Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/282

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
H
276
H

the Duke of Newcastle made him a lord of the treasury. He often negotiated money affairs for the government in the city, and in the House of Commons defended the ministry in regard to many money transactions. In 1755 Dupplin was made joint paymaster with Lord Darlington. According to Horace Walpole, Dupplin was then reckoned among the thirty ablest men in the House of Commons, and it was said of him that he ‘aimed at nothing but understanding business and explaining it.’ He was well known in general political and literary society, and his friends included Lord-chancellor Hardwicke, Lord Mansfield, and Archbishop Secker. He knew Gay, and was acquainted with Pope. He is the prating ‘Balbus’ of Pope's ‘Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.’

When, in 1756, it was suggested to Newcastle that he should strengthen his position by securing the co-operation of Fox, Dupplin strongly opposed the step. In 1757 he declined an offer of the chancellorship of the exchequer in the Duke of Newcastle's second administration, but later in the year there was much talk of his replacing Lord Halifax as first lord of trade. In 1758 he entered Newcastle's second ministry as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and a privy councillor, and succeeded his father in the same year as Earl of Kinnoull. Next year he was sent as ambassador extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Portugal with a view to make satisfaction to the court of Lisbon for the violation of Portuguese neutrality by Admiral Boscawen, who had taken and burned French ships off Lagos.

Kinnoull, whose health suffered from his official work, retired into private life in 1762, when the Duke of Newcastle ceased to be premier. He thenceforth resided on his estates in Perthshire, encouraging his tenants to improve the land by granting them leases at moderate rents and erecting new houses and farm-buildings. Owing to his efforts, a bridge (completed in 1771 after Smeaton's designs) was built at Perth over the Tay.

In 1765 Kinnoull was elected chancellor of the university of St. Andrews, an office which he held during the remainder of his life. He was likewise president of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge in Scotland. He died at Dupplin Castle, Perthshire, on 27 Dec. 1787. Some of his correspondence with the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, T. Hurdis, and others is preserved among the Addit. MSS. at the British Museum.

On 12 June 1741 he married Constantia, only daughter and heiress of John Kyrle Crule of Whithaven in Wiltshire, by whom he had an only son (b. 12 Aug. 1742), who died in infancy. His nephew, Robert Auriol Hay, succeeded as ninth earl.

[Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, Wood's ed. vol. ii.; Horace Walpole's Memoirs; Scots Mag.; First Statistical Hist. of Scotland, 1795; Smiles's Lives of the Engineers, vol. ii.; Walpole's Letters, ed. Cunningham, ii. 376, 378–9, 492, iii. 68, 84, 269, 286; Pope's Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, iii. 262, viii. 247, 300, 304, 309.]

J. T.

HAY, WILLIAM, fifth Lord Yester (d. 1576), supporter of Mary Queen of Scots, was the eldest son of John, fourth lord Yester, by his wife Margaret, eldest daughter of the fourth Earl of Livingstone. His father, who was taken prisoner at the battle of Pinkie in 1547, and was for some time in confinement, died in 1557. The son was served heir in 1559. He had been living in France, and on 20 June of this year received a passport from Elizabeth into Scotland (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1558–9, entry 863). Writing to Sir William Cecil on 20 June, Throckmorton states that he is mistrusted and a great papist (ib. p. 870). Nevertheless he was one of the noblemen who subscribed the ‘Book of Discipline’ in the Tolbooth on 27 Jan. 1560–1 (Knox, Works, ii. 129). He also signed the treaty of Berwick. On 14 Feb. 1561–2 the queen confirmed a charter to him and his wife Margaret Ker of the lands of Belton, with manor, turret, and fortalice, in the county of Haddington (Reg. Mag. Sig. ii. entry 1410). He was present as one of the extraordinary lords of the privy council at the meeting at Edinburgh, 1 Aug. 1565, when the Earl of Moray was charged to appear before the king and queen (Reg. P. C. Scotl. i. 347), and in the ‘roundabout raid’ against Moray was one of those who commanded the van which was nominally led by Darnley (ib. p. 379). From this time he was among the steadiest supporters of the queen. He was one of the first to join her and Bothwell after their flight from Borthwick Castle to Dunbar, and marched with his dependents to her support at Carberry Hill. When it was determined to convey her to Lochleven, Hay and other nobles gathered to attempt her relief, but circumstances proved unfavourable (Keith, Hist. ii. 647). He also signed the band for the deliverance of the queen from Loch Leven, and fought for her at Langside. In March 1570 he subscribed the letter to the queen of England advising her to unite the Scottish factions ‘as one flock under the obedience of one head by entering into conditions with the queen of Scotland’ (printed in Calderwood, ii. 547–50). He abandoned his endeavours when Queen Mary's cause became hopeless. His name appears as a member of the privy coun-