SWORD, James (d. c.1656), of St Andrews, Fife.

Little is known of James Sword’s background. He is first mentioned as a bailie of St Andrews in 1632, and it is with that burgh that his career is inextricably linked. Sword was a trusted member of the St Andrews burgh council, serving repeatedly as bailie in the 1630s and 1640s before becoming provost for the first time in 1649. In the meantime, he was also elected as the burgh’s commissioner to the Scottish Parliament in 1641, and thereafter he was a diligent member of the committee of estates and committee of war, as well as serving on a number of commissions for the covenanting government.11Young, Parliaments of Scotland, ii. 691. In March 1643 he lent £50 to support the Scottish army in Ulster – nearly as much as that offered by the lord provost of Edinburgh – and in 1644 he acted as a collector of excise, raising money for the supplying the Scottish army in England.12Regs. PC Scot. 1544-1660, p. 84; Pprs. Rel. to the Army of the Covenant ed. C.S. Terry (Edinburgh, 1917), i. 15. In 1645 Sword spent time in northern England, overseeing the needs of the Scottish garrison at Tynemouth and organising the cost of the army’s quarters in general, and in November he joined Sir Archibald Johnston* of Wariston and others as a commissioner for dealing with delinquents in Glasgow and St Andrews after the defeat of the royalist forces of the marquess of Montrose.13Scot. under the Covenanters ed. Stevenson, 18, 22, 53. In 1646 he served as commissioner for clearing accounts with the Long Parliament, in order to allow the Scottish army to march home.14Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 691.

Despite his evident usefulness as an administrator, during 1647 and 1648 Sword was appointed to no official positions, and this probably indicates his opposition to the Engagement and the duke of Hamilton’s royalist agenda. With the collapse of the Engagers’ schemes, however, Sword returned to the political stage, being elected as the parliamentary commissioner for St Andrews in the new year of 1649, and becoming active on the committee for dispatches soon afterwards.15Scot. under the Covenanters ed. Stevenson, 94, 104. From July of the same year he served as the burgh’s commissioner to the convention of royal burghs, and he was made provost of the burgh at about the same time.16Recs. Convention Royal Burghs, 331; Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 691. After the Scottish defeat at Dunbar in September 1650, Sword became involved in efforts to keep the nation united. In October was on a commission with the earl of Lothian and others to persuade Charles Stuart not to throw in his lot with the royalist radicals; and in November he was one of those appointed to negotiate with the General Assembly of the Kirk concerning the remonstrance of the extreme Covenanters of the south-west.17Ancram Corresp. ii. 306; Wariston Diary, ii. 29n. In the spring of 1651 Sword was involved with raising a new army to invade England, and he sat on the committee for managing its affairs until the end of May.18Ancram Corresp. ii. 345; Scot. under the Covenanters ed. Stevenson, 125, 150, 172.

As a former opponent of the Engagement, it is likely that Sword’s support for the Stuart cause was lukewarm at best, and he abandoned the fight with alacrity when circumstances demanded. After a brief show of non-compliance, on 30 August 1651 St Andrews submitted to General George Monck*, four days before the disastrous defeat at Worcester.19Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 10. Sword, as the burgh’s provost, also accepted the inevitable, and from the spring of 1652 he was at the forefront of moves to reconcile the burgh to the regime. On 8 March 1652 he was chosen as the burgh’s deputy to attend the English governors at Dalkeith to tender acceptance of the union, and in August 1652 he was one of 21 Scottish deputies selected to go to London to negotiate the union settlement, and was resident there from October 1652 until June 1653.20Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 104-5, 109, 184; Wariston Diary, ii. 190; J. Nicoll, Diary of Public Transactions (Edinburgh, 1836), 99; CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 313; Landrum, ‘Anglo-Scottish Union’, 197, 227, 240, 292-3. During his stay in London, Sword took the opportunity to petition the council of state on some unknown business, possibly relating to the trading privileges of St Andrews.21CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 166. Sword may also have furthered his own interests, as shortly after his return to Scotland he was granted confirmation of his right to extract rents as debt repayments from the estates of the earl of Balcarres in Fife.22Reg. Gt. Seal Scot. 1652-9, pp. 73-4. He continued to serve at provost of St Andrews at least until 1655, and attended the convention of royal burghs on its behalf until July 1654.23Recs. Convention Royal Burghs, 371.

It was presumably Sword’s standing in the burgh, and his wider experience of politics in Edinburgh and London, that led to him being chosen as MP for the thirteen ‘St Andrews burghs’ in early August 1654.24NRS, B9/12/10, f. 81v. He was granted a pass to travel south on 20 September.25Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVI, unfol.: 20 Sept. 1654. There is no record of Sword’s participation in affairs at Westminster, but he later asserted that he had attended for three months, and there was a protracted row between the burghs about his fee.26NRS, B9/12/11, f. 8v. When they met on 4 September 1654 the burghs ‘did conclude to advance to James Sword £75 to be paid proportionally according to the assessment [rates]’ and a contract was signed promising him 20 shillings a day, but this agreement was not honoured, despite constant local meetings, pressure from the convention of royal burghs and the sheriff of Fife, and bitter complaints from Sword himself.27NRS, B9/12/10, ff. 84v, 86v, 95; B9/12/11, ff. 1v-45 ; Recs. Convention of Royal Burghs, 406, 417-8. In June 1655 Sword was still owed over a third of his money (amounting to £6 10s) from the burgh of Burntisland alone.28NRS, B9/12/11, f. 10. The outstanding sums were only paid in August 1656, when the imminent election of a new MP galvanised the burghs into action, and a further levy was agreed ‘in full satisfaction of all the commission money for his service at the last Parliament’. But by this time it was not Sword but his widow and children who would be the beneficiaries.29NRS, B9/12/11, ff. 47-48v.

The date of Sword’s death is unclear. Although John Lamont may be accurate in reporting the cause of the MP’s demise (from ‘a pain of the gravel’), he is wrong to state that the provost ‘departed out of this life at St Andrews, and was interred there the 8th of October [1654]’, as we know that Sword was active in pursuit of his arrears in October 1655.30Lamont Diary ed. Kintoch, 93; NRS, B9/12/11, f. 17v. Equally puzzling is the tombstone at St Andrews, described by Lamont’s editor, which indicates that he died on 6 February 1657, even though this conflicts with the commissariot record, which gives the date of the confirmation of his testament as 17 June 1656.31Lamont Diary ed. Kintoch, 93n; Commissariot Recs. St Andrews, 337. The Burntisland burgh records refer to ‘James Sword’s relict and bairns’ as the claimants of the money owed for his parliamentary service from August 1656.32NRS, B9/12/11, ff. 47v-8v. It seems likely that Sword died in the first six months of 1656, leaving a widow, three surviving sons and a daughter.33Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 691-2. His widow died at St Andrews in May 1669, but the later history of the family is unknown.34Lamont Diary ed. Kintoch, 209.