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THE Leslies of
Rothes obtained higher rank and greater prominence in the history
of Scotland than the main stem of the family. The first Leslie who
bore the name of Rothes was Sir George, who is described as
Dominus de Rothes, in a contract of marriage, dated 26th April,
1392, but whether he acquired the barony by succession, marriage,
or purchase, cannot now be ascertained.
It remained in the
possession of the family for nearly four hundred years, was sold
by John, ninth Earl of Rothes, in 1711, to John Grant, of Elchies,
and now forms part of the extensive possessions of the Earl of
Seafield. This fertile and beautiful barony lies on the western
bank of the broad and rapid river Spey, and is both well wooded
and ‘well watered everywhere,’ and diversified by hills in the
background, and glens with their tributary brooks. The old castle
of the Leslies, which stood on a green mount, surrounded by a
fosse, is now in ruins. When the Earl sold the estate he ‘reserved
to himself the castle tower, with the castle bank and the green
under the walls thereof,’ the only remnant of the vast estates
which the Rothes family at one time possessed in Morayshire.
As we have seen, on
the death of David de Leslie (the last Baron of the original
stock) his daughter Margaret inherited the barony of Leslie, in
the Garioch, but the other estates of the family went to Sir
George Leslie, the head of the Rothes branch. Sir George seems to
have been a man of great influence in his day, and to have been
held in high esteem, both by his sovereign, Robert III., and by
his brother nobles. He obtained in 1398, a grant of the barony of
Fythkill, now called Leslie, in Fife, which had been resigned into
the hands of the King by his kinsman, Alexander Leslie, Earl of
Ross, and which Sir George was to hold of the sovereign
for the annual payment of a pair
of gloves. Two years later the King confirmed a charter granted by
the Earl, of no fewer than eight distinct estates, in the shire of
the Mearns, in return for the good service which Sir George had
rendered to the Earl by advancing him ‘in his great necessity, the
sum of 200 merks to relieve the lands and
earldom of Ross, then in the hands of the King, the superior
thereof.’
GEORGE LESLIE,
the grandson of this powerful
baron, was the first Earl of Rothes, and through his father and
mother (Christian Seton) was descended from both the royal
families of Bruce and Stewart. He was three times married. After
he had lived nearly twenty years in wedlock with his second wife,
a daughter of Lord Halyburton of Dirleton, he grew tired of her,
and raised an action before the Consistory Court of St. Andrews,
for the dissolution of the marriage on the convenient and common
plea at that time, that he and his wife were related within the
forbidden degrees of kindred, and that consequently their marriage
was null and void from the first. A divorce could be obtained on
this ground at that period with the utmost facility, and was a
matter of every-day occurrence. But a formidable difficulty
presented itself in regard to the position of the children born
under the marriage, who would be declared illegitimate if it
should be dissolved. As the Earl’s eldest son, Andrew, had married
into the powerful family of St. Clair, it was not to be expected
that they would patiently acquiesce in a decision which deprived
him and his children of their rights. It was ultimately decided by
the arbiter to whom the case was referred by mutual consent, that
the Earl should obtain a divorce, but that the legitimacy of his
offspring should be preserved by his judicial deposition that he
did not know of the relationship between him and his wife, till
after the birth of all their children.
The Earl was
succeeded by his grandson GEORGE, his eldest son having
predeceased him. George, the second Earl, appears to have been a
‘ne’er-do-weel.’ Having failed to appear to answer a charge
against him of being art and part in the murder of George Leslie
in 1498, he was ‘put to the horn,’ or outlawed, and his goods
escheated to the King. He seems in various ways to have
dilapidated the family estates, for in 1506, William Leslie, his
brother and heir, represented to the King, ‘that the said Earl of
Rothes, for default of good governance, tynes his old brentage in
disinheriting of his righteus heir, and contrar to the laws of
God.’ The King (James IV.) declared ‘the said William’s desires to
be just and consonant to reason; and not willing that so noble and
famous a house as the Earldom of Rothes be destroyed, but rather
be kept in honour and nobility as the said Earl’s predecessors
keeped the same in times by-gone,’ he granted authority to a
council of the family to assist in the ‘government of the person,
lordship, lands, and goods’ of the spendthrift peer, ‘so that he
be not misguided and his lands wasted.’ Various similar cases
occurred in the ancient history of our country, and it would be
well for the honour and the interest of some noble families in our
own day, if legal authority could be obtained to save a man from
himself, and to take the management of the patrimonial inheritance
of a great house out of the hands of an incompetent or profligate
heir. It appears that in addition to his other acts of misconduct,
this ‘misguided’ nobleman had incurred heavy penalties by his
neglect of certain feudal ceremonies and forms of law, so that
several valuable estates had lapsed into the hands of the King.
Owing to these irregularities, his brother and successor—
WILLIAM, third
Earl, had considerable trouble in making good his title to the
family inheritance; and before his difficulties with the Crown
were removed he was killed, along with the King and the flower of
the Scottish nobility, on the fatal field of Flodden, 9th of
September, 1513. His son GEORGE, fourth Earl, inherited not only
the titles and estates of the family, along with their ability and
courage, but also some other qualities which appear to have ‘run
in the blood’ of the Rothes Leslies. He filled various high
offices of State, among others that of ambassador to Denmark, in
1550, and was one of eight Commissioners elected by the Estates to
represent the Scottish nation at the marriage of Queen Mary to the
Dauphin, at Paris, April 24, 1558. On their way home the Earls of
Rothes and Cassillis, and Bishop Reid, President of the Court of
Session, died at Dieppe all in one night, and Lord Fleming died
about the same time at Paris. It was universally believed at the
time that the Commissioners had been poisoned because they had
firmly refused to settle on the Dauphin the crown matrimonial of
Scotland, or to promise that on their return to their own country
they would endeavour to eflect that object. Earl George was five
times married. His first wife, Margaret Crichton, was a niece of
James IV., who inherited the passions and misfortunes of her
lineage. During her husband’s absence as ambassador at the Court
of Denmark, she had an intrigue with Patrick Panter, Abbot of
Cambuskenneth, Secretary of State, one of the most learned men of
his age, and bore to him a son, who ultimately became Bishop of
Ross. On the 27th of December, 1580, the Earl obtained a divorce
in the Consistory Court, not, however, on the ground of his wife’s
unfaithfulness to him, but the marriage was declared null and void
from the first, on the plea that the Earl confessed to having
illicit intercourse before his marriage with Matilda Striveling,
who was related to Margaret Crichton in the second and third
degree of consanguinity, thus making the Earl and Margaret related
to each other in the same degrees of affinity, and rendering their
marriage incestuous and illegal according to existing law. This
remarkable proceeding, connected as it is with ‘one of the
strangest and darkest stories to be found in Scottish family
history,’ throws a flood of light on the state of morals at that
period among the upper classes in Scotland through the operation
of the law of marriage and divorce instituted by the Papal Court.
The fourth Earl of
Rothes was succeeded by his eldest son by his second wife, Agnes
Somerville. His eldest son, Norman, and his second son, William,
by Margaret Crichton, were passed over, both having incurred
forfeit as traitors on account of their connection with the murder
of the celebrated Cardinal Beaton. There can be no doubt that
apart from the desire to avenge on the Cardinal the martyrdom of
Wishart, Norman Leslie was actuated by personal enmity in the part
which he took in the murder of Beaton; and his uncle, John Leslie,
a prominent actor in the scene, shared his feelings. After the
surrender of the Castle of St. Andrews to the French in the June
following, Norman Leslie was carried with the other prisoners to
France. He subsequently entered the service of the French King,
and obtained great celebrity for his brilliant exploits in the
wars between France and Germany. His gallantry at the battle of
Cambray (1554), in which he was mortally wounded, drew forth the
admiration both of friends and foes, and led Prince Louis of Conde
to remark that ‘Hector of Troy had not behaved more valiantly than
Norman Leslie.’
EARL ANDREW,
fifth Earl of Rothes, took a prominent
part in public affairs during the ‘troublous times’ of Mary of
Guise and her daughter, Queen Mary. He was at first a staunch
supporter of the Lords of the Congregation, but afterwards changed
sides, and fought for Mary at Langside.
He was succeeded by
his grandson, JOHN, sixth Earl, who was a zealous Covenanter, and
gave great offence to Charles I. by his courageous resistance to
his Majesty’s ecclesiastical projects. He was nominated chief of
the Scottish Commissioners sent to London in 1640 to treat with
the King. His intercourse with the Court had the effect of
considerably moderating his zeal in behalf of the Parliament, and
it appears that hopes were entertained that he might even be
induced to join the Royalist party. Clarendon says, ‘Certain it is
that he had not been long in England, before he liked both the
King and the Court so well, that he was not willing to part with
either. He was of a pleasant and jovial humour, without any of
those constraints which the formality of that time made that party
subject themselves to.’ A pension £10,000 Scots (1883 6s. 8d.
sterling) was settled on him. He was to have been appointed one of
the Lords of the Bedchamber and a Privy Councillor, and a marriage
had been arranged between him and Lady Devonshire, who possessed
£4,000 sterling a year, when he died at Richmond, after a short
illness, in the forty-first year of his age. His death was
considered a great blow to the hopes which were cherished at that
time that an amicable treaty would be arranged between Charles and
the Scottish Covenanters.
His son JOHN,
seventh Earl of Rothes, was a staunch Royalist in the Great Civil
War, and was taken prisoner at the Battle of Worcester. At the
restoration of Charles II. he was rewarded for his services with a
pension, and his nomination to the office of President of the
Privy Council of Scotland. He was subsequently appointed Lord
Treasurer for life, and Lord High Commissioner, and in 1680 was
created Duke of Rothes. His talents were of a high order, but he
was notorious for his ignorance and profligacy. Lord Fountainhall
says the Duke gave himself ‘great libertie in all sorts of
pleasures and debaucheries, and by his bad example infected many
of the nobility and gentry.’ He is said to have excused his
licentious conduct by alleging that, as he held the office of
Royal Commissioner to Charles II., it was fitting that he should
represent the royal character and conduct. Bishop Burnet, in a
passage which was suppressed in the earlier editions of his
history, says Rothes ‘was, unhappily, mad for drunkenness; for, as
he drank, all his friends died, and he was able to subdue two or
three sets of drunkards, one after another, so it scarce ever
appeared that he was disordered; and after the greatest excesses,
an hour or two of sleep carried them all off so entirely that no
sign of them remained. He would go about his business without any
uneasiness, or discovering any heat either in body or mind. This
had a terrible conclusion, for, after he had killed all his
friends, he fell at last under such a weakness of stomach that he
had perpetual cholics, when he was not hot within and full of
strong licquor, of which he was presently seized; so that he was
always either sick or drunk.’ The Duke has left behind him an evil
reputation as one of the persecutors of the Covenanters, and he
was no doubt deeply implicated in the cruel and oppressive
proceedings of his times. He seems, however, to have been
personally a good-tempered and kind-hearted man. His Duchess, who
was a daughter of the Earl of Crawford, was a staunch friend and
protector of the persecuted clergy, and the Duke was wont to give
her a hint, when a warrant from the Privy Council compelled him to
institute a search after the preachers who were in hiding among
the woods of Leslie. ‘My lady,’ he used to say, ‘my hawks maun be
abroad the morn; ye had better look after your blackbirds.’ On his
deathbed he sent for some of the Covenanting ministers, and
entreated them to pray for him. The dukedom expired at his death
in 1661, but the ancient family titles
descended to his daughter, and since that time they have four
several times fallen upon female heirs, who have not always been
fortunate in their marriages. The present representative of the
family is the Countess Henrietta, who was born in
1832, and married in 1861 the Hon. George Waldegrave, third
son of the eighth Earl of Waldegrave. The Rothes estates,
according to the ‘Doomsday Book,’ consist of 3,562
acres, of the gross annual value of £7,343 5s.
Watches of the Titanic in
connection with the Countess of Rothes
From Barrie Leslie (pdf) |
