Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/52

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Lockhart
46
Lockhart

father's bairns’ (ib. p. 317). In 1712 Lockhart and the Jacobites succeeded in obtaining an act for the toleration of the episcopal clergy, and for the restoration of lay patronage. In 1713 they took advantage of the general antipathy to the proposed malt tax to organise among the Scottish members an unsuccessful movement for the repeal of the union. About the same time Lockhart successfully resisted an attempt to assimilate the English and Scottish militia, the measure being thrown out when many members had left the house in the belief that the discussion would not come on. In 1714 he introduced a bill resuming the bishops' revenues in Scotland and applying them to the episcopal clergy, but by the queen's command it was laid aside.

At the time of the rebellion in 1715, Lockhart was arrested at Dryden, his seat near Edinburgh, and confined in Edinburgh Castle, but shortly after was released at the instance of the Duke of Argyll, and he retired to his residence at Carnwath, Lanarkshire. Here he busied himself with preparations to join the rising, but his practices became known, and he was required by the Duke of Argyll to return to Dryden. While there he held nocturnal meetings with the Earl of Winton, Lord Kenmure, and other Jacobites, and raised a troop of horse, which, under the command of his brother Philip, joined the rebels at Biggar (ib. pp. 480–93). Before he had further committed himself he was arrested by a party of soldiers sent by Brigadier McIntosh, who brought him to Edinburgh Castle, where he endured a long imprisonment. He was ultimately set at liberty without a trial.

From about 1718 to 1727 Lockhart acted the part of the Chevalier's confidential agent and adviser in Scotland. He tried in vain to carry out Mar's project for obtaining six thousand bolls of oatmeal to be sent to Charles XII of Sweden (ib. ii. 8). Shortly afterwards, at the instance of Mar, he made an attempt to win over Argyll to the Jacobites, and barely escaped detection in connection with the unfortunate expedition to the highlands in 1718. When the captive Spanish battalion was brought south to Edinburgh, he obtained for Don Nicolas, the commander, ‘credit for as much money as was necessary for himself and his men’ (ib. ii. 24). On Lockhart's proposal the affairs of the Chevalier in Scotland were in 1722 entrusted to a body of trustees (ib. ii. 26), but the arrangement did not materially improve his prospects. He endeavoured also to establish an ecclesiastical committee of Scottish bishops to act conjointly with this secular body, but to be controlled by the will of their exiled sovereign. This led to serious internal dissensions among the episcopalians, and one indirect result was that the correspondence of Lockhart with the Chevalier fell in 1727 into the hands of the government (ib. ii. 330). A warrant was issued for his apprehension, but he made his escape to Durham, where he remained concealed in the house of a friend till 8 April 1727, when he sailed to Dort.

While in London in January 1725, Lockhart had had a violent quarrel at the Duke of Wharton's house in Lincoln's Inn Fields with the Duke of Hamilton, in reference to the ‘Memoirs of Scotland.’ A duel was proposed in the morning, but Lockhart was put under arrest (Read's Journal, Saturday, 30 Jan. 1725, quoted in Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. viii. 64).

Owing to the influence of Colonel Hay, titular earl of Inverness, Lockhart met with a somewhat indifferent reception at the exiled court. The Duke of Argyll and Duncan Forbes [q. v.], then lord advocate, who took a strong interest in Lockhart, obtained for him in 1728 a license to return to Scotland, and it was arranged that on his way north he should pass through London. Here he had an interview with the king, who told him that he ‘had been long in a bad way,’ and that he would judge by his future conduct how far he deserved the favour shown him (Lockhart Papers, ii. 397). Lockhart said afterwards that he would gladly have ‘evited’ the interview, but that being in the house of Rimmon he was under the necessity of ‘bowing the knee to Baal.’ On his return to Scotland he lived in great retirement, and entirely ceased his correspondence with the Chevalier, whose cause he regarded as hopeless so long as the management of his affairs remained in the hands of Inverness. He was killed in a duel 17 Dec. 1731. By his wife, Euphemia Montgomery, daughter of the eighth Earl of Eglinton, he had eight daughters and six sons, of whom George succeeded him, and Alexander of Craighouse became a lord of session. George prudently surrendered to Sir John Cope in 1746, on the day after the battle of Gladsmuir, and got off with a mild sentence of imprisonment. His son George continued ‘out’ after Culloden, escaped to Paris, and died there in 1761.

In 1714 there was published anonymously, without Lockhart's consent, ‘Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland from Queen Anne's Accession to the Throne to the commencement of the Union of the two Kingdoms of Scotland and England in May 1707. With an Account of the Origine and Progress of the