KER, Sir Andrew (d. 1665), of Greenhead, Roxburghshire.

The first of the Kers of Greenhead was Ralph, the youngest son of Andrew Ker of Auldtounburn and Cessford, who had established himself as a Roxburghshire laird by the beginning of the sixteenth century. A century later the Kers of Greenhead were among the most influential landowners on the politically sensitive border with England, and were carefully cultivated by the Stuarts: Sir Andrew Ker was made a baronet of Nova Scotia by Charles I in 1637.14Herald and Genealogist, vi. 231-5. Ker had little time for royal policies, however. In 1638 he oversaw the signing of the national covenant in Roxburghshire, and during the 1640s he was an important local supporter of the covenanting cause. He sat on the Roxburghshire committee of war between 1643 and 1649, and was commissioner to the Scottish Parliament from the shire in 1645 and 1648-9. His relations with the government in Edinburgh broke down when James Hamilton, 1st duke of Hamilton and the Engagers took power in the winter of 1647-8: Ker was among those imprisoned for opposing the Engagement, and was released only after the Hamiltonian interest was destroyed on the battlefield of Preston.15Young, Parliaments of Scot. i. 392. Thereafter, Ker was thrust on to the national stage. In September 1648 he carried letters from the earl of Loudon to Oliver Cromwell*, denouncing Hamilton’s activities, ‘disclaiming the Engagement’, and seeking a truce with the English.16Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 651, 653, 657, 660. By May 1649, Ker had been given command of the Scottish regiments in Roxburghshire, and he also served on the committee of estates, being a regular presence at its committee of dispatches between May and August of that year.17Government of Scotland ed. Stevenson, 96, 104.

In the crisis which followed the English invasion of Scotland in 1650 and the catastrophic defeat at Dunbar, Ker sided with the Protesters (or Remonstrants) from the south-west, who turned against the royalist cause. His closest associate within the Protester faction was Sir Archibald Johnston* of Wariston, who was in constant contact with Ker during the royalist resurgence of the spring and summer of 1651, and repeatedly received ‘letters from Greenhead, showing that our friends in the south were much refreshed by my letters and papers, and blessed God heartily in my behalf’.18Wariston Diary, ii. 39, 45, 71, 112-3. The period of uncertainty came to end with the defeat of Charles Stuart’s forces at Worcester in September 1651, and with the English conquest of the whole of Scotland over the next few months. Although Ker apparently agreed with Wariston that unconditional support for the English was unacceptable, he was ready to co-operate with the new regime, and served as deputy for Roxburghshire in the union negotiations of the spring of 1652.19Wariston Diary, ii. 143; Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 59-61. In the early months of 1654 Ker also represented the ‘shire of Tweeddale’ in talks with Colonel Robert Lilburne* about the payment of assessments, and, despite the restrictions, he was allowed to keep three expensive horses at his house.20Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLV, unfol.: 17 Feb., 9 May 1654. Wariston was uncomfortable with Ker’s collaboration, warning him in May 1654 that his desire to attend the Cromwellian court was ‘a snare unto him in many ways’.21Wariston Diary, ii. 251, 253.

It is not known whether Ker travelled to London in the summer of 1654, but in the next few months he was able, with government support, to increase his influence in Roxburghshire. He was included in the commission to approve public ministers set up under the ‘Gillespie Charter’ of August 1654, which guaranteed Protester dominance over the Kirk.22Nicoll, Diary, 166. In January 1655 Ker was again chosen to organise the assessments in Roxburghshire; in April he intervened to secure a pass for his neighbour, Sir Walter Riddell of that ilk, in southern Scotland; and in August he received a pass of his own, to travel throughout Scotland with three horses and arms his for personal protection.23Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVI, unfol.: 8 Jan., 25 Apr. 1655; XLVII, unfol.: 29 Aug. 1655. These occasional favours were complemented by local appointments: he was made an assessment commissioner for Roxburghshire in December 1655, he was a justice of the peace for the shire early in 1656, and by March of the same year had been appointed sheriff.24Acts Parl. Scot. vi. part 2, p. 841; Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 315-6. Although the surviving minute book shows that Ker did not attend the commission of the peace, he was active as sheriff, and on 20 August 1656 presided over the election of William Ker* of Newtoun as MP for the shire.25NLS, MS 5439, passim; C219/45, unfol. In a further mark of governmental approval, in November 1656 Ker was appointed to the commission to ensure the security of the protector in Scotland.26A. and O.

With his local powerbase secure, Ker became increasingly active as a supporter of the Protester faction in its disputes with the rival Resolutioner party, which controlled the General Assembly of the Kirk. In January 1657 he was chosen, with Wariston, and the ministers James Guthrie, James Simpson and Patrick Gillespie, to go to London to lobby the protector and his council to restore the Protesters’ hegemony in the Kirk. The Resolutioner agent, James Sharp, greeted their arrival with concern: ‘they are filled with confidence to prevail, and do not conceal it’ relying on information from ‘the great ones about the protector’ who ‘gave them hope of obtaining their desires’.27Consultations ed. Stephen, i. 268. Privately, Ker tried to prevent disagreements between the Protester agents (and especially Wariston and Guthrie) from compromising their negotiations with the authorities.28Wariston Diary, iii. 59, 60. He was also able to gain an audience with Cromwell in February 1657, after which he assured Wariston ‘of the protector speaking to him that he should have as much a care of us and our interest as of the honest interest in England’.29Wariston Diary, iii. 63, 66. The more public clashes between Protesters and Resolutioners in the protectoral council were less cordial, and there were reports that Ker, like the other Protester agents ‘clamoured’ at the ‘grievous persecution raised and continued against them’ by their enemies.30Consultations ed. Stephen, i. 358. As the council debates continued throughout February and March 1657 without resolution, Ker again sought to make progress behind the scenes, negotiating with the president of the Scottish council (and supporter of the Resolutioners), Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*). Broghill’s comments to Patrick Gillespie reveal that he thought Ker to be more moderate and amenable than some of his colleagues: ‘my lord said he would not have expected that either he or Greenhead would have appeared in the owning of these two knaves, Guthrie and Simpson, in their petition’.31Consultations ed. Stephens, ii. 32-3. Despite the rancour of these debates, Ker left a favourable impression on the lord protector, who told Wariston in July 1657 that he was mindful of ‘Greenhead’s business’ and promised to pay him 12,000 merks (Scots) he had claimed as well as a pension of £200, ‘and asked if he would come up upon his sending for him, he would fain employ him’.32Wariston, iii. 92-3. The details of Ker’s claim - originally voiced in a petition to the council of February 1657 - are unknown; but Cromwell, like others in the English government, clearly thought him worth favouring.33CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 281.

Ker was present at the next round of debates between the Kirk factions in August 1657, but when the talks foundered he probably went north, and he was certainly home by April 1658, when he was granted a pass to travel freely around Scotland.34Consultations ed. Stephens, ii. 91; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVIII, unfol.: 12 Apr. 1658. He attended meetings of the Roxburghshire commission of the peace during the summer that followed.35NRS, JC26/22, ‘Bundle 22’, no. 2; JC26/24, ‘Bundle 2’, no. 2. Ker’s election for Roxburghshire in January 1659 no doubt reflects his own dominant position in the shire, but he may also have benefited from his continuing involvement with the Protester faction. He remained close to Wariston during Richard Cromwell’s* protectorate, warning him in December 1658 that he ‘had more enemies both here and above than I was aware of’.36Wariston Diary, iii. 104. Ker was not involved in the debates concerning the rights of the Scottish MPs in March 1659, although he was presumably in the House on 1 April, when he was named to the committee of Scottish affairs.37CJ vii. 623b. With the fall of the protectorate the Protesters found themselves in favour once again. In May 1659 Ker planned to lobby the Independent divine, Dr John Owen*, as well as Lieutenant-colonel Francis White* and Major-general Lilburne, to make sure that Wariston was included in the new council of state.38Wariston Diary, iii. 111. Ker’s success in this again points to his flexibility as a politician, and to his reputation as the exception among the generally immoderate Protesters. This pragmatism was recognised by the Resolutioners as much as by the Rumpers. In June 1659, James Sharp told a colleague that Ker, ‘who in his carriage here hath been very fair and moderate’, had asked that he might ‘take care of the planting of [the kirk at] Kelso’, and ‘professed he will be content with a good able man, though he be not a Remonstrator’.39Consultations ed. Stephens, ii. 188.

The Scottish royalists were to prove less charitable. After the Restoration, Ker was pursued as a notorious Protester, and he was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle on 26 September 1660 ‘for aiding, assisting and partaking with the Remonstrations and other seditious persons’.40Nicoll, Diary, 302. His fellow inmate, Walter Pringle of Greenknowe, testified to Ker’s undaunted religious fervour in adversity, calling their incarceration ‘one of the sweetest times I have yet had: for both of us were led forth to rejoice in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and were most willing through his grace and strength to forsake all for him’.41Herald and Genealogist, vi. 235. After his release, Ker was fined £6,000 (Scots) under the Act of Indemnity of 1662.42Acts Parl. Scot. vi. pt. 2, p. 424. His first wife died in 1663, and in the following August Ker married a sister of the earl of Wemyss, although ‘few or none of her friends were satisfied with this match’; less than a year later, in May 1665, Ker ‘departed out of this life at his own house’.43Diary of John Lamont, ed. G. R. Kinloch (Edinburgh, 1830), 171. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Sir Andrew, and on the latter’s death in 1676 the baronetcy and estates passed to his brother Sir William†, who sat for Roxburghshire in the Union Parliament of 1707-8.44CB.