Duffus; Barbara to Alexander Innes of Innes; and Agnes to Andrew Hay, seventh earl of Errol.
[Knox's Works; Histories by Bishop Lesley and Calderwood; Register of the Privy Council of Scotland; Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot.; Cal. State Papers, For., during the reign of Elizabeth; Gordon's Earldom of Sutherland; Sinclair's Sinclairs in England and Caithness Events; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), i. 296–7.]
SINCLAIR, GEORGE, fifth Earl of Caithness (1566?–1643), born about 1566, was the son of John, master of Caithness, who died of ill-treatment while in prison at Girnigo in 1576, by Lady Jean Hepburn, only daughter of Patrick, third earl of Bothwell, and widow of John Stewart (1531–1564?) [q. v.], prior of Coldingham. He succeeded his grandfather George, fourth earl [q. v.], in 1582. In 1584 his office of justiciary of Caithness was reduced at the instance of the Earl of Huntly (Acta Parl. Scot. iii. 357–60; Gordon, Earldom of Sutherland, p. 178). Not long afterwards he resolved to take vengeance on his father's gaolers, David and Ingram Sinclair, running the one through the body, and, shortly afterwards, shooting the other through the head (Gordon, p. 180). He deemed it advisable to come to terms with the Earl of Sutherland, and the two earls were reconciled in the presence of Huntly (ib. p. 181); on 18 May he received a remission under the great seal for the murder of David Hume and also of the Sinclairs (Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 1580–1593, No. 826). In February 1594–5 the bond which Huntly, Caithness, and nobles of catholic sympathies had entered into with the rebellious Earl of Bothwell was revealed to the privy council by Scott of Balwearie (Reg. P. C. Scotl. v. 205; Calderwood, Hist. v. 359–60), and in 1606 Caithness, Sutherland, and other nobles suspected of papacy were ordered to confine themselves within the bounds of certain towns (ib. vi. 608). But, though at one in religious matters, the two earls continued so hostile to each other that on 7 Aug. of the same year both were commanded to sign an assurance to keep the peace under pain of rebellion (Reg. P. C. Scotl. vii. 233), and on 1 Nov. 1608 they were again commanded to sign a similar assurance to last until 1 Jan. 1610, and to find caution in ten thousand marks (ib. viii. 186). Baulked of his customary excitement from his feud with Sutherland, Caithness amused himself with an outrage on some servants of the Earl of Orkney, who had been forced to touch at Caithness through stress of weather. After making them drunk with whisky he shaved one side of their heads and beards, and sent them to sea, although the storm had not abated (Gordon, p. 258). On 3 March 1609 the king wrote a letter to the council about the outrage (Reg. P. C. Scotl. viii. 570–1), and Caithness finally bound himself in future to allow a free and safe passage to all his majesty's subjects through Caithness. In the following year complaint was made by Sir Robert Gordon to the king that Caithness was employing one Arthur Smith to coin false money which was being circulated throughout the northern counties. A commission having been granted to Gordon to apprehend Smith, certain of the Sinclairs were killed in endeavouring to rescue him, while Smith himself, to prevent his escape, was put to death by his captors. Both parties thereupon complained to the privy council; but the matter was finally adjusted on 28 May 1612, when criminal proceedings were relinquished on condition that the two earls came under an obligation to keep the peace to each other (ib. ix. 382).
On 12 Nov. 1612 Caithness was appointed to a commission of the peace (ib. p. 487), and in the following year he recommended himself to the privy council by delivering up his kinsman, Lord Maxwell, who had taken refuge at Castle Sinclair (Gordon, p. 289). On 26 May 1614 he received a commission for the pursuit, capture, and punishment of certain pirates infesting the coasts between Peterhead and Shetland (Reg. P. C. Scotl. x. 241), and on 12 July he was named one of a commission for the apprehension of jesuit priests in Caithness (ib. p. 251). On 6 Aug. following he was appointed the king's lieutenant for the repression of the rebellion of the Earl of Orkney, a task in every way congenial to him (ib. p. 262; Gordon, p. 299; see art. Stewart, Patrick, second Earl of Orkney). The Earl of Orkney having been warded in the castle of Dumbarton, his natural son, Robert Stewart, had fortified himself in Kirkwall, and openly defied the king's authority; but Caithness was entirely successful in the expedition against the son, compelling the garrison to surrender by Michaelmas day (Calderwood, Hist. vii. 193–4; Gordon, p. 300; Reg. P. C. Scotl. ix. 701–6, 711–14). Shortly afterwards Caithness visited the king in London, when he received for his services a pension of one thousand crowns (Gordon, p. 310). But in the following year his irrepressible lawlessness completely lost him the king's favour. Lord Forbes having inherited some lands in Caithness from his brother-in-law, George Sinclair, Caithness resolved at all hazards to compel him to resign them. He therefore,
