Edinburgh shire or Midlothian

As the name suggests, Edinburgh Shire surrounded the Scottish capital, but it also covered a large area of prime agricultural land between the Firth of Forth to the north and the foothills of the Pentland, Moorfoot and Lammermuir ranges to the south. Atlas Scot. Hist. 27. In the assessments of the 1650s, Edinburgh Shire was the third most heavily taxed shire in Scotland, exceeded only by Fife and Perthshire. A. and O. ii. 1143, 1240, 1360. Its wealth was concentrated in the hands of a tightly-knit community of lairds, including the Crichtons of Lugton, Dundases of Arniston and Foulises of Colinton, who succeeded each other as commissioners to the Scottish Parliament throughout the seventeenth century. Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 792. Most of these families had subscribed the Covenant but had then signed the royalist Engagement in 1648 and went on to support Charles Stuart in 1650-1, and were quick to make their peace with the Cromwellian regime in the months that followed the defeat at Worcester. The shire’s assent to the tender of union, delivered by two leading landowners, Sir John Wauchope of Niddrie and James Crichton of St Leonards, showed no enthusiasm for the new arrangement; the only local landowner prepared to welcome English rule was the religious radical Sir Archibald Johnston* of Wariston, and even he was racked with doubt. Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 95-6.

In response, the Cromwellian governors of the early 1650s remained wary of the Edinburgh gentry, whose houses and estates were too close to the capital for comfort. In April 1654, during the royalist rebellion led by the earl Glencairn, the commander-in-chief, Robert Lilburne*, wrote to the gentlemen of the shire warning them not to aid the rebels, partly to prevent depredations from ‘those loose wicked persons’ but also to avoid ‘exemplary punishments’ by the occupying forces. His hostile tone was prompted by intelligence of the ‘guilt’ of the shire in encouraging dissension, ‘notwithstanding your universal engagement to the present power which God hath set over you’. Scot. and Protectorate, ed. Firth, 70-2. In later years the Edinburgh gentlemen still showed great ambivalence towards the Cromwellian government, and the assessment collector for the shire, Robert Simpson, often found his task impeded. In December 1654, the new commander, George Monck*, had to threaten to quarter troops on the tenants of Lord Ramsay who refused to pay the assessment; and in the summer of 1655 orders that the Scottish councillor, John Swinton* of Swinton, would be relieved of taxes in the shire prompted passive resistance from a gentry unwilling to take his share of the burden onto themselves. Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke xlvi, unfol.: 12 Dec. 1654; xlvii, unfol.: 11, 13 June, 23 July 1655; Dow, Cromwellian Scot. 156. Later in the 1650s relations between the government and the shire gradually improved. The commission of the peace, set up in the new year of 1656, was initially run by army officers meeting at Monck’s headquarters at Dalkeith, but they were soon joined by a number of lairds. In 1656 the Protesters Sir Alexander Inglis of Ingliston, Sir James Richardson of Smeaton and Andrew Abernethy were active as magistrates; by January 1657 Smeaton was working with Mark Cass of Cockpen, and from 1658 they were joined by Robert Preston of that ilk and Sir Patrick Hamilton of Little Preston. NRS, JC26/20, Bundles 2-4; JC26/22, ‘Bundle 3‘, no. 13; ‘Bundle 5’, nos. 1, 4, 5; ‘Bundle 6’, nos. 15, 20; JC26/23, loose pprs.; JC26/24, ‘Bundle 1’, nos. 1-3; ‘Bundle 14’, no. 29; ‘Bundle 27’, no. 5; JC26/25, unmarked bundle and loose pprs.

The growing involvement of the lairds in local government may have increased tensions between the shire and the city of Edinburgh. Relations between the shire and the burgh oscillated between cooperation, born of their social and economic interdependence, and hostility, caused by disputes over boundaries and jurisdiction. Two examples from the Edinburgh City archives illustrate the problem. In December 1654 the city council was happy to allow its bailie, Andrew Ramsay*, to go to London ‘in the employment of the shire’ as well as an agent of the city; yet in August 1656, when the city held its parliamentary elections, it refused to allow the sheriff of Edinburgh Shire to preside, asserting that their own provost acted as sheriff within the city. Edinburgh City Archives, SL1/1/18, f. 140v; SL1/1/19, f. 142. The Cromwellian government added a further complication, as it repeatedly tried to reduce the power of the Edinburgh council by putting administrative matters such as the collection of assessments into the hands of the shire. Recs. Burgh Edinburgh, 1642-55, 263, 588. The creation of justices of the peace in 1656 caused particular problems, with the shire’s claim to jurisdiction over the city provoking howls of protest. Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 311-2, 405-11: L.M. Smith, ‘Scot. and Cromwell’ (Ph.D thesis, Edinburgh Univ. 1979), 174-5. In February 1657 the city sent a delegation to the shire magistrates, complaining of attempts to appoint their own constables despite the existence of ‘bailies and constables in the bounds already of the town’s choosing’. Recs. Burgh Edinburgh, 1655-65, 50. In January 1660 the city sent agents to ‘the meeting of the gentlemen of the shire’ to question their refusal to allow burgesses with land in the shire to vote in elections. Recs. Burgh Edinburgh, 1655-65, 185. Relations between city and shire were not always hostile, however. In May and July 1659 the city fathers entertained the ‘justices peace of the shire’, and in August the magistrates, ‘as justices of the peace’, met with ‘the justices of the shire’ to discuss the repair of highways in St Cuthbert’s parish, where liability (and thus authority) seems to have been shared. Edinburgh City Archives, Moses Bundle 186, no. 10/13; Recs. Burgh Edinburgh, 1655-65, 155.

Under the ordinance of June 1654, Edinburgh shire was allowed to return one MP to Westminster, and in each election the MP chosen was an English official: in 1654 Judge George Smyth, and in 1656 and 1659 the councillor and keeper of the great seal, Samuel Disbrowe. A. and O. ii. 930. Little is known of the first and third of these contests, but in August 1656 the president of the Scottish council, Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*) reported that he had been approached by the gentry to be their MP, but as his candidacy had already been secured by Edinburgh city, he declined the shire seat. Instead, Broghill told Secretary John Thurloe* that he would ‘engage the interest I have’ for Samuel Disbrowe. TSP v. 295. Broghill’s intervention did not alienate the shire gentry. The election indenture, dated 20 August 1656, shows that the meeting was an entirely Scottish affair, presided over by the sheriff, Patrick Scott of Langshaw, and at least 34 electors were present, including John Swinton of Swinton, Sir James McGill of Cranston, two former commissioners for the shire in the Scottish Parliament (Sir John Wauchope of Niddrie and Sir Patrick Hamilton of Little Preston) and active magistrates like Sir James Richardson of Smeaton, Mark Cass of Cockpen and Sir Alexander Inglis of Ingliston. C219/45, unfol. Compared with other shires, this was an impressive line-up, with eight knights turning out to vote, and this suggests that Disbrowe was a welcome choice as MP. In the 1659 election Disbrowe was again returned, this time as part of a highly organised campaign to ensure that those who favoured the government monopolised the Scottish seats. TSP vii. 584. Perhaps mindful that influential Englishmen could serve the local gentry as well as the central government, it seems that the lairds of Edinburgh Shire had finally decided to embrace Cromwellian rule. Dow, Cromwellian Scot. 151.