WILLIAM, fourth Earl, whose mother was a daughter of Archibald Bell-the-Cat, succeeded him in 1530 and raised the family to its greatest height of wealth and power. He was selected by James V. to accompany him when he went to France, in 1530, for the purpose of marrying a lady belonging to the royal family; and after the death of that prince he was appointed, along with other six of the most influential nobles, to take charge of the person of his infant daughter. He was present at the sanguinary battle of Pinkie, in 1547, where his eldest son was taken prisoner. He seems at that time to have been favourable to the project of marrying the infant Queen to Prince Edward, for Sir Ralph Sadler mentions him as one ‘who hath ever borne a singular fond affection’ to King Henry, and his name appears for 300 marks on the list of that monarch’s pensioners. The Earl is believed to have been, at an early age, favourably inclined towards the Reformed faith, and was a friend of George Wishart, the martyr. He is said by Tytler to have been one of the persons associated with the Earl of Cassilis in the conspiracy to murder Cardinal Beaton. He seems to have retained the respect and confidence of the Queen-Dowager, Mary of Guise, though opposed to her policy, for along with the Earls of Argyll and Glencairn, and Lord James Stewart, he was summoned to the deathbed of that princess, when she expressed her great sorrow for the distracted state of the country, and earnestly recommended them to dismiss both the French and English forces, and to adhere firmly to their lawful sovereign.

When the Confession of Faith was ratified by the Parliament at Edinburgh, 17th July, 1560, Calderwood states that the Earl Marischal thus addressed the Estates, ‘It is long since I had some favour unto the truth and was somewhat jealous of the Roman religion; but, praised be God, I am this day fully resolved; for seeing my lords, the bishops, who, for their learning can, and for the zeal they owe to the truth, would, as I suppose, gainsay anything repugnant to the same, yet speak nothing against the doctrine proposed, I cannot but hold it the very truth of God, and the contrary of it false and deceavable doctrine. Therefore, so far as in me lieth, I approve the one and condemn the other, and do further ask of God that not only I but also my posterity may enjoy the comfort of the doctrine that this day our ears have heard. Further, I protest, if any persons ecclesiastical shall hereafter oppose themselves to this our Confession that they have no place or credit, considering that time of advisement being granted to them, and they having full knowledge of this our Confession, none is now found in lawful, free, and quiet Parliament, to oppose themselves to that which we profess. And therefore, if any of this generation pretend to do so after this, I protest he be reputed rather one that loveth his own commodity and the glory of the world, than the glory of God and salvation of men’s souls.’

The Earl was one of the twenty-four barons selected by the Estates, from among whom the Crown was to choose eight and the Estates six, to administer the Government. On the return of Queen Mary from France, Earl Marischal was sworn one of the Lords of her Privy Council. He took a deep interest in the affairs of the Protestant religion and the Church; and in the General Assembly of 1563 he was a member of the Committee appointed to revise the Book of Discipline. After the intestine strife which followed the murder of Darnley and the imprisonment of Queen Mary in Lochleven Castle, Earl Marischal retired to his castle of Dunnottar, which he so seldom quitted during the protracted civil broils of that period, that he received the sobriquet of ‘William of the Tower.’ His countess, Margaret, daughter and coheiress of Sir William Keith of Inverugie, brought that estate into the family. Inverugie Castle, a massive structure, now in ruins, on the north bank of the river Ugie, about two and a-half miles from Peterhead, was, next to Dunnottar, long a principal seat of the Keiths. It was founded in 1380 by John de Keith, who married Mariot Cheyne. Far distant though it was from Ercildoune, the seat of Thomas the Rhymer, he is said to have visited the place, and to have uttered the following prediction regarding it, from a stone in the vicinity of the castle :-

‘As lang ‘s this stane stands on this craft
The name o’ Keith shall be alaft;
But when this stane begins to fa’
The name o’ Keith shall wear awa’.

‘The stone,’ says Mr. Ferguson, ‘was removed in 1763; the last Earl Marischal sold the lands in 1766.’

Robert Keith, the younger son of the third Earl, was the last Abbot of Deer, a foundation of the Cistercians, situated in a sheltered hollow on the banks of the Ugie. His nephew, the second son of the fourth Earl, known in history as the Commendator of Deer, obtained the erection of the abbey and the abbey lands into a temporal lordship, 29th July, 1587, ‘to be callit in all tyme cuming, the lordship of Altrie.’ On the death of the Commendator, the estate and title devolved upon his nephew, George, the fifth Earl. Lord Keith, Earl William’s elder son, having predeceased him in 1580, he was succeeded, in 1581, by his grandson- 

GEORGE, fifth Earl Marischal, the founder of Marischal College, Aberdeen. He was educated at King’s College, in that city, where he distinguished himself by his proficiency in classical studies, and in the knowledge of the Hebrew language, and of history and antiquities. He subsequently spent several years at universities in France, along with his younger brother William, and then at Geneva, under the celebrated Beza, who gave him instruction in history, theology, and eloquence. The death of his brother, who lost his life in a riot among the citizens, caused him to leave Geneva and to travel through Germany and Italy, making himself acquainted with the language, and the manners and customs of the people. On his return to his native country he took part in various public affairs, and in 1589 he was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary to the Danish Court, to arrange the marriage of James VI. with Anne of Denmark. With his characteristic munificence, the Earl defrayed the whole expense of the embassy, which was conducted on a scale of unusual splendour. He did good service to the country in 1593 by inquiring into the secret and treasonable transactions of the Popish earls with the Court of Spain, and in 1609 he was appointed Lord High Commissioner to the Scottish Parliament. The memory of this great nobleman has been perpetuated mainly by his enlightened generosity displayed in the establishment of the college which bears his family title. The foundation charter, which is dated 2nd April, 1593, provided for the maintenance of a principal, three professors or regents, and six bursars; and appointed Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, geometry, geography, chronology, natural history, and astronomy to be taught in the college. At subsequent periods several additional chairs and a great number of bursaries were instituted in connection with this seminary, and the professorships were ultimately increased to thirteen. The ancient structure having fallen into decay, a grant of £25,000 was given by the House of Commons between 1840 and 1844, for the purpose of rebuilding it on a more extensive scale; but in 1858 Marischal College and King’s College were incorporated by Act of Parliament into one University.

The arrangement by which the rich temporalities of the Abbey of Deer came into the possession of Earl George, gave great dissatisfaction to his younger brother Robert Keith of Benholm, ‘probably because he had concluded in his own mind [not without reason] that the abbey lands formed a more appropriate estate for a cadet than for the chief of the family, the latter being already a rich man.’ He therefore made an attempt to take forcible possession of the abbey, which he kept for six weeks; but at last the Earl, with assistance from the northern shires and burghs, succeeded in dislodging his law-defying brother. Robert then retired to the Castle of Fedderat, where he stood a three days’ siege, which ended in his coming to a truce with the Earl, and the unseemly quarrel was terminated.

The rental of the abbey thus annexed to the Marischal estates amounted in 1565 to £572 8s. 6d., with thirteen and a half boils of wheat, fourteen chalders and ten boils of bear, [an inferior kind of barley] and sixty-three chalders nine bolls of meal. The yearly revenue of the earldom, augmented by this handsome addition, is alleged to have amounted to the enormous sum, in those days, of 270,000 marks. The estates were so extensive that it was commonly said that Earl Marischal could enter Scotland at Berwick, and travel through the country to its northern extremity without requiring ever to take a meal or a night’s rest off his own lands. But even at this period, when it had reached its greatest height of power and prosperity, a doom was believed to be impending over the family. Earl George survived till 1623, but, happily for himself, he was taken away before the evil days of the Great Civil War, which inflicted so much misery upon the country, and brought his ancient and illustrious house to the brink of ruin.

Patrick Gordon of Ruthven, in ‘A Short Abridgement of Britane’s Distemper, from the Yeares of God 1639 to 1649,’ gives the ‘relacion of a wonderfull vision,’ which, according to popular belief, foretold that the ancient house of the Marischal of Scotland was to date its slow decay and assured overthrow from the day of its ‘sacrilegious meddling with the Abbacy of Deer.’

‘This was a fearfull presiage of the fatal punishment which did hing over the head of that noble familie by a terrible vission to his grandmother, after the sacrilegious annexing of the Abbacie of Deir to the house of Marshell, which I think not unworthie the remembrance, were it but to advise other noblemen thereby to beware of meddling with the rents of the Church, for in the first foundation thereof they were given out with a curse pronounced in their charector, or evident of the first election, in those terms: Cursed be those that taketh this away from the holy use whereunto it is now dedicat; and I wish from my heart that this curse follow not this ancient and noble familie, who hath, to ther praise and never-dieing honour, contemned ther greatness, maintained ther honour, and, both piously and constantly has followed forth the way of virtue from that tym that the valour, worth, and happie fortoun of ther first predecessor planted them; and ever since the carriage of his heart, strength of his arme, and love of his country, made him happily to resist the cruel Danes. George, Earle Marshell, a learned, wise, and upright good man, got the Abbacie of Deir in recompence from James the Sixt, for the honourable charge he did bear in that ambassage he had into Denmark, and the wyse and worthy account he gave of it at his return by the conclusion of that match whereof the royal stock of Britane’s monarchy is descended.

‘This Earl George, his first wife dochter to the Lord Home, and grandmother to this present earle, being a woman both of a high spirit and of a tender conscience, forbids her husband to leave such a consuming moth in his house as was the sacrilegious meddling with the Abbacie of Deir; but fourteen score chalders of meil and beir was a sore temptation; and he could not weel endure the rendering back of such a morsel. Upon his absolute refusal of her demand, she had this vision the night following: in her sleepe she saw a great number of religious men, in ther habit, come forth of that Abbey to the stronge craige of Dunnottar, which is the principal residence of that familie. She saw them also set themselves round about the rock, to get it down and demolishe it, having no instruments nor tools wherewith to perform this work, but only pen-knyves, wherewith they foolishly (as it seemed to her) began to pick at the craig. She smiled to see them intend so fruitless an enterpryse, and went to call her husband, to scoff and jeer them out of it. When she had found him, and brought him to see these sillie religious monckes at ther foolish work, behold the whole craige, with all its stronge and stately buildings, was by ther pen-knyves undermined and fallen in the sea, so as there remained nothing but the wracke of ther rich furniture and stuff floating on the waves of a raging and tempestuous sea.

‘Some of the wiser sort, divining upon this vision, attribute to the pen-knyves the lenth of tym before this should come to pass; and it hath been observed by sundrie that the earles of that house before were the richest in the kingdom, having treasure and store beside them, but ever since the addition of this so great a revenue, they have lessened the stock by heavie burdens of debt and ingagment.’

Dr. Pratt says it is thought to have been in reference to this legend. or to some reproaches of a similar nature which were heaped on the Marischal family at the time, in consequence of their sacrilegious appropriation of the Abbey and its possessions, that they inscribed the unavailing defiance- 

‘They say,
Quhat say they? 
They haif said, 
Let thame say,’

on several of the buildings which they erected. On Marischal College, Aberdeen, which the Earl founded in 1593, and endowed with a portion of the doomed spoil, the inscription in large letters remained on the buildings till 1836, when they were taken down to make room for the present structure. The inscription, however, is preserved in the entrance-hall of the new college buildings.

‘Within seventy years of the time that Patrick Gordon wrote, the whole of the Marischal estates were confiscated, and an additional half century witnessed the extinction of the family. The Commendator -who took his title from Altrie, one of the estates of the abbey lying between Bruxie and Brucklay Castle-left no child to inherit his honours; and so utterly has the name perished that, instead of being called ‘in all time coming the Lordship of Altrie,’ the name scarcely remains even as a tradition.

‘Meddle nae wi’ holy things,
For ‘gin ye dee [do],
A weird I rede in some shape
Shall follow thee.

Altrie is now called Overtown and Newtown of Bruxie.’

WILLIAM, sixth Earl, who succeeded to the family titles and estates on the death of his father, in 1623, left four sons, of whom the two eldest were successively the representatives of the house. The Great Civil War had a fatal influence on the fortunes of the house of Keith. WILLIAM, the seventh Earl Marischal, who inherited the family titles and estates in the year 1635, was a staunch Covenanter; and when the rash and dangerous attempt of Charles and Laud to force a new Service-book on the people of Scotland roused the whole country to arms, the Earl unhesitatingly cast in his lot with the popular party. In 1639, when the young Earl of Montrose, afterwards the famous Royalist general, was sent by the Tables with a powerful army to compel the citizens of Aberdeen to subscribe the Covenant, the Earl Marischal, says Spalding, had one of the five colours carried on that occasion, having this motto drawn in letters: ‘For Religion, the Covenant, and the Country.’ He was subsequently present at the ‘Trot of Turriff,’ as the skirmish was termed in which blood was first shed in this disastrous civil war, and took part with Montrose in the second occupation of Aberdeen, in the ‘Raid of Stonehaven,’ where the Royalist Highlanders were put to flight by the artillery brought from the Castle of Dunnottar, and in the conflict at the Bridge of Dee, where the royalists, under Lord Aboyne, were again defeated, and forced to flee, leaving Aberdeen once more at the mercy of the victorious party. The Earl was one of the nobles who signed the famous Cumbernauld Bond, in 1641, for the support of the royal authority against the designs of the extreme party, headed by the Marquis of Argyll. But though at this juncture he concurred with Montrose in his apprehensions that the Covenanters were pressing demands which infringed on the power and prerogative of the sovereign, he refused to follow that Earl when he deserted his party and went over to the side of the king. In consequence of this refusal he incurred the bitter hatred of his former friend and associate. In 1645, when Montrose marched to the north, after his defeat of the Covenanters at Tippermuir, he encamped at Stonehaven, and sent a letter to Earl Marischal, who had shut himself up in Dunnottar along with a considerable body of clergymen and persons of distinction in the district. The Earl, however, declined to admit the bearer of the letter into his castle, and sent him away without an answer. An application made to Lord Marischal through his brother was equally unsuccessful. All that Montrose wanted, he was told, was that ‘the Earl should serve the king his master against his rebellious subjects, and that if he failed to do so, he would feel his vengeance.’ Marischal, however, declined to comply with this demand, declaring that ‘he would not be against the country.’

In consequence of this refusal, Montrose at once subjected the Earl’s estates to military execution. He first set fire to the houses adjoining the castle, and burnt the grain stacked in the barn-yards. He next committed to the flames the town of Stonehaven, which he burnt to ashes, destroying even the boats of the poor fishermen, thus depriving them of the means of subsistence. The lands and houses of Cowie and the woods of Fetteresso shared the same fate, and the whole district was plundered and laid waste. The Earl was deeply affected when he witnessed from his stronghold the destruction of his property and the ruin of his helpless vassals, who assembled in crowds before the castle gates, imploring him to save them from ruin. Spalding, who seldom misses an opportunity of sneering at the Covenanters, and especially at their clergy, says, ‘The famous Andrew Cant, who was among the number of the Earl’s ghostly company, edified his resolution at once to its original pitch of firmness, by assuring him that that reek would be a sweet-smelling incense in the nostrils of the Lord, rising as it did from property which had been sacrificed to the holy cause of the Covenant.’ When the affairs of the king had become desperate, however, the Earl joined the ‘Engagement,’ and raised a troop of horse to assist in the attempt to rescue him from the hands of the Republicans. He was present at the rout of Preston, from which, more fortunate than most of his associates, he succeeded in effecting his escape. He was one of the Committee of Estates, who were seized by a troop of English horse at Alyth in 1651, and was committed to the Tower, where he remained a prisoner for nine years, having been excepted from Cromwell’s ‘Act of Grace and Pardon’ in 1654. At the Restoration he was sworn a member of the Privy Council, and appointed Keeper of the Privy Seal, but died soon after, in 1661, and was succeeded by his brother GEORGE, eighth Earl.

The circumstance which probably contributed not a little to incense the Protector against the Earl Marischal was the obstinate and protracted resistance which his castle of Dunnottar made to the forces of the Commonwealth after the rest of the country had submitted to its authority. On the surrender of Edinburgh Castle this strong sea-girt fortress had been selected as the most secure place in the kingdom in which to deposit the Scottish Regalia-the crown, sceptre, and sword of state. The small garrison, under the command of Mr. George Ogilvie, of Barras, held out gallantly for many months, but as provisions began to fail the governor foresaw that in the end he would be obliged to surrender. Anxious to prevent the symbols of Scottish sovereignty from falling into the hands of the besiegers, who, he was aware, were eager to obtain possession of them, he formed a plan, in conjunction with the Dowager Countess of Marischal, and the Rev. Mr. Grainger, minister of Kinneff, for conveying the precious ‘honours’ to a place of safety. Mrs. Grainger was the principal agent in carrying the scheme into effect. Having obtained permission from the English general to visit the wife of the governor of the castle, she received from that lady, but without the knowledge of her husband, the crown, which she carried away in her lap. The sceptre and sword, wrapped up in a bundle of ‘hards’ or lint, to be spun for Mrs. Ogilvie, were placed on the back of a female attendant, and mistress and maid were allowed to pass unchallenged through the English camp. On reaching the manse of Kinneff, Mrs. Grainger delivered the crown, sceptre, and sword to her husband, who buried them under the floor of his church. He imparted the secret to no one but the Countess Marischal, who gave out that the Regalia had been carried to the Continent by her younger son, Sir John Keith, and delivered to Prince Charles at Paris. When the castle surrendered, three months afterwards, the disappointment of the English general was extreme on finding that the Regalia had been removed, and every effort was made, but in vain, to discover where they were concealed. The governor was treated with great severity and was imprisoned, and, it is said, was even tortured to make him disclose the secret. His lady was subjected to similar seventies, and her health sunk under the close confinement, but with her dying breath she entreated her husband to preserve inviolate the trust committed to him. The minister of Kinneff and his courageous wife did not escape suspicion and harsh treatment, but nothing could be extorted from them respecting the concealment of the treasure under their charge. The secret was faithfully kept till the Restoration, eight years afterwards, when the Regalia was exhumed and placed under official custody. Rewards were then distributed to the persons who had taken part in the affair, but they were bestowed with more regard to rank and influence than to merit. Sir John Keith, whose only share in the transaction was in giving the use of his name to put the English on a false scent, was made Knight Marischal, with a salary of £400 a year, and was afterwards raised to the peerage under the title of Earl of Kintore. Ogilvie, whose patrimonial estate had been impoverished by the fines and sequestrations imposed by the English, received the merely honorary reward of a baronetcy, and Mrs. Grainger was recompensed with the sum of two thousand marks Scots.

Part 3 - GEORGE KEITH, 8TH EARL MARISCHAL

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