KINNOUL, earl of,
a title in the peerage of Scotland, conferred in 1633, on Sir George
Hay, viscount of Dupplin and Baron Hay of Kinfauns, second son of
Peter Hay of Megginch, descended from William Hay, second son of Sir
David de Haya of Errol, ancestor of the earls of Errol. Born in 1572,
he went about 1590 to the Scots college at Douay, where he studied
some years under his uncle, Edmund, professor of civil and canon law
there, well known as Father Hay, the Jesuit. On his return to Scotland
about 1596, he was introduced at court by his cousin, Sir James Hay of
Kingask. He was appointed by King James VI., a gentleman of his
bedchamber. The commendam of the priory of the Charterhouse of Perth
was also bestowed upon him, with a seat in parliament, 18th
February, 1598, and the ecclesiastical lands of Errol. Finding,
however, that the rents of the same were too small to support the
dignity of a lord of parliament, he resigned his seat. He was one of
those who attended the king to Perth, 5th August, 1600,
when the earl of Gowrie and his brother Alexander were killed, and he
received the lands of Netherliff or Nethercliff out of that nobleman’s
forfeited estate. He was knighted before 1610, and on 24th
December of that year, he obtained from the king a patent for the
manufacture of iron and glass in Scotland. On 26th March,
1616, he was appointed clerk-register, and admitted an ordinary lord
of session, and 16th January 1622, was constituted
lord-high chancellor of Scotland. He was created viscount of Dupplin
and Lord Hay of Kinfauns, 4th May 1627, and earl of Kinnoul,
by patent, dated 25th May 1633, to himself and his heirs
male whatever, being the first of the earls created by the king to
grace his coronation in Scotland. Sir James Balfour, lord lyon, states
that on the morning of the coronation he was sent by the king to the
earl of Kinnoul, to signify his majesty’s pleasure, that he should for
that day give precedence to the archbishop of St. Andrews (Spotswood).
The chancellor spiritedly replied, that “since his majesty had been
pleased to continue him 9in 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.” This reply being reported to the
king, he remarked: “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.” The earl died of apoplexy in London, 16th
December 1634, and was interred, on the 19th of the
following August, in the parish church of Kinnoul, in which an elegant
marble monument was erected to his memory, with his statue habited in
his chancellor’s robes. Arthur Johnston commemorated his virtues in a
long Latin epitaph, and an elegy on him by Sir James Balfour may be
found in the Denmiln MS. He had two sons. The elder, Sir Peter Hay,
predeceased him. The younger, George, second earl, a privy councillor
to King Charles I., and captain of the yeomen of the guard from 1632
to 1635, continued faithful to that ill-fated monarch, at the breaking
out of the civil wars, and in 1643, refused to sign the Solemn League
and Covenant. He died 5th October 1644.
His only
son, William, third earl, attached himself to the marquis of Montrose,
and was committed prisoner to the castle of Edinburgh, whence he made
his escape, 28th May 1654, and joining the royalist
general, Middleton, in the north, was again taken prisoner by the
English in the Braes of Angus, in the following November, after three
days’ pursuit through the snow. He died in 1677. He had two sons.
George, fourth earl, who died in 1687, without issue, and William,
fifth earl, who was at the court of St. Germain’s with James VII.,
after his abdication. On his return, he obtained a new patent in
favour of his kinsman, Thomas Hay, viscount of Dupplin, as his heir,
and died, unmarried, 10th May, 1709.
Thomas,
viscount of Dupplin, sixth earl of Kinnoul, was the third in descent
from Peter hay of Kirkland of Megginch, brother of the first earl of
Kinnoul. He was M.P. for Perthshire in 1693, and was created viscount
of Dupplin, by patent, dated 31st December 1697. He was one
of the commissioners of the union, and supported that treaty in the
last Scots parliament. He was afterwards a representative peer. In
1715, on the arrival of the earl of Mar in Scotland to organize the
rebellion, on his way north he paid a visit to his brother-in-law, the
earl of Kinnoul, at his seat of Dupplin in Perthshire, and the latter
was one of the suspected persons summoned by the lord advocate to
appear at Edinburgh and give bail for their allegiance to the
government. He was committed prisoner to the castle of Edinburgh, till
after the rebellion. He died in January 1719. With two daughters, he
had three sons, the youngest of whom, the Hon. Colonel John Jay of
Cromlix, accompanied the earl of Mar from England to the north of
Scotland, when that nobleman left London to place himself at the head
of the insurrection. Sent with a detachment of 200 horse to take
possession of Perth, he entered that town on the 14th
September 1715, and there proclaimed the chevalier. On the 18th
he was appointed by Mar, governor of Perth, and to support him, in
case of an attack, a party of the clan Robertson were sent to him,
under the command of Alexander Robertson of Struan, their chief. After
the failure of that rash enterprise he was forfeited by act of
parliament, and joining the exiled court in France, he held a post of
high confidence in the household of the Chevalier, by whom he was
created earl of Inverness. Between him and the earl of Mar an
irreconcilable difference existed, and his name often occurs in the
Lockhart papers relative to the after conduct of that nobleman. He had
married Marjory, third daughter of the fifth Viscount Stormont, sister
of the first earl of Mansfield, and to the behaviour of Hay and his
lady, who do not appear to have treated the princess Sobieski, the
wife of the Chevalier, with due respect, and to their ascendency over
the Pretender, were attributed all the intrigues and disagreements
that took place in the Chevalier’s household. Finding that,
notwithstanding her complaints, James was determined to retain Colonel
Hay in his service, the princess, on 15th November, 1725,
retired into a convent. By the efforts, however, of some of the
princess’s friends, assisted by several influential Jacobites, the
chevalier at length reluctantly dismissed Hay from his service.
The eldest
son, George, seventh earl of Kinnoul, was, when Lord Dupplin, chosen,
in 1710, M.P. for Fowey in Cornwall, and in the following year
appointed one of the tellers of the Exchequer. He was created a peer
of Great Britain, by the title of Baron Hay of Pedwardine, 31st
December 1711, being one of the twelve created the same day, to secure
a majority in the House of Lords, for the Tory administration. On the
breaking out of the rebellion in 1715, he was, with the earl of Jersey
and Lord Landsowne, taken into custody at London 21st
September, on suspicion of favouring the Pretender, but on the expiry
of the act for suspending the Habeas corpus bill, on the 24th
of the following June, was admitted to bail. In 1729 he was appointed
ambassador to Constantinople, where he remained till 1737. He died 28th
July 1758. By his countess, Lady Abigail Harley, second daughter of
the earl of Oxford and Mortimer, high-treasurer of Great Britain, he
had four sons and six daughters. Of his second son, Robert Hay
Drummond, archbishop of York, a memoir is given previously. The Hon.
Edward Hay, his youngest son, at one time consul-general of Portugal
and minister plenipotentiary to the court of Lisbon, died governor of
Barbadoes in 1779. Of this island Charles I. made a grant to Sir James
Hay, created earl of Carlisle, cousin of the first earl of Kinnoul.
His titles expired with his son, when Barbadoes devolved upon the
third earl of Kinnoul, who disposed of it to Charles II. in 1661.
Thomas,
eighth earl of Kinnoul, born in 1710, was, when Lord Dupplin, M.P. for
Cambridge, of which town he was recorder, and in addition to holding
various government offices, such as a lord of the treasury in 1754,
joint-paymaster of the forces in 1755, and chancellor of the duchy of
Lancaster in 1758, was sworn a privy councillor, and succeeded his
father the same year. In 1759 he was sent as ambassador extraordinary
and minister plenipotentiary to Portugal, to make satisfaction to the
court of Lisbon for the violation of the neutrality of the Portuguese
territory by Admiral Boscawen taking and burning, off Lagos, the
French ships commanded by M. De la Clue. In 1762 he resigned all his
public employments, and retired to his estate. In 1765 he was elected
chancellor of the university of St. Andrews, and in January 1768 was
chosen president of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian
Knowledge. To him the elegant bridge over the Tay at Perth, completed
in February 1772, may be said to have mainly owed its existence, as
besides contributing £500 towards the expense of its erection, he
strenuously exerted himself in procuring subscriptions. He died at
Dupplin, 27th December, 1787, in his 78th year.
His only son having died an infant, he was succeeded by his nephew,
Thomas Robert, son of his next brother, Robert Hay Drummond,
archbishop of York. It is remarkable that three of the six sons of
this eminent prelate came to untimely deaths. Peter Auriol Hay
Drummond, the third son, lieutenant-colonel of the fifth regiment of
West York militia, died in 1799, in consequence of a fall down the
staircase of his house. John Auriol Hay Drummond, the fourth son,
master and commander, R.N., was lost in the Beaver, prize, off St.
Lucia, in a hurricane, in 1780; and the youngest son, the Rev. George
William Auriol Hay Drummond, editor of his father’s sermons, was
drowned while on a voyage from Bideford in Devonshire to Greenock, the
ship having been cast away in a storm, on the night of the 6th
December, 1807.
Robert
Auriol Hay Drummond, the archbishop’s eldest son, ninth earl, born 18th
March, 1751, signed the protest on the regency bill, 29th
December, 1788. He was sworn a privy councillor, 29th April
1796, and on 30th September following, the king appointed
him lord lyon king at arms for Scotland, with succession to his son
Thomas Robert, Lord Dupplin. Like his grand-uncle, he was president of
the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, he died
April 12, 1804. He had 2 sons and 2 daughters. Sons, Thomas Robert, 10th
earl, and Hon. Francis John Hay Drummond of Cromlix, that estate and
Innerpeffrey, Perthshire, being settled as a perpetual provision for
the 2d branch of the Kinnoul family. This young gentleman, an ensign
2d foot-guards, was drowned, in his 25th year, Oct. 28,
1810, while endeavouring to cross on horseback the river Earn, swelled
by a heavy rain. Lady Henrietta, the elder daughter, married, in 1807,
Henry Drummond of the Grange, Hampshire, banker in London, M.P. and
F.R.S., grandson of Henry, 1st Viscount Melville. Lady
Sarah, the younger, married, in 1811, Rev. George Murray, son of the
bishop of St. David’s, and nephew of the duke of Athole.
Thomas
Robert, 10th earl, born in 1785, was appointed lord lyon
king at arms in 1804, the year of his succession to the earldom;
colonel Royal Perthshire militia 1809; lord-lieutenant of Perthshire
1830; F.R.S.A., and F.S.A. Scot. The family seat, Dupplin castle,
parish of Aberdalgie, Perthshire, burnt down in 1827, was rebuilt by
him, at the cost of £30,000. He married, in 1824, Louisa Burton,
youngest daughter of Admiral Sir Charles Rowley, baronet; issue 4 sons
and 5 daughters. Sons, 1. George, Viscount Dupplin, born in 1827,
lieutenant 1st life-guards, married, in 1848, Lady Emily,
3d daughter of duke of Beaufort, with issue. 2. Hon. Robert, capt.
Coldstream guards, died Oct. 1, 1855, from wounds received in the
trenches before Sebastopol. 3. Hon. Arthur, born in 1833, commander,
R.N., who assumed surname and arms of Drummond of Cromlix and
Innerpeffrey, Perthshire, on succeeding, at the death of his brother
Robert, in 1855, to these estates. 4. Hon. Charles Rowley, capt. Scots
fusilier guards.
