GRAHAM, James (1682-1742)

Montrose combined in his person two very different Scottish political traditions: the exemplary Stuart loyalism of his paternal great-grandfather, the James Graham, marquess of Montrose [S], and the Covenanting sympathies of his maternal ancestors, the Leslies, earls of Rothes. At first, the Graham inheritance appeared paramount. His conduct while travelling abroad as a young man alarmed his redoubtable Presbyterian mother, who heard rumours that he had kissed the hand of the exiled James II in France, and feared that a request to visit Rome might betoken a change of religion. NAS, GD 220/5/7. Although no other evidence survives to suggest youthful enthusiasm for the Stuart cause, Montrose’s ancestry commended him to those of a Jacobite cast of mind, like George Lockhart^‡, who observed that when he ‘first appeared in the world he had enough to recommend him to the love and affection of the nation ... by being the representative of that noble, loyal and worthy family. And his interest increased to so great a degree by his good behaviour after he came from his travels’. Lockhart Mems. 92. Time spent in foreign courts had indeed led to ‘improvements’ in his accomplishments, and other observers detected ‘a sweetness of behaviour, which charms all those who know him’. Macky Mems. 192. Moreover, at his debut in Scottish politics Montrose was sufficiently in tune with cavalier opinion to be outraged by the introduction into the Scottish Parliament in June 1702 of an oath of abjuration, and by threatening opposition forced the hand of the queen’s commissioner (and the leader of the Scottish court party), James Douglas, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], who adjourned Parliament to frustrate the abjuration project. NAS, GD 220/5/30/1.

Over the following winter Queensberry sought to recruit Montrose with offers of patronage and an invitation to present himself at court in London, but at the same time James Hamilton, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], was also urging him to enlist with the ‘country party’. NAS, GD 220/5/30/2-3, 34-35. Beset by the blandishments of Queensberry and his followers, Montrose played for time, acknowledging Queensberry’s ‘kindness’ but declining to travel to England and stating his determination not to ‘engage in anything till I find how my behaviour be approved in the next parliament’. He added, somewhat enigmatically, that while he would ‘ever make it my study to serve the queen ... I can’t promise how that word service may be constructed, for I have frequently known very different sense put upon it’. NAS, GD 124/15/225. In fact, he was ‘very hearty’ in support of the country party in the election, and as the new Parliament approached, he joined some of Hamilton’s followers, including the cavalier William Keith, 8th Earl Marischal [S], in concerting measures with whiggish oppositionists like John Hay, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S], the very men who had supported the abjuration in the previous summer. Blair Atholl, Atholl mss, 45/II/169; NAS, GD 205/34/2/7, 9.

Montrose took his seat in May 1703 and promptly aligned himself ‘in the duke of Hamilton’s interest’. Seafield Letters, 2; Crossrig Diary, 109, 135. In one speech he made a vehement plea to his fellow countrymen to defend their traditional ‘liberties’, and went so far as to denounce the court party as ‘wholly determined by English councils’. HMC Portland, iv. 66-67. When the discovery of the ‘Scotch Plot’ in the following winter encouraged the lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin to seek a settlement of the succession in Scotland, Queensberry was told that neither Hamilton nor Montrose would comply. NLS, ms 3414, p. 284. These comments were consistent with the account of a Jacobite agent that Hamilton and Montrose were among ‘les principaux amis du roi en Écosse’. Bodl. Carte 180, f. 388. In the spring of 1704 Montrose was still on good terms with the likes of Lockhart, although at the same time he was being approached by the English ministers, as part of a campaign to detach elements of the opposition in Scotland. Lockhart Letters, 3-4. His kinsman and factor, Mungo Graham^‡, journeyed to London in the spring of 1704, ostensibly on business relating to the purchase of property, but was introduced to the queen by James Ogilvy, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), and given assurances of the high regard in which his master’s family was held. W. Fraser, Earls of Cromartie, i. 224; NAS, GD 220/5/73/1.

The result of these various negotiations was the displacement of Queensberry by the whiggish elements of the country opposition, a faction known first as the ‘New Party’, and later as the Squadrone Volante, with Tweeddale appointed parliamentary commissioner. The attempts of the New Party to settle the succession were undermined by Hamilton, who remained in opposition, and who insisted that a treaty with England be agreed before the succession was considered. Tweeddale, on the defensive, sought to buy time by obtaining a six months’ cess, but Hamilton proposed two months instead, and then only after the passage of measures ‘to secure the religion, liberty and independence of this nation’, and the nomination of treaty commissioners. NLS, ms 7121, f. 30; Crossrig Diary, 142. Montrose intervened in the debate to move successfully that, ‘seeing some time was necessary for concerting measures with her Majesty we should not dispute for two months supply’; in addition, it was said, he ‘more or less declared his willingness to grant the six months’. Edinburgh UL, Laing mss, La.I. 180.8b. In writing to Tweeddale, Godolphin noted that ‘the queen is very well pleased ... that my Lord Montrose has carried himself so well, and will be very willing to let him see, that to begin with serving her Majesty is the right way to her favour’. NLS, ms 7104, f. 95. As far as Lockhart was concerned, though, Montrose had sold out his old friends. He found it hard to understand how a young man with such a proud heritage could make common cause with descendants of those who had persecuted ‘his glorious great-grandfather’: had Montrose continued in Parliament as he had begun, ‘he would have been acknowledged and followed as the head and leader of the cavaliers. But being of an easy, mean-spirited temper, governed by his mother and her relations (the family of Rothes) and extremely covetous, he could not resist the first temptation the court threw in his way.’ Lockhart Pprs. i. 98, 118-19.

Once the session ended Montrose was subject to further pressure to accept the office of lord high admiral of Scotland, along with a pension of £1,000 p.a. John Leslie, 9th earl of Rothes [S], told Tweeddale that ‘however he may be looked upon in England he is as ill looked upon by the Jacobites here as either your Lordship or I’, and John Ker, 5th earl of Roxburghe [S], told Tweeddale that ‘if he is not employed we shall look very simple’. Montrose initially declined but gave way when Roxburghe joined Tweeddale in pressing him, though he declined the pension and accepted the office only ‘as a mark of her Majesty’s favour’. NLS, ms 14415, ff. 67-68; 14413, f. 141; NAS, GD 220/5/89/1; CSP Dom. 1704-5, p. 280; Seafield Letters, 22, 31-32. From the Squadrone’s point of view, Montrose was a vital ally. They considered it likely that he would oppose the government unless provided for, and that he ‘wants not interest of his own’. Baillie Corresp. 39-40. However, when news of the appointment reached the new parliamentary commissioner, John Campbell, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], it was blocked. P.W.J. Riley, Union, 131, 136. An angry Montrose wrote to the queen that Argyll ‘has been pleased to stop my commission at the seals. I make no doubt he has informed your majesty of his reasons for so doing. I thought it was my duty not to insist in that matter till such time as your majesty shall please to signify your further orders to me.’ Seafield Letters, 37; NAS, GD 220/5/89/2; Baillie Corresp. 50. Argyll’s antagonism seems to have been rooted in a traditional animosity between the two families, to which was now added a sense of personal grievance on the part of Montrose. HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 303; Riley, Union, 136. Although his nomination as admiral was eventually confirmed, Montrose and his followers lined up alongside the New Party in opposition in 1705. Clerk Mems. 56; Baillie Corresp. 97; Crossrig Diary, 165. But he found himself embarrassed by what was seen as evidence of ‘unsteady principles’ and on one occasion was twitted by Hamilton for abandoning his former allies. HMC Portland, iv. 211. At this point Argyll changed tack and attempted to separate Montrose from the Squadrone by offering him the place of president of the council. Some of Queensberry’s supporters joined in trying to persuade him, but the Squadrone Member George Baillie^‡ stated his confidence that Montrose would never be won over by Argyll. Baillie Corresp. 104-5. Eventually, after several refusals, Montrose did exchange the admiral’s place for that of president of the council in Scotland in March 1706, at a salary of £2,000 p.a., but not to gratify Argyll. Lockhart Pprs. i. 159; Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 31; CTB, xxii. 175. It was reported that his acceptance was entirely Queensberry’s doing, and that while he gave Queensberry’s party assurances ‘of his being in the same interest with us’, he had made it clear that ‘he would not accept upon terms, so he is at liberty’. Proof came when he refused to serve as one of the Scottish union commissioners; indeed, he hesitated to support the treaty even after Roxburghe and others of the Squadrone declared their approval of it. HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 251-3; Baillie Corresp. 149-51. His preciosity, tending sometimes to equivocation, could be trying for his friends: on 19 Sept. Roxburghe wrote that Montrose ‘was plainer than usual; that is so as to make one guess what he inclines to, but said nothing that looked like being determined, save that matters were now come to that pass that things were to be minded, and not persons’. Roxburghe also noted that Montrose ‘spoke too of the uncertainty of the court’s being in earnest, which was more than ever past betwixt him and me before.’ Baillie Corresp. 159. When the treaty came before Parliament Montrose supported ratification. Queensberry’s cronies reported in October that Montrose had ‘fully declared himself’ in favour of Union, and had ‘acted a fair and handsome part’ in the preparations for the session, persuading his friends to follow his lead, and also helping to bring the Squadrone on board. HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 284, 286-8, 294. Although on one occasion, in November 1706, he sided with the court party against the Squadrone and Argyll in a skirmish over procedure, he did not deviate from commitment to ratification, despite the intimidation of the Edinburgh mob. Crossrig Diary, 174; Seafield Letters, 99; HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 298, 300; Riley, Union, 266, 334. In response to favourable reports of his conduct the queen wrote to express her gratification that the ‘account which I have received ... of the zeal and industry which you have shown for my service, with so good success, has given me such satisfaction that I cannot but take notice of it to you myself’. HMC 3rd Rep. 368.

Montrose’s contribution to the passage of the Union was rewarded by promotion in the peerage, while two of his followers (Mungo Graham and John Haldane^‡) received preferment in his wake. HP Commons, 1690–1715, iv. 65, 153. At a more mundane level, he shared in the allocation of funds provided for ‘arrears’ to Scottish officials, receiving £200 for a non-existent claim. Lockhart Mems. 257, 259; A.I. Macinnes, Union and Empire, 294. He had also guaranteed himself a place as one of the representative peers sent to the first Parliament of Great Britain. Queensberry’s political lieutenant, John Erskine, 22nd earl of Mar [S], reported that ‘we brought everybody who had been for the Union to be content to name three of the New Party beside my Lord Montrose, who is very intimate with them’. HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 374. In an analysis by Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S] in 1707 he was noted as ‘for the Revolution a good countryman will not be led off’. He was expected to be able to influence Roxburghe and Tweeddale, as well as their friends in the Commons James Halyburton^‡, John Bruce^‡ and Sir Peter Halket^‡, and his own associates, Graham and Haldane.

In April 1707 Montrose was in London, arranging to wait upon Godolphin on 26 Apr. and on 19 May was summoned to attend the queen on the following day, whereupon he was added to the British Privy Council alongside Queensberry and three other courtiers. Ibid. 393; NAS, GD 220/5/108/3; 220/5/121; NLS, ms 14415, f. 150. He was back in Glasgow by 2 July, reporting to Mar with some gratification that opposition to Union had subsided, especially among the trading classes: ‘It is very easy for England to gain our people’, he wrote, ‘let them but do us justice and make us a good continuance and they certainly have us.’ NAS, GD 124/15/623/6; HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 400. He was still in Scotland on 10 Oct., less than a fortnight before Parliament assembled, but had reached London by the 23rd when he was present in the Lords when the names of the representative peers were read out. In all, Montrose attended on 97 days of the session, 91 per cent of the total. The Queensberryites in turn had now become suspicious that Montrose was too close to the Squadrone, and when the session began their fears were justified. HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 420; Atholl mss, 45/7/206. With the help of the Whig Junto, the Squadrone mounted a campaign to weaken the Scottish court party by introducing changes to the government of Scotland, most notably the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council. A bill to this effect was introduced into the Commons on 29 Nov. and in the ensuing debate Montrose and Roxburghe, ‘who are of a side, were waiting the event in the gallery’. NAS, GD 112/39/210/16. On 5 Feb. 1708 the bill received its second reading in the Lords, and was referred to a committee of the whole, where an unsuccessful attempt was made to delay the abolition until 1 Oct. 1708. Only four Scots opposed the amendment – three Squadrone lords and Montrose – and at the third reading two days later all the Scots peers present protested against it except the same quartet. HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 427; Addison Letters, 90. Montrose was named to 13 committees including that on the bill to establish a court of exchequer in Scotland, where on 5 Mar. he was deputed to prepare a clause on the bill and the committee of 31 Mar. to manage a conference on the bill encouraging trade with America. HMC Lords, n.s. vii. 576. On a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain he was marked as a Whig.

Although anxiety about the French invasion attempt made Montrose eager to return home once the session ended, he delayed his journey until negotiations were well under way for a pre-election pact between the Squadrone and Hamilton, brokered by the Junto, a reversal of alliances which Montrose, because of his former association with Hamilton, may well have played a part in bringing about. HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 450. According to Lockhart, Montrose was one of those to whom the Pretender had originally addressed letters of appeal to accompany the invasion. Lockhart Mems. 126. Concern for the success of the electoral scheme prompted Montrose in April to denounce the arbitrary arrest of Hamilton and other Scottish peers suspected of involvement in the projected rising, and to try to fix the blame on Queensberry. HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 439. But on 7 May the Whig secretary of state Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, was able to confirm that Hamilton’s release had ‘produced such an union, as will in all probability carry the election of the 16 peers, in the manner ... all of us wish’, and that ‘the whole Squadrone is in the list agreed on’. NAS, GD 220/5/172/1. Montrose arrived in Edinburgh on 29 May for the forthcoming election. Add. 61628, f. 90. In reporting to Sunderland the progress of elections in Scotland to both Houses, he identified himself with Squadrone and Whig interests, though it was still to be some time before outside observers would regard him as a full member of the Squadrone. Priv. Corr. D. M. ii. 259; Add. 61628, f. 138; Riley, Eng. Ministers and Scotland, 31. At the same time Richard Dowdeswell, in reporting to George Tilson in Whitehall, explicitly excluded Montrose from the ranks of the court party. TNA, SP54/3/29. In the peers’ election on 17 June he voted in person for the list agreed on with Hamilton, and on behalf of William Cheyne^‡, 2nd Viscount Newhaven [S], by proxy for the same list with one exception. He was also vocal in protesting against Queensberry being allowed to vote and against several court proxies, namely George Forester, 5th Lord Forester [S] for being underage and David Ogilvy, 3rd earl of Airlie [S], for not having a properly sealed proxy. NLS, ms 1026, ff. 8, 28, 34. He received sufficient votes himself (48) to secure election, although the Squadrone as a whole did much less well than they had hoped and were obliged to put their faith in the assistance of their Whig friends in adjusting the results through parliamentary inquiry. Add. 61628, ff. 143-4, 169; NLS, ms 1026, f. 23; NAS, GD 124/15/831/25.

Pressing letters from Sunderland and John Somers, Baron Somers, hastened Montrose’s departure for London, Sunderland requesting his presence urgently ‘for the right interest of Britain, and for everything that may contribute towards making the Union entire and complete’. NAS, GD 220/5/172/7-8; SHR, lviii. 163; NLS, ms 7021, ff. 134-5; Haddington mss at Mellerstein, 3 [Roxburghe to Baillie], 23 Nov. 1708. Although the Journal records Montrose as attending on 18 Nov. 1708, correspondence shows that he arrived in London on 24 Nov., and took the oaths at the next available sitting on 26 November. Add. 72488, ff. 35-36; Haddington mss, 3, Baillie to wife, 25 Nov. 1708. He attended regularly in December as the election inquiry gathered momentum. Tension was growing between the Squadrone and the Junto over the Whigs’ failure to secure Queensberry’s dismissal, and Montrose was present at a meeting of party leaders on 11 Dec. at which these issues were brought into the open. SHR, lviii. 163. On 21 Jan. 1709 he supported Hamilton’s successful petition against Queensberry’s right to participate in the peers’ election after having acquired a British title as duke of Dover, but a week later saw his own objection to one of the court proxies rendered invalid by a resolution of the House which allowed the vote of any peer who had taken the oaths in Edinburgh Castle. When the votes were recalculated in accordance with the resolutions passed by the Lords’ committee of inquiry, his own total fell by three, not enough for him to lose his seat. As part of the agreement between Godolphin and the Junto which had brought the election inquiry to an end, Montrose was appointed lord privy seal in Scotland in place of Queensberry, who became the third secretary of state, a place the Squadrone had previously hoped, and the Junto had promised, would go to Montrose. NAS, GD 112/39/224/11; Riley, Eng. Ministers and Scotland, 117-18; Add. 72488, ff. 42-43, 49-50; Wentworth Pprs. 72; NLS, ms 7021, ff. 151-4, 157-8; ms 14413, ff. 165-6. The new appointment did at least restore the £2,000 a year that he had lost with the extinction of the lord keepership, but he was evidently piqued, and his failure to attend the Privy Council at which Queensberry was declared secretary did not go unnoticed. CTB, xxiii. 208, 487; Add. 61129, ff. 27-28; HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 480. Although the reshuffle, in which Hamilton was ignored, broke the alliance between Hamilton and the Squadrone, Rothes was of the opinion that Montrose had been ‘in the hardest circumstances in the world’, since had he refused the appointment, Godolphin would have exploited it to weaken the Squadrone and strengthen Queensberry. Montrose seems to have accepted the Junto’s assurances of continued co-operation, albeit without enthusiasm. Pols. in Age of Anne 244; NLS, ms 14415, ff. 182-3. He attended the Lords throughout the proceedings on the Junto-inspired bill to extend the English treason laws to Scotland and protested twice against it on 28 Mar., the day it passed its 3rd reading. According to Baillie he left London on 28 Mar., although the Journal records his presence on 5 April. He attended on 67 days of the session, 73 per cent of the total and was named to 18 committees.

Montrose was in no hurry to return to London for the next session and on 24 Oct. 1709 informed Sunderland that since Parliament had been adjourned until 15 Nov. ‘and ... I reckon there will be little or no business done for the first ten days or a fortnight, I don’t think of being at London before the end of the month’. Add. 61628, f. 151. He arrived on 29 Nov. and first attended on 1 December. NLS, ms 7021, f. 196. In all, he was present on 68 days of the session, 73 per cent of the total, and was named to 18 committees. He supported the impeachment of Sacheverell, voting the doctor guilty on 20 Mar. 1710 of high crimes and misdemeanours. He last attended on 5 Apr., the day Parliament was prorogued.

Montrose was in a difficult position in 1710. Mar wrote on 6 June that he was ‘extremely sorry’ that ‘Montrose and I are not yet like to be of one side … but if our friends serve him I hope he will not think of taking measures with anybody else’. NAS, GD 124/15/975/2. Montrose certainly seemed to identify with the Whigs when he wrote on 17 Aug., ‘I hear the moment the dissolution is all the Whigs give up. Duke Hamilton and Duke Queensberry are fixed upon the same bottom against us’. NAS, GD 248/572/5/1/4. By 26 Aug. Charles Hay^† styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S])thought that Mar had ‘the secret of the list and will offer to 112 [Montrose] and another of 28 [the Squadrone] to make them of the numbers if they will join in the measure’. NLS, ms 7021, f. 240. In the event, Montrose did not succumb to the blandishments of Mar and Robert Harley, the future earl of Oxford, but joined the Squadrone in ostentatiously dining together while the election took place without them. NLS, ms 1026, ff. 66-67.

Nevertheless, Montrose did not resign his place, nor was he dismissed. He wrote to Harley (now lord treasurer Oxford) from Edinburgh in June 1711 to pledge ‘real and entire affection’ to the queen’s person and her government, but in the following winter was expressing to his friends his hope that the flames of Scottish resentment over the Hamilton peerage case could be fanned into a full-scale revolt against Oxford’s ministry. HMC Portland, x. 185; Haddington mss, 4, Montrose to Baillie, 31 Dec. 1711. In June 1712 he was present at a ‘great confluence of the Squadro[ne]’ in Edinburgh to discuss political strategy, possibly relating to the vacancy attendant upon the death of William Keith^* [637], 8th Earl Marischal. Atholl mss, 45/10/60; NAS, GD 248/561/47/11. Despite Tory pressure, Oxford remained loath to remove Montrose from office, presumably sensing some chance of securing his support, even though he himself gave little grounds for this belief, and Montrose held on to his place as lord privy seal until dismissed in April 1713 to make way for John Murray, duke of Atholl [S]. HMC Portland, v. 97; Add. 70241, Kinnoull to Dupplin, 27 Oct. 1711; CTB, xxvii. 323, 525. During the parliamentary crisis in May-June 1713 he was in London encouraging opposition to the proposed extension of the malt tax to Scotland, though John Elphinstone, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], one of the Scottish Tories with whom he maintained friendly relations, confessed himself unsure as to whether Montrose would be willing to go so far as to endorse a repeal of the Union. Scot. Hist. Soc. Misc. xii, 159. Oxford still seems to have entertained hopes of him, however slim, but on 12 June Mar wrote to Oxford of Montrose that ‘by what I can perceive he is further from us now than before he went to the Bath’, and at the beginning of July was informed by Thomas Hay, 7th earl of Kinnoull [S], that ‘the duke of Montrose [is] gone for Scotland, from whence I conclude he is not to forsake his old evil ways and come into the queen’s service.’ HMC Portland, v. 303; x. 296.

Montrose again joined the boycott of the Scottish peerage election in 1713. He did travel to London in February 1714 and remained in the capital until late May. Haddington mss, 5, [?Roxburghe] to Baillie, 30 Jan. [1714], Baillie to wife, 29 May 1714; Scots Courant, 15-17 Feb. 1714. On the death of Queen Anne, Montrose participated in the proclamation of George I in Edinburgh and promptly set off for London to take his place on the council of regency, as a nominee of the Hanoverian court, arriving on the 9 Aug. and taking his place as a lord justice on the following day. Post Man, 10-12 Aug. 1714; Daily Courant, 14 Aug. 1714; HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 506; NLS, Advocates’ mss, Wodrow pprs. letters Quarto 8, ff. 146-7. After the arrival of George I he was named secretary of state for Scotland, and by November 1714 was challenging Argyll for royal favour, launching what was to be a long-drawn out political struggle between the Campbell family and the Squadrone, of which Montrose, along with Roxburghe was now the recognized leader. Wodrow, Analecta, ii. 297; Wodrow Corr. ii. 88; Lockhart Mems. 267. This and other aspects of his subsequent parliamentary and political career will be covered in the second part of this work.

He died in London on 7 Jan. 1742 and was buried at Aberuthven.