Peebles and Selkirk Shires

The shires of Peebles and Selkirk lay immediately to the south of Edinburgh Shire, separated from the English border only by Roxburghshire and Dumfriesshire. Atlas Scot. Hist. 27. The two shires were similar in size and prosperity, being taxed at almost the same rate in the assessments of the later 1650s. A. and O. In the early seventeenth century they were controlled by an interlocking set of noble and gentry families, headed by the earls of Tweeddale and Traquair, and including the Scotts, Pringles and Veitches, and especially the various branches of the Murray family, which was ubiquitous in both shires. In Selkirkshire, only 3 of the 31 commissioners returned to the Scottish Parliament between 1612 and 1707 were not members of the Murray, Pringle or Scott families. Peeblesshire, although less of a monopoly, returned five Murrays among the nine commissioners chosen between 1639 and 1661. Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 797, 799-800. Despite this apparent social cohesion within the landowning classes, the experience of civil war proved divisive for political and religious reasons. The earl of Traquair did not provide a strong lead, and his vacillations can be seen in his relations with the royalist marquess of Montrose, who was invited to Traquair House before the battle of Philiphaugh in 1646, but after his defeat found the gates barred. After the 1st duke of Hamilton’s defeat at Preston in 1648, the committee appointed to root out royalism in Peeblesshire was made up of almost every important landowner in the shire, including former royalists such as Traquair, his son Lord Linton, and George Tait of Pirn. Hist. of Peeblesshire ed. J.W. Buchan and H. Paton (3 vols. Glasgow, 1925-7), i. 66-7. The religious splits between Protesters and Resolutioners created tensions between the gentry families, and the Cromwellian invasion of Scotland in 1650-1 changed the political landscape once again, encouraging some of the lairds to make their peace with the new regime. The deputies chosen to discuss union with England were drawn from the old families: Patrick Scott of Ardett and George Pringle of Newhall for Selkirkshire; Sir Alexander Murray of Blackbarony and [?Sir] John Veitch [of Dawyck] for Peeblesshire. Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 100-1, 107-9.

Throughout the 1650s, those gentry prepared to cooperate with the English regime were led by Sir Alexander Murray of Blackbarony, who served as sheriff of Peeblesshire from 1652. Hist. of Peeblesshire ed. Buchan and Paton, iii. 620. His position was strengthened by the willingness of the authorities to allow the local gentry a high degree of autonomy. The regulation of the assessments in both shires had been handed over to the lairds as early as July 1653, and by early 1654 a seven-man committee, headed by the sheriff, was working closely with the government. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xliii, f. 12v; xlvi, unfol.: 14 Sept. 1654, 13 Oct. 1654. Peeblesshire was one of the first shires to have its own administrative committee, which, during a meeting in May 1654 ‘for resisting of the violence of the Scottish troopers’, was raided by the earl of Glencairn’s supporters, and its convenor, the earl of Traquair, captured. J. Nicoll, Diary of Public Transactions (Edinburgh, 1836), 130. This shire committee was active again in the summer of 1655, when the sheriff was ordered to summon the local gentry and choose 11 men to meet ‘for the ease and good of the shire’. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvi, unfol.: 27 Apr. 1655; xlvii, unfol.: 8 June 1655. Such local arrangements were formalised in 1655-6, with the appointment of assessment commissioners and justices of the peace for each shire. The survival of the Peeblesshire magistrates’ minute book for the period gives crucial evidence of the high level of participation in the shire’s government in the later 1650s. Ten JPs were chosen, comprising George Monck*, Samuel Disbrowe*, the earl of Tweeddale (John Hay*), the earl of Traquair, and six lairds, including Blackbarony and Dawyck, Sir Michael Nasmith of Posso and Sir William Murray of Stanhope. Of these, all attended at least one meeting over the next few years except for Monck and Disbrowe, who were conspicuous by their absence; and the commission was apparently controlled by the laird of Blackbarony (as sheriff) and the earl of Traquair, who presided on a regular basis. NRS, JP3/2/1, pp. 1, 2, 12-61. All but one of the ten magistrates were also appointed as assessment commissioners for the shire, where they were joined by five other commissioners, including Archibald Murray* the younger of Blackbarony and an English interloper, Judge-advocate Henry Whalley*. A. and O. ii. 1152-3. The level of Scottish involvement in the Peeblesshire assessment commission is difficult to quantify, but it is surely wrong to claim that the ‘motive power ... probably came from the two ex officio commissioners, General George Monck* and Samuel Disbrowe*’. Hist. of Peeblesshire, i. 68.

Lists of the Selkirkshire justices of the peace and assessment commissioners are also available, and it is interesting that those chosen were mostly from established local families, including John Murray of Philiphaugh, Alexander Pringle fiar of Whytbank, John Riddell of Haining, George Pringle of Torwoodlee and Sir Gideon Scott of Highchester. A. and O. ii. 1154; Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 315. But compared with Peebles, there is far less information about the workings of the local administration in Selkirk, although a later letter from one of the assessment commissioners, George Pringle of Torwoodlee, shows that Scots were involved in the management of the Selkirk finances by the end of the decade; and the Selkirk sheriffs of this period were also local men: Sir William Scott of Eckwood in 1657 and the younger laird of Whytbank in 1658. NLS, Acc. 10583, f. 15; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xliii, f. 81v; xlviii, unfol.: 12 Apr. 1658. Although some of the lairds were prepared to serve the new regime, there was no equivalent of Blackbarony to keep the Selkirk gentry in line, and there are signs of growing dissent. In particular, the radical Protesters in that shire were not prepared to accept Cromwellian rule if it ran against their principles. In May 1656 the Selkirk Presbytery refused to cooperate with the new commission of the peace: ‘we cannot have clearness to be consenters to such a seeming prejudice the Kirk Sessions and the poor within our parishes, contrary to the constant practice of this Kirk and several acts of Parliament’. NRS, GD157/2065. The public denunciation of religious toleration by the Protesters of neighbouring Jedburgh Presbytery in March 1658, led Monck to fear that their allies in Selkirk and Peebles would also cause trouble, and this explains an order issued in April for the gathering of intelligence ‘concerning any that shall speak any seditions or mutinous words against his highness and the present government’. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlviii, unfol.: 23 Apr. 1658.

The dominant position of the laird of Blackbarony (in Peeblesshire at least), the general acquiescence of the lairds, and the growing problem of Protester resistance – all were to have an impact on the parliamentary elections during the protectorate. Under the ordinance of June 1654, the shires were allowed a single MP, with the place of election being the burgh of Peebles. A. and O. ii. 930-1. The return of the auditor-general, John Thompson, in the election held on 2 August 1654, has usually been taken as evidence of the strength of the ‘English interest’ nationally as well as locally. Dow, Cromwellian Scot. 150. Yet the documentary evidence surrounding the return paints a very different picture. The contest was carefully stage-managed by Blackbarony, as sheriff of Peeblesshire, and he was issued with detailed instructions on the conduct of the election, which took place at the tolbooth in Peebles. NRAS 54 (Stewart of Traquair), ‘Fraser Chest’ bundle 14, no. 22. At least 14 electors signed the indenture, with the list being headed by Lord Linton, followed by the lairds of Dawyck and Stanhope, Master John Nasmith of Posso and a number of lesser gentlemen. Although this was an all-Scottish cast, significant players were missing from Peeblesshire, while the Selkirkshire lairds were almost entirely absent. This was evidently through personal choice, not because the ‘qualifications’ on electors were being imposed, for some of the leading participants should have been barred: Linton was the son of the trimming earl of Traquair; Stanhope had been a royalist in the 1640s; while Blackbarony and Dawyck had both supported the Engagement in 1648. Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 521, 532-3, 709-10. The election of Thompson was thus supported by a small subset of the lairds from Peeblesshire, with most of the eligible lairds staying away. P. Little, ‘Scottish Representation in the Protectorate Parliaments: the case of the Shires’, PH xxxi. 320.

In August 1656 another Englishman, the judge-advocate, Henry Whalley*, was returned for the shires, and once again the presiding sheriff was Sir Alexander Murray of Blackbarony, but otherwise the election was completely different from that in 1654. The indenture reveals that those who had absented themselves two years before now turned up in force. In all, 32 electors signed the return, the Peeblesshire lairds being led, as before, by Lord Linton and the lairds of Dawyck and Stanhope, but now joined by Sir Michael Nasmith of Posso and Alexander Burnet of Carlips. There was also a large contingent from Selkirkshire, including John Murray of Philiphaugh, John Riddell of Haining, George Pringle of Newhall, Alexander Pringle fiar of Whytbank and George Pringle fiar of Torwoodlee. C219/45, unfol. It is significant that many of the Selkirkshire lairds were associated with the radical Protester faction in the Kirk, that had initially worked with the Cromwellian regime, but was suspicious of the political and religious reforms introduced by the president of the Scottish council, Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*). The fiar of Torwoodlee was the son of a leading Protester, who was related by marriage to Alexander Brodie* of Brodie, and the laird of Whytbank was also a member of the Brodie set; Philiphaugh was another staunch covenanter, and Haining had just married into the Torwoodlee family. Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 530, 574-5, 587; Brodie Diary, 158-9, 172, 176. The recent deterioration of relations between the government and the Protesters suggests that their presence was not prompted by a desire to cooperate more fully with Cromwellian rule, although the return of Whalley, apparently without dispute, indicates that any attempt at opposition failed. Little, ‘Scottish Representation’, 321-2.

No election indenture survives for the 1659 election, but other evidence reveals that the result was not straightforward. At first, the shires elected Archibald Murray* the younger of Blackbarony, the eldest son of the sheriff, who presumably oversaw the return; but in early February 1659, George Monck told John Thurloe* that as ‘the country will not give him so much money as he expects’, Murray had refused to honour the election, and ‘is not like to go’. Monck was pleased at the turn of events, for he had clearly arranged with Thurloe to have Henry Whalley re-elected, but the original election had gone ahead before his candidate could be intruded, and now the local gentry would have to ‘choose another, which they cannot do without another writ, [and] I do not doubt to get him [Whalley] chosen’. TSP vii. 616-7. Monck’s account reveals a degree of confusion, with a local candidate being returned before the official choice was made known, and this suggests not only that these elections were not well managed, but also that the autonomy allowed to the local lairds (and especially Blackbarony) could produce unexpected results. The withdrawal of Murray is puzzling, for the Blackbarony family was surely not dependent on the relatively modest sums customarily provided by Scottish shires for their representatives, and it seems more likely that Monck put pressure on the laird to clear the way for the government’s man. Another possibility is that the local Protesters had embarrassed Murray into withdrawing by publicly refusing to fund him. This would certainly fit into the pattern seen in the other elections for the shires, which saw the Selkirk Protesters as increasingly aggressive in their opposition to Blackbarony and his friends in Peeblesshire. Little, ‘Scottish Representation’, 322. These deep-seated differences of opinion between the shires survived the Restoration: in 1661 Peeblesshire returned Archibald Murray of Blackbarony to the Scottish Parliament, while Selkirkshire elected the former Protester, Sir John Murray of Philiphaugh. Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 797, 799-800.