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THE HAYS OF KINNOUL
are descended from a common ancestor with the Earls of Errol. The
titles of Earl of
Kinnoul, Viscount of Dupplin, and Baron Hay of Kinfauns, were
conferred, in 1633, upon Sir George Hay, youngest son of Peter Hay
of Megginch. He was born in 1572, and studied for six years in the
Scots College at Douay, under his uncle, the well-known Father
Hay, who was Professor of Civil and Canon Law in that seminary. He
returned to Scotland about 1596, and obtained the office of a
gentleman of the bedchamber to King James, who bestowed upon him
the commendam of the Charter-house of Perth, and the church lands
of Errol. He was present with James at Gowrie House, Perth, when
the Earl of Gowrie and his brother were killed, and obtained the
lands of Nethercliff out of that nobleman’s forfeited estates. In
the year 1616 he was nominated Clerk Registrar, and was made a
Lord of Session; and in 1622 he was raised to the office of Lord
High Chancellor of Scotland. He was elevated to the peerage in
1627, by the titles of Viscount of Dupplin and Lord Hay of
Kinfauns, and on the 25th May, 1633, he was raised by Charles I.
to the rank of Earl of Kinnoul, immediately before the coronation
of the King. This mark of royal favour did not, however, render
him unduly compliant to his Majesty’s wishes. One of the objects
which Charles had in view at his coronation was to increase the
power and prominence of the hierarchy, and with this view he sent
Sir James Balfour, Lyon King-at-Arms, to the Chancellor, to inform
him that it was his Majesty’s pleasure that he should give
precedence for that day to the Archbishop of St. Andrews. Lord
Kinnoul, however, replied to this order, with proper spirit and
firmness, that ‘since his Majesty had been pleased to continue him
in that office, which by his means his worthy father, of happy
memory, had conferred on
him, he was ready, in all humility, to lay it at his Majesty’s
feet. But, since it was his royal will he should enjoy it with the
various privileges pertaining to the office, never a stoled priest
in Scotland should set a foot before him while his blood was hot.’
When this courageous reply of the old Chancellor was reported to
the King, he said, ‘Well, Lyon, I will meddle no further with that
old cankered, goutish man, at whose hands there is nothing to be
gained but soure words.’
Lord Kinnoul died
at London, 16th December, 1634, and was interred in the parish
church of Kinnoul, where a marble monument, with his statue, was
erected to his memory.
Peter, the elder of
the Earl’s two sons, predeceased him, and GEORGE, the younger,
became second Earl of Kinnoul. He was nominated a Privy Councillor
to Charles I., and was Captain of the Guard to that sovereign from
1632 to 1635. At the breaking out of the Great Civil War he
embraced the royal cause, but died soon after, in 1644. His only
son, WILLIAM, the third Earl, was a staunch Royalist, and joined
Montrose in his ill-fated expedition to Scotland in 1650. After
his total defeat at Drumcarbisdale, the Earl accompanied his
leader and Major Sinclair in their flight from the field into the
wild mountain district of Assynt. The privations endured by them
from fatigue and the want of food became insupportable. On the
morning of the third day Lord Kinnoul grew so faint, and his
strength was so exhausted by hunger and cold, that he could
proceed no farther. He was, therefore, necessarily left by his
distracted and enfeebled companions without shelter or protection
of any kind on the exposed heath. Major Sinclair volunteered to go
in search of assistance to the Earl, while Montrose went off alone
towards the Reay country. They both fell into the hands of their
enemies, but as they could give no accurate directions as to the
spot where Lord Kinnoul had been left, that nobleman, whose body
was never found, must have perished in some recess among the
mountains.
GEORGE
and WILLIAM, the sons of this
ill-fated Earl, held in succession the family titles and estates,
and both died without issue. Earl William, however, obtained a new
patent in favour of his kinsman, THOMAS HAY, Viscount of Dupplin,
a descendant of Peter Hay, brother of the first Earl, who became
sixth Earl of Kinnoul. He represented Perthshire in the Scottish
Parliament of 1693, and was created Viscount of Dupplin by William
III. in 1697. He was one of the Commissioners for the Union, and
gave that measure his steady support; but as he was the
brother-in-law of the Earl of Mar, and was visited by him at
Dupplin, on his way to the north to raise the standard of
rebellion, Lord Kinnoul was regarded as a suspected person, and
was committed prisoner to the castle of Edinburgh till after the
suppression of the rebellion. He died in 1717. Colonel John Hay,
the youngest of his three sons, accompanied the leader of the
insurrection from London to Braemar, and proclaimed the Chevalier
at Perth. After the collapse of the rebellion, Colonel Hay
repaired to the Court of the exiled family, in which he held a
post, and was created by the Chevalier titular Earl of Inverness.
The intrigues and jealousies of Hay and his wife, a daughter of
the fifth Viscount Stormont, led to endless disagreements and
quarrels in the household of the Chevalier, and caused the
Princess Sobieski, his wife, to retire for a time into a convent.
In the end, the Chevalier was constrained, by the representations
of some influential Jacobites, to dismiss Hay from his service.
GEORGE,
the eldest son of Earl Thomas, became
seventh Earl of Kinnoul. He was a supporter of Harley, afterwards
Earl of Oxford, whose daughter he married, and was one of the
twelve British peers created by that intriguing politician to
secure a majority in the House of Lords for his administration.
His Jacobite inclinations were so well known, that on the breaking
out of the rebellion of 1715, he was taken into custody, and was
kept in confinement from 21st
September till the 24th of the
following June. He was afterwards reconciled to the Court, and, in
1729, was appointed ambassador to Constantinople, where he
remained till 1737. He died in 1758, leaving by his wife, Lady
Abigail Harley, four sons and six daughters. Robert Hay, his
second son, assumed the name of Drummond as the heir of entail of
his great-grandfather, the first Viscount of Strathallan, who
settled the estates of Cromlex and Innerpeifrey on the second son
of the Earl of Kinnoul. Robert Hay Drummond entered into holy
orders, and became in succession rector of Bothal in
Northumberland, a Prebendary of Westminster, Bishop of St. Asaph,
Bishop of Salisbury, and, finally, Archbishop of York.
THOMAS,
eldest son of the seventh Earl, born
in 1710, succeeded his father in the family honours and estates.
When a commoner he was member for Cambridge, and held in
succession the offices of a Lord of the Treasury, Joint Paymaster
of the Forces, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. In 1759
he was sent as Ambassador-Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary. to the Court of Lisbon. But in 1762 he resigned
all his public offices and retired to his estate in Scotland. In
1765 he was elected Chancellor of the University of St. Andrews,
and, in 1768, was chosen President of the Scottish Society for the
Propagation of Christian Knowledge. He died at Dupplin in 1787, in
the seventy-eighth year of his age.
His only son having
died in infancy, he was succeeded by his nephew, ROBERT HAY
DRUMMOND, eldest son of the Archbishop of York, of whom there is
nothing special to record. He was Lord Lyon King-at-Arms, and,
like his uncle, was President of the Society for Propagating
Christian Knowledge. He died in 1804. His eldest son—
THOMAS DRUMMOND
HAY, born in 1785, became tenth Earl, was appointed Lord Lyon
King-at-Arms in 1804, and Lord-Lieutenant of Perthshire in 1830.
The only memorable act in his long career was his lending his name
as patron to the suit in the celebrated Auchterarder case, which
led to the disruption of the Established Church of Scotland. He
died in 1866, aged eighty-one.
The present Earl,
who was born in 1827, married, in 1848, a daughter of the Duke of
Beaufort, and has a numerous family.
The Kinnoul
estates, which lie in Perthshire, extend to 12,577 acres, with a
rental of £14,814. |
