chine of mutton.

hottch pottch of mutton.

boyled mutton.

a dish of fishe.

Rost Lambe.

Boyled tuiig & udders, 8.

Rost wyld foull 8 & Chickins

a duck paye.
Rost piges, 3.
Rost hens, 6.
Rost rabets, 7-
fish marnel.
Rost duck, 8.
buttered Crabes.
a dish of tarts.

BILL FOR DINNER.

Ragow of Rabets.
A fllorintown.
Chickens alia Creme, 6.
Grand sellet.
Sheepshead collops.
Stewed markrall.
Bark Powding.
Compost of pigeons, 6.

To Relieve.

hot ham and Chickens, 10.
Cod's head.

gellie.

Portigall eges.
oysters demoy.
sust pige.
gellie.
Lobsters,
gellie.

Rost Vaill wt Coutllots.

Mutton demoy.

Rost tungs & udders, 8.

Grand hashie.

a pottaige.

Rost mutton w4 Coutlots.

Rabet paye.

beefe Royell.

pottaige.

Rost turkies and young ons,
6.

a dish of tarts.

Rost Rabets.

Could ham and tuugs.

Rost geese, 3.

a frusher.

Rost hens, 6.

Rost piges, 3.

Rost wyld foull 8, & Chic-
kins 6.

Rost mutton.

TO THE COMPTROLLER'S TABLE.

Rost beefe.
Pottaige.
Boyld mutton.

Rost hens, 5, to Relieve.

a dish of fish.

SATTURDAY THE 27 DAY OF AUGUST 1698.
BILL FOR DINNER.

Bark powding.
Ragow of Lamb.
Stued whytons.

Rost Vaille.
Barlie Broath.
Rost mutton.

A C'hickiie paye to relieve.

pigeons condiug,
moyed dinge.
Green sellet.

Artichocks.
Could pigeon paye.
nemllet.

SECOND COURSE.

Rost wyld foull 4, & Chickns

10. "

A could tart hot againe.
Rost pigeons, 18.

portigyall eges.
Rost Rabet, 6.
sust piges.

APPENDIX.

185

Rost Lambe.

TO THE COMPTROLLER'S TABLE.

boyled beefe.

broath. a dish of fish.

Rost mutton.

SUNDAY THE 28 DAY OF AUGUST 1698.

BILL FOR DINNER.

pottaig alia ryne.

gellie.
Rost beefe.

Lobesters.
a pigeon paye.

portigall eges.
Rost hens, 6.

pigeon compost, 8.
Rost mutton with Cuttllots.

boyld powding.
Rost Rabets, 7.

scots collopes.
Rost pigeons, 20.

gellie.
Rost kid.

green sellet.
a dish of tarts.

To Relieve.

pld foull 8, & Chickns 6.
lickns 6, and pigeons 14.

rost mutton in blood.

could bark powding.
a dish of tarts.

gellie.
Rost geese, 3.

Ragow of Rabets, 3.
Ragow of Lamb.

grand sellet.
pottaige.

olives of Mutton.
Rost Mutton with Couttllots.

gellie.
Rost hens, 6.

firydd skaite.
chickn pay.

portigall eges.
pottaige.

Rost Lamb.

TO THE COMPTROLLER'S TABLE.

Rost beefe.
Pottaige.
Boyld mutton.

Rost hens 5, to Relieve.

Rost mutton.

186 MAEGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

[The butler's wine-bill for the same Sunday has also been
and gives a clue to the number of persons entertained.]

found,

SABBATH, THE 28TH AUGUST 1698.

M.1

Lord Pollworth

Mr Andrew

. . .0

Sr James Hall

My Lord before dinner

My Lord's table

Controller's table

pages ....

. ' 0

kitchen

trumpett

the bills drawing

My Lord after dinner

Captain Mitchell

Ainchinye hume

Left out all night

Confectionar .

2 29 12 2 4 5

1 These letters stand for the following liquors: V., eau de vie ; C., claret ; S., sherry ,
G., gin; P., port ; M., Madeira.

APPENDIX. 187

APPENDIX II.

Two SONGS BY LADY GRISELL BAILLIE.

"WERENA MY HEART LIGHT I WAD DEE!"

THERE was ance a May, and she lo'ed na men ;
She biggit her bonnie bouir doon in yon glen ;
But noo she cries, Dule and a-weel-a-day !
Come doon the green gate, and conie hereaway.

When bonnie young Johnnie cam' ower the sea,
He said there were nane half sae lovely as me ;
He hecht me baith rings, an' mony braw things,
An' werena my heart licht I wad dee.

He had a wee Tittie that lo'ed na me,

Because I was twice as bonnie as she ;

She raised sic a pother 'tween him and his mother,

That werena my heart licht I wad dee.

The day it was set, and the bridal to be ;
The wife took a dwam and lay doun to dee.
She maned and she graned out o' dolour and pain,
Till he vowed he never wad see me again.

188 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

His kin were for ane o' higher degree —
Said, what had he to do wi' the like o' me ?
Albeit I was bonnie, I wasna for Johnnie :
An' werena my heart licht I wad dee.

They said I had neither cow nor calf,
Nor dribbles o' drink rins through the draff,
Nor pickles o' meal rins through the mill e'e ;
An' werena my heart licht I wad dee.

His bonnet stood aye fu' round on his broo,
His auld ane looks aye as well as some's new ;
But noo he lets't wear ony gate it will hing,
And casts himsel' dowie upon the corn-bing.

An' now he goes drooping about the dykes,
An' a' he does do is to hund the tykes ;
The livelong nicht he ne'er steeks his e'e :
An' werena my heart licht I wad dee.

Were I young for thee as I hae been,

We should hae been galloping doun on yon green,

An' linking it on the lily-white lea ;

And wow ! gin I were but young for thee !

ABSENCE.

Oh the ewe-buchtin's bonnie, baith e'ening and morn,
When the blythe shepherds play on their bog-reed and horn ;
While we're milking, they're lilting baith pleasant and clear —
But my heart's like to break when I think o' my dear.

APPENDIX. 189

Oh, the shepherds take pleasure to blow on the horn,
To raise up their flocks o' sheep sune i' the morn ;
On the bonnie green banks they feed pleasant and free —
But alas, my dear heart, all my sighing's for thee !

An air for the flageolet was composed for this song by the late
Charles Sharpe of Hoddam when seven years old.

Two additional verses have been added by Lady John Scott,
which are —

Oh, the hillsides are pleasant in a blyth Autumn day,
When the muirmen are out at the kylin' o' the hay ;
Their sangs o' the muirlands ring widely and near —
But my heart's like to break when I think o' my dear.

Wi' laughter and daflfin' the hours wear away,
An' blyth is the hame-gaun at e'en ower the brae ;
The muircock is calling, the wild hare rins free —
But alas, my dear heart, all my sighin's for thee !

Further verses have been added by Thomas Pringle, the Border
poet.

These are the only poems of Lady Grisell's composition which
have come down to the present day ; but others had existed, though
mostly in a half-finished state. Lady Murray says in her Memoirs,
while describing the life of the exiled family in Holland : " I have
now a book of songs of her writing when there ; many of them
interrupted, half writ, some broke off in the middle of a sentence."
What has become of that book no one knows.

190 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWAETH.

APPENDIX III.

GEORGE I. TO THE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA.

MADAME MA SCEUK ET FILLE, — Le Sieur Alexandre Lord Pol-
warth Fils aine du Comte de Marchmont, qui va en qualite" de
mon Envoye Extraordinaire et Plenipotentiaire aupres de mon bon
Frere et Gendre le Eoy de Prusse, votre Epoux, a ordre en meme
terns de vous marquer 1'affection tres singuliere que J'ay pour
vous ; Je ne doute nullement que vous n'ajoutie's une Foy entiere
a tout ce que vous dira en mon Nona urie Personne de cette dis-
tinction, que J'ay bien voulu charger de mes affaires a Votre Cour.
Et ce sera toujours une Eecommendation des plus fortes aupres de
vous qu'il vient de ma part, qui suis avec beaucoup de passion,
Madame ma Soeur et Fillie,

Vostre tres affectionne Frere et Pere,

GEORGE R.

A ST JAMES, cc 14»!« Maij 1716.
A Madame ma Soeur et Fille
la REINE DE PRUSSE.

CAROLINE PRINCESS OF WALES TO THE KING OF PRUSSIA.

ST JAMES, le 26«"»« Maij 1716.

MONSIEUR MON FRERE, — Le Boy mon Pere faisant partir pour
la Cour de Vostre Majeste My Lord Polwarth en qualite* de son
Envoye Extraordinaire, Je n'ay pas voulu manquer a me servir

APPENDIX. 191

d'une Occasion si favorable, pour vous deuiander la Continuation
de vostre amitie, Je me flatte que vous me rendez la justice
d'etre persuade qu'elle m'est infiniment precieuse; et que Je la
cultiverai toute ma vie avec le dernier soin, ce dont les Assur-
ances que J'ay charge* My Lord Polwarth de vous renouveller de
ma part, vous priant d'ecouter favorablement a qu'il aura honneur
de vous dire a cet egard et de croire que je suis tres sincerement,
Monsieur mon Frere,

Vostre tres affectionne'e Soeur,

CAROLINE.

Au ROY DE PRITSSE, Monsieur mon Frere.

CAROLINE PRINCESS OF WALES TO THE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA.

ST JAMES, le W^TM Maij 1716.

MADAME MA SOSUR, — Je n'ay pas voulu laisser partir My Lord
Polwarth sans renouveller a Vostre Majeste" les Assurances des
Sentimens pleins d'affection que Je conserverai toute ma Vie pour
vous, et sans vous demander la Continuation de Vostre amide*.
Je 1'ay charge* de vous temoigner qu'elle m'est infiniment chere,
et que Je me feray toujours un Devoir et un Plaisir d'en serrer de
plus en plus les Noeuds etant avec Sincerite,
Madame ma Soeur,

Vostre tres affectionne'e Soeur,

CAROLINE.

A la REINE DE PRUSSE, Madame ma Soeur.

192 MARGHMONT AND THE HUMES OF POLWARTH.

APPENDIX IV.

The following verses, addressed to Hugh, Earl of Marchmont, on
his father's death, were found in a periodical work of that day.

THE EARL OF MARCHMONT, ON THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER.
BY A PERSON OF DISTINCTION.

Enough of tears ! the pious son

Enough hath wept the honoured sire.

Thy race of glory just begun,

'Twere more than impious to retire.

Then, spite of hard unequal laws,

Rise in thy sinking country's cause.

Thrice happy youth, whose first essays,

Judicious, honest, warm, and bold,
In senates gained impartial praise,

Where conscience, honour, faith were sold ;
And strengthening truth, with graceful art,
Poured St John's words from Cobham's heart.

Strange force of virtue thus exprest !

The guilty catch the sacred flame ;
And truth and nature shine confest

Through adverse power, and pride, and shame.
Tyrants the potent influence own,
And villains screened behind the throne.

APPENDIX. 193

Lo ! where the lashed offender stands
Aghast, with anger, fear, surprise !

And now he lifts his trembling hands ;
And now he rolls his haggard eyes !

While all around the conscious tribe

Half wish away the tainting bribe.

Yet farther still, brave youth, proceed,
Still farther spread the patriot rage ;

Heaven gave the power, and claims the deed ;
Then write and eternise thy page ;

And, unconfin'd by time and place,

Exhort, and save a better race.

THE END.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.

UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY

000 648 941 3

ill

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