ROSS, William (d.1674), of Drumgarland, Fife, and Ross Isle, Stewartry of Kirkcudbright.

William Ross’s origins are obscure. Although he claimed kinship with the historic earls of Ross, he was probably of minor gentry stock, and may have been the first in his family to acquire the status of laird.14Bodl. Tanner 39, f. 164. This is reflected in his various titles, which changed as he purchased new estates. The earl of Home’s accounts from 1652-3 refer to him as ‘William Ross in Lambden’, in Berwickshire, while a warrant at the end of 1654 described him as ‘William Ross of Preston’ in the same shire.15Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVI, unfol.: 13, 16 Dec. 1654; NRAS 832, box 18, folder 1. From 1656, Ross was routinely referred to as ‘of Drumgarland’ in Fife, and this seems to have been his regular title until the early 1670s, when he became ‘William Ross of Ross Isle’ in the stewartry of Kircudbright.16Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVIII, unfol.: 8 Sept. 1656; Index Reg. Sasines, 1617-71, 339. All sources agree that Ross had been a military captain, but again the provenance of this title cannot be traced. The uncertainties of Ross’s earlier career serve to underline the fact that his rise to influence in the 1650s was due to his willingness to work with the Cromwellian authorities. From 1653 he served as a notably conscientious deputy sheriff of Berwickshire, delivering letters for the government, organising the payment of sick soldiers at Duns Castle, and carrying out orders to deal with royalists and robbers in the shire.17Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLV, unfol.: 21 Nov. 1653, 6 Jan., 1 Mar., 28 Apr., 2-3 May, 22 May, 9 June, 19 Aug. 1654; XLVI, unfol.: 20 Apr. 1655; XLVII, unfol.: 18 May 1655. In December 1654 he joined Commissary John Baynes in calling to account the local assessment collector, John Home.18Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVI, unfol.: 13 Dec. 1654. This started a long-running feud, as Home used his connections with the Berwickshire landowners to turn them against the deputy sheriff ‘as a doer of ill offices to Captain Home with the general’. In response, General George Monck* fired off a letter to the local gentry ‘assuring them that (for aught the general knows) Captain Ross hath [not] done any ill office to Mr Home’, and in March 1655 Home was threatened with dismissal. Nevertheless, the row continued into 1656, prompting Monck to transfer Ross to another post well away from Berwickshire.19Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVI, unfol.: 6 Jan., 17 Jan., 21 Mar. 1655.

Ross was appointed commissary for Dumfriesshire at the beginning of September 1656 with the full backing of Monck, who praised him as a ‘diligent’ official, who had already ‘evinced his affection to the present government by diverse particular good services’, and was well able to take on his new role.20Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVIII, unfol.: 8 Sept. 1656. As commissary, Ross’s principal duties lay in the administration of testaments and inheritances, but he also played a wider part in policing the locality. He served as justice of the peace for Dumfriesshire from 1656, and in October of the same year he was chosen as one of those who could certify those applying for passes to travel from Dumfries and Kircudbright to Ireland.21Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 310-11; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVIII, unfol.: frontispiece. In November 1656 Ross worked with the Dumfries garrison against robbers ‘upon the borders’, and in the spring of 1657 he kept the peace in disputes and was granted a pass to travel freely across the region.22Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVIII, unfol.: 10 Nov. 1656, 10 Mar. and 4 May 1657. Ross’s arrival in Dumfriesshire was not universally welcomed by the local gentry. In the summer of 1657 the Protesters of the south west, led by Patrick Gillespie, tried to oust Ross, and put the Wigtownshire supremo, Sir James McDowall* of Garthland, in his place. This interference provoked the wrath of Oliver Cromwell* himself (presumably acting on information from Monck), and Gillespie was reckoned to have ‘forfeited his credit with the protector’ over the affair, as well as having left many officers in Scotland ‘discontented’.23Consultations ed. Stephen, ii. 90; Wariston Diary, iii. 93. It was this dispute which prompted the formal appointment of Ross as commissary, which passed under the great seal on 22 September 1657.24Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 365-6. Monck’s support was doubtless the crucial factor in ensuring Ross’s return for Dumfriesshire in the elections for the third protectorate Parliament. Monck issued Ross with a pass to travel to London on 22 January 1659, and in a letter of recommendation to Secretary John Thurloe*, he again paid tribute to Ross’s loyalty and honesty: ‘He is one, that hath been very faithful to the English interest, and has done us very good service, and I know no recompense he hath had for it, and I could never fasten any money upon him’.25Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLIX, f. 27v; TSP vii. 633.

In the Commons, Ross repaid Monck’s trust by supporting the protectorate. His speech of 11 March 1659, defending the union of England and Scotland, is remarkable. In response to claims that ‘all our [the Scots’] affection to England was shown in 40’, Ross said that co-operation through the Solemn League and Covenant, rather than invasion during the bishops’ wars, was truer of the relationship between the two nations: ‘I suppose we owned it in 43. I suppose those acts are not out of mind’. Union was of benefit to the Scots, and he feared for the consequences if the right to return MPs to Westminster, ‘which we legally possess by the union, be denied’. Turning again to the Solemn League and Covenant, Ross bemoaned the English distrust of the Scots: ‘We are called Pharisees and Hypocrites. I am sure I find none of that language in the declaration of 43; there is nought there but “your dear brethren”. I hope we have not lost that title by union with you’. He also defended the return of Englishmen for Scottish seats: ‘It is a good sign that we reap the fruit of our union, when we can trust one another’. Ross took the opportunity to praise his patron: ‘We have an affection for this nation [England]. You have won our affection, not by the dint of your swords but that worthy person, General Monck, to his honour let it be spoken, and those worthy officers amongst us, have won our affections’. The speech ended with a vigorous rebuttal of those English MPs who had urged the Scottish MPs to withdraw from the debate, and a final personal comment which summarised his attitude to the Union Parliament: ‘I think I am at home when I am here’.26Burton’s Diary, iv. 137-8.

Although Ross’s views were no doubt conditioned by his support for the regime, and the material benefits he had gained as a consequence, his strong defence of the Cromwellian Union (and the link he made between it and the Solemn League and Covenant) spoke for the minority within Scottish society which had come to view the new relationship between the two nations with favour. Ross’s other contributions to parliamentary debates were less assured. On 16 March, during the argument on whether to release Major-general Robert Overton, Ross (perhaps with Scotland in mind) argued that there ‘may be a jubilee to all’.27Burton’s Diary, iv. 160. Two days later, his further comments on the withdrawal of Scottish MPs from the House before the vote on their status ‘caused altum risum [great laughter]’; and on 8 April, on the debate on the Other House, Ross’s comments were confused, and when recording his contribution the diarist (Thomas Burton*), broke off in mid-sentence.28Burton’s Diary, iv. 186-7, 377. Ross was only named to two committees: those for Scottish and Irish affairs, both appointed on 1 April.29CJ vii. 623a-b. A newsletter from ‘W.R.’ to Monck, detailing events in late April 1659 – and hoping that the heated rows in Parliament ‘shall resolve in peace, notwithstanding of some jealousies at present’ - may have been penned by Ross.30Clarke Pprs. iii. 190-1.

During the later 1650s Ross had made himself useful to a number of Scottish nobles. In April 1658 the marquess of Douglas, in a letter to the earl of Lothian, described Ross as ‘my good friend’ and a man involved the management of ‘my affairs in these parts’, and recommending him as a broker to settle a dispute between the two earls.31NRS, GD 40/2/6/17. By November 1659 Ross was also acting as agent between Robert Maxwell, 2nd earl of Nithsdale [S], and General Monck. Nithsdale told Monck that he should trust Ross, ‘for the truth is no man that I know is able to do your lordship better service’, adding that he was better placed in south west Scotland than England, ‘both for the preservation of the peace and hastening the payment of the cess’. ‘Besides that’, Nithsdale continued, ‘he hath a very great influence and interest with the people of this nation, and will be at all occasions ready to expose himself to any hazard wherein he might assert the good of his country and the observing of your lordship’s commands’.32W. Fraser, Bk. of Caerlaverock (2 vols. Edinburgh, 1873), ii. 142-3. Monck needed little persuading: at the time Nithsdale’s letter was written he was a guest at Ross’s house at Preston in Berwickshire, and Ross joined him there in December, reporting to the earl the latest news of the army’s muster on the border and that ‘they are as one man’.33Fraser, Caerlaverock, ii. 142, 144. In early January, Monck sent Ross to Edinburgh to attend a meeting of the shires and burghs, where he was to reassure them that the general had told the Rump Parliament that he expected Scotland to ‘enjoy an equality with the nation of England in all respects’.34Fraser, Caerlaverock, ii. 53-4.

After the Restoration, Ross remained in Nithsdale’s service, delivering letters from the earl to General Monck (now duke of Albemarle) in London in July 1660, and in the weeks that followed he was in contact with the earls of Northampton and Peterborough and the duke of Buckingham, being described by Nithsdale as ‘my singular good friend’ and by Northampton as ‘that worthy person’.35Fraser, Caerlaverock, ii. 55, 148-52. Later in the same year the duchess of Albemarle wrote to Sir Edward Nicholas† on her husband’s behalf, to recommend Ross for the vacant post of clerk of the markets in Ireland.36CSP Ire. 1660-2, p. 154. Although a Captain William Ross settled in Ireland at this time, and became involved in the administration of the duke of Ormond in the mid-1660s, he was probably a different man.37Bodl. Carte 35, ff. 99, 380, 580, 646; 43, f. 446; 145, ff. 215, 262-3. The MP seems to have continued to serve as commissary in Dumfriesshire, where, with the assistance of Nithsdale, he improved his financial position, and eventually acquired the estate of Ross Isle in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright.38Index Reg. Sasines, 339.

Ross died in 1674, without an heir. His death precipitated a lengthy wrangle over the extensive estate he had managed to amass. In his first will, of 25 January 1659, Ross left his lands to his wife for life, with generous provision for his mother, and ‘for building of a tomb upon my grave’; with the remainder going to the universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen to fund 12 bursaries for ‘the most quick and accurate spirits of the name of Ross’ who should be accepted as students.39Bodl. Tanner 39*, f. 161. These terms were contested by his widow and by Lord Ross (who was encouraged to claim an interest in the estate), and a new will was produced, which may have been a forgery, and was certainly irregular in law.40Bodl. Tanner 39, ff. 164r-v, 166. The universities were the losing parties in this. Instead of 12 studentships, after a long delay a single bursary was founded in Ross’s name at Glasgow, and this was worth a mere £4 3s 4d.41J. Coutts, Hist. of Univ. Glasgow (Glasgow, 1909), 159. The bulk of the estate was inherited by a nephew, Patrick Ross in Formastoun, who in turn sold the barony of Ross Isle and lands in Kelton parish in the stewartry to Robert Ross of Auchlossen in 1693.42McKerlie, Galloway, iv. 111; v. 19, 22.