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DUMFRIES, Earl of,
a title in the peerage of Scotland, now merged in that of the marquis of
Bute, conferred in 1633, on William, seventh Lord Crichton of Sanquhar,
[see SANQUHAR, lord,] who was created viscount of Ayr, by patent, 2d
February 1622, and earl of Dumfries, viscount of Ayr, and Lord Crichton of
Sanquhar and Cumnock, 12th June 1633. He had a charter of the
earldom of Menteith, 20th December the same year. He married
Eupheme, daughter of James Seton of Touch, and had by her three sons and
two daughters.
His eldest son,
William, second earl, was a privy-councillor to King Charles the Second,
and died in 1691. By his countess, Penelope, daughter of Sir Robert Swift,
of the county of York, he had two sons and three daughters. His two sons
having died before him, he obtained a new patent of the earldom of
Dumfries, to his grandson, William Lord Crichton, after himself, and the
heirs male of his body, and failing him, to the four sisters of the
latter, namely, Penelope, Margaret, Mary, and Elizabeth respectively, and
failing then, and the heirs of their bodies, to the nearest heirs of the
said earl whatsoever. William Lord Crichton, here mentioned, was the son
of Charles Lord Crichton, second son of the second earl, (his elder
brother, Robert, having died very young,) by his wife, the Hon. Sarah
Dalrymple, third daughter of the first viscount Stair. He succeeded as
third earl, and died on the last day of February 1694, unmarried.
His eldest
sister, Penelope, became countess of Dumfries in her own right, in virtue
of the patent of 1690. She married, 26th February 1698, her
cousin, the Hon. William Dalrymple of Glenmure, second son of the first
earl of Stair, and died at Clackmannan 6th March 1742, having
issue, William earl of Dumfries and Stair; Hon. John Dalrymple, a captain
of dragoons, who died unmarried 23d February 1742; James, third earl of
Stair, (see STAIR, earl of,) three other sons and two daughters, the elder
of whom, Lady Elizabeth Crichton Dalrymple, married John Macdowall of
Freugh in the county of Wigton, and had by him Patrick, fifth earl of
Dumfries, four other sons, and two daughters.
William, fourth
earl of Dumfries, had a cornet’s commission in his uncle, the earl of
Stair’s regiment, the 6th dragoons, in 1721, in which regiment
and the third foot guards he served for twenty-six years. In 1742 he
succeeded his mother as earl of Dumfries, and was aide-de-camp to the earl
of Stair, at the battle of Dettingen, 26th June 1743. He was
appointed captain-lieutenant in the third regiment of footguards in 1744,
and on the abolition of heritable jurisdictions in 1747 he got for the
sheriffship of Clackmannan two thousand pounds, and for the regality of
Cumnock and Glenmure four hundred pounds. In 1752 he was invested with the
order of the Thistle, and in 1760 succeeded his brother James, as fourth
earl of Stair, and was thenceforward styled earl of Dumfries and Stair. He
died at Dumfries-house, Ayrshire, 27th July 1768, without
surviving issue, having been twice married, and was succeeded in the title
of Dumfries by his nephew, Patrick Macdowall of Freugh; and in that of
Stair by his cousin, John Dalrymple.
Patrick
Macdowall of Freugh, fifth earl, born 15th October 1726, was an
officer in the army. He was chosen one of the sixteen representatives of
the Scottish peerage at the general election, 1790, and rechosen in 1796
and 1802. He died at Edinburgh 7th April 1803, in the 77th
year of his age. He married Margaret, daughter of Ronald Crauford of
Restalrig, in the county of Edinburgh, and had two daughters, the younger
of whom died an infant. The elder, Lady Elizabeth Penelope Crichton, born
at Dumfries-house, 25th November 1772, married, October 12,
1792, John, Viscount Mountstuart, eldest son of John first marquis of
Bute. He died 22d January 1794, and she, dying in the lifetime of her
father, at Southampton, 25th July 1797, in the 25th
year of her age, was buried at Cumnock, leaving two sons, John, sixth earl
of Dumfries and second marquis of Bute, having succeeded to the latter
title on the death of his grandfather the first marquis, 16th
November 1814; and the Hon. (afterwards lord) Patrick James Herbert
Crichton Stuart (posthumous), born at Brompton Park house, 20th
August 1794, and on 28th May 1817 obtained the precedency and
rank of a younger son of a marquis; died September 6, 1859. See BUTE,
Marquis of). |
