Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lockhart, George (1673-1731)
LOCKHART, GEORGE (1673–1731), of Carnwath, Jacobite and author, eldest son of Sir George Lockhart [q. v.], lord president of the court of session, by Philadelphia, daughter of the fourth Lord Wharton, was born in 1673. On the death of his father, 31 March 1689, he succeeded to an ample fortune. He soon manifested, rather in opposition to the traditions of his family, strong sympathies for the Stuarts, and became one of the most zealous and persistent of Jacobites. In 1702–7, and again in 1708–1710, he represented the city of Edinburgh in parliament, and in 1710–13, and 1713–15, the Wigton burghs. Much to his surprise he was in 1706 named a commissioner for the union with England. The government, he believed, thought by such means to win his support, and while pretending, with the knowledge and advice of the leading Jacobites, to accept the nomination as proof of his friendliness for the measure, faithfully reported to his Jacobite confederates all the proceedings of the commission, in order that methods might be more easily contrived for frustrating them (Lockhart Papers, i. 142–3). He avoided signing the articles by absenting himself from the last meeting of the commission on 23 July.
Lockhart discountenanced as premature the scheme for a rising promoted after the ratification of the union by Nathaniel Hooke [q. v.] On its failure he and his friends directed their chief efforts towards gaining the countenance of Queen Anne. When in 1710 the queen was being urged to dismiss Mrs. Masham, Lockhart was introduced to the queen by the Duke of Hamilton to present an address of loyalty. She expressed her belief that he was ‘an honest man and a fair dealer,’ whereupon the duke replied that Lockhart ‘liked her majesty and all her 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 designed Invasion from France in March 1708. And some Reflections on the Ancient State of Scotland. To which is prefixed an Introduction showing the reason for publishing these Memoirs at this juncture." To the second and third editions, published in the same year, there was added an appendix containing an account of the bribery employed to win support to the union. In the same year were printed separately 'A Key to the Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland' and a 'Protestant Index to Mr. Lock—t's Memoirs.' These are bound up with some copies of the second or third editions of the 'Memoirs.' Lockhart's Papers on the Affairs of Scotland,' including his 'Memoirs' and the correspondence of the Chevalier, appeared in 1817 in two volumes. The 'Lockhart Papers' are among the most valuable sources for the history of the Jacobite movement, Lockhart's sketches of the character of contemporary Scottish politicians are often strongly prejudiced, but indicate keen discernment of at least the weaknesses of human nature
[Lockhart Papers;. 1817; Stuart Papers, 1847; Correspondence of Nathaniel Booke; Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen; Forster's Members of the Scottish Parliament.]