SWINTON, John (d. 1679), of Swinton, Berwickshire.

The Swintons originated in Yorkshire, but settled in Scotland during the middle ages, holding the manor of Swinton in the barony of Coldingham, Berwickshire, by the mid-twelfth century.20Swintons of that Ilk, 3. Members of the family had sat in the Scottish Parliament since 1560, and the seventeenth and nineteenth lairds represented Berwickshire in the first half of the seventeenth century.21Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 688-90. The nineteenth laird, Sir Alexander Swinton, was an unremarkable lowland gentleman, who fought for the Covenanters in the early 1640s, joined James Hamilton, 1st duke of Hamilton, in 1648, made his peace with the Scottish Parliament in 1649 and then rejoined the Stuarts in time for the battle of Worcester in 1651, where he was captured; two, if not three, of his younger sons also served in the royalist army.22Swintons of that Ilk, 58-64; Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 688-9. His son and heir, John Swinton, was also present at Worcester, but on the English side.23Wariston Diary, ii. 142-3.

John Swinton was something of a maverick. Although he had served on the committee of war and the committee of estates in Scotland in the later 1640s, and had lent money to support the Scottish armies in England and Ireland earlier in the decade, by 1650 his politics had become deeply unorthodox.24Young, Parliaments of Scot. ii. 690; Acts Parl. Scot. vi. pt. 2, 718. As commissioner for Berwickshire in the Scottish Parliament of 1649-50, Swinton became known for his unwillingness to oppose the English invasion, voting against a further levy in June 1650, and on Charles II’s arrival in Scotland later in the same month he joined Sir John Cheisly and Sir John Hopetoun in the ‘strange affronting of the king at Leith’.25Swintons of that Ilk, 65; Oxford DNB; Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. iii. 114. After Oliver Cromwell’s* victory at Dunbar in September 1650, Swinton abandoned the Scottish cause, and in the winter of 1650-1 (when most Scots supported Charles Stuart, however reluctantly) he renounced his command in the army and fled to the English camp.26Ludlow, Mems. ii. 289. A furious Scottish Parliament condemned Swinton for treason and forfeited his estates soon afterwards, and he was excommunicated by the commission of the Kirk, meeting at Perth in May 1651.27Acts Parl. Scot. vi. pt. 2, 659-60; J. Nicoll, Diary of Public Transactions (Edinburgh, 1836), 52; Swintons of that Ilk, 65. His enemies saw his defection as nothing other than cynical opportunism. According to John Maitland, 2nd earl of Lauderdale, Swinton had only ‘pretended to fight at Dunbar’ against the English in September 1650, and other accounts alleged he ‘attended the one day the English council of war at Berwick, the other the Scottish at Edinburgh’, and betrayed Edinburgh Castle to Cromwell.28Cal. Baxter Corresp. i. 314; Nicoll Diary, 239; Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. iii. 125.

Although his later career would show that he was not above acting from self-interest, it seems that Swinton’s defection in 1650-1 may have been influenced by higher motives. His rejection of the Presbyterian Kirk in the same period is significant. Before 1650 he was accounted by the Presbyterians as ‘a friend to persons of integrity and honesty … and seemed a lover of those that feared the Lord’.29Nicoll Diary, 239. From other comments it seems clear that, at this time, he sided with the Protester party in the Kirk.30Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. iii. 249. But by August 1651 the leading Protester, Sir Archibald Johnston* of Wariston, noted ‘Swinton’s strange expressions, commending the sectaries to the skies and slighting the third party (which we called the honest party) as these that had no principles’; a month later he bewailed Swinton’s ‘leaving off of all family exercises and private retirings daily, and walking untenderly on the Lord’s Day’.31Wariston Diary, ii. 119, 142. Swinton’s irreligion (as his enemies perceived it) worsened as the decade continued, leading to accusations that he ‘played at cards and spended largely’, that he had committed adultery with an English lady, and ‘swaggered with the best of the court in gallant apparel and powdered periwigs … turning not only round-head but round-Scot’.32Wariston Diary, iii. 2; Nicoll Diary, 239; Oxford DNB. As the last comment suggests, Swinton’s fall from grace was inextricably linked with his English inclinations, and cannot be taken as a sign that he rejected religion altogether. Indeed, it seems that Swinton’s religion was becoming increasingly radical during the 1650s, and it was not out of character that in 1657, after meeting George Fox in the Scottish lowlands, he declared himself to be a Quaker.33Swintons of that Ilk, 69; R.S. Spurlock, Cromwell and Scotland: Conquest and Religion, 1650-1660 (Edinburgh, 2007), 112-4, 184.

Whether or not Swinton’s rejection of Presbyterianism influenced his decision to join the English invaders, it certainly made him an acceptable ally for Cromwell, who was eager to win over compliant Scots. Swinton’s presence in the English army at Worcester, as an observer rather than a combatant, is revealing. In the immediate aftermath, he was sent by Cromwell to sound out the Protesters in the Kirk on Scotland’s future relationship with England. Returning to Scotland in late September 1651 he told his former friends ‘that many in England were for declaring this a conquest, but the general was for making it one nation, and that it would be obtained to be made one commonwealth if the honest party would seek it; otherwise they would govern us as Ireland and a conquest’. With such an unpalatable ultimatum, it was hardly surprising that Swinton was shunned at Edinburgh, ‘and that since he saw people kept such a distance here that he could do no good’ he soon returned to the safety of Berwick.34Wariston Diary, ii. 143. When the formal tender of union was made in the spring of 1652, Swinton was again involved: his father was appointed deputy for Berwickshire in the discussions with the English commissioners at Edinburgh, and when the old man died in the autumn, Swinton (now 20th laird) was himself selected to go to London to strike a final agreement.35Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 183; CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 441. He attended meetings between November 1652 and May 1653, and in September 1653 was paid £100 for his service in England.36R. Landrum, ‘Recs. Anglo-Scottish Union Negotiations, 1652-3’, Scot. Hist. Soc. Misc. xv. 233, 240, 289; NLS, MS 7032, f. 68.

Swinton had by this time become a trusted ally of the English government. In April 1652 he was appointed, with Sir William Lockhart* and others considered ‘most integrous and to come nearest to our principles’, as a commissioner for the administration of justice in Scotland, with a salary of £300.37Wariston Diary, ii. 161; Clarke Pprs. v. 56; Cromwellian Union, ed. Terry, 174-5. This was followed, on 23 August 1652, by the grant of the lordship and lands of Musselburgh, the abbey of Haddington, and other lands recently confiscated from the earl of Lauderdale.38Reg. Gt. Seal Scot. 1652-9, p. 14. These were supposed to be worth £400 a year, but Lauderdale and others suspected that the English officials had so undervalued the properties that Swinton’s rental income from this donative was closer to £800.39Add. 23113, f. 78; Nicoll Diary, 239. The final measure of the commonwealth’s trust in Swinton came in June 1653, when he was chosen as one of the six Scottish members to sit in the Nominated Assembly at Westminster.40Nicoll Diary, 109; Clarke Pprs. v. 90. Swinton may have attended Parliament only for a short period – his committee appointments all occur between 7 and 20 July – and it is difficult to gauge the extent of his influence in the House.41CJ vii. 282b, 283b, 285a, 286a, 286b. But he seems to have used the opportunity to emphasise his loyalty to the English government, and he was treated with respect, being granted private chambers in the former royal palace of Whitehall.42CSP Dom. 1654, p. 70. In November 1653 the commander of the Scottish army, Colonel Robert Lilburne*, attested to the trust which he and others now had in Swinton, when he asked Cromwell to send the laird back to Scotland ‘to assist in the engaging some honest Scotchmen here that would be forward to embark with us’ as the earl of Glencairn’s royalist rebellion erupted in the highlands.43Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS LXXXVI, f. 122.

Although Swinton had received some encouragement from Cromwell, his main patron during the protectorate was Major-general John Lambert*. The two had first become acquainted in January 1652, when both were guests of Sir John Hope of Craighall at Cupar in Fife, and their association was cemented by the dismemberment of the Lauderdale estates, from which Lambert as well as Swinton had benefited, and which they joined forces to defend on various occasions during the 1650s.44Scot. and Commonwealth, ed. Firth, 30. Lambert’s usefulness to Swinton was enhanced by his leading role in the committee of Scottish affairs at Whitehall, which allowed him to exert considerable influence over policy at the centre, and also day-to-day measures introduced by successive commanders-in-chief, Robert Lilburne and George Monck*, north of the border. Such connections brought immediate benefits in the early months of the protectorate. The protectoral council passed an ordinance in February 1654 annulling the Scottish Parliament’s act forfeiting Swinton’s life, honours and lands, and restoring him in blood.45CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 40. From March they considered the petition of the countess of Lauderdale, whose jointure lands had been withheld and granted to Swinton. Suspiciously, once it had been referred to the Scottish committee, the case does not reappear in the council records.46CSP Dom. 1654, p. 31. In April 1654 the act of pardon and grace for Scotland included Swinton as one of the commissioners to deal with claims of those with forfeited estates (including the earl of Lauderdale).47A. and O. ii. 878. In June 1654 Swinton’s commission as a judge in Scotland was also renewed by the council.48CSP Dom. 1654, p. 211. The Edinburgh government also favoured Swinton during this period, abating the assessment owed from various members of his family for their lands in Berwickshire, the Lothians and Haddingtonshire, granting him licence to keep swords and guns to defend his house at Innereske, and ensuring the prompt payment of his salary as judge.49Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLV, unfol.: 13 Feb., 15 and 31 Mar. 1654; XLVI, unfol.: 23 Nov. 1654, 31 May, 11 June, 3 and 23 July 1655. The extent to which this English patronage influenced Swinton’s election for Berwickshire in August 1654 is difficult to gauge. The primary interest was probably that of Swinton himself, as a landowner of long-standing, related to the Home family, which dominated the shire. But as an MP at Westminster, Swinton seems to have followed an English agenda, being named to committees on the forces of the commonwealth and on the enumeration of heresies, as well as the committees for Scottish and Irish affairs.50CJ vii. 368b, 370b, 371b, 373b, 381a, 399b. Furthermore, his duties at Westminster actually harmed Scotland, as ‘there was no sitting session in Edinburgh, nor no calling of actions by reason of the absence of the judges … being at London employed as commissioners from Scotland to the Parliament of England’.51Nicoll Diary, 155.

Swinton’s position as one of ‘our complying gentlemen’ was confirmed by his appointment as a member of the Scottish council appointed in March 1655.52CSP Dom. 1655, p. 108. The appointment was confirmed in May, and the new council convened in September 1655, when Swinton met the president, Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*), newly arrived from London.53Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XXVII, f. 86; l, f. 136v; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 152. As in 1652, Swinton seems to have been used by the government as an informal intermediary with other influential Scots – and especially with his erstwhile allies in the Protester faction within the Kirk. In September 1655, when the Protesters were pursuing the idea of a new church covenant, the minister of Stirling, James Guthrie, and the leading layman, Lord Wariston, were told, during ‘a long free conference with [Swinton] about the Covenant … that the present power would be jealous of the business of the Covenant in any ecclesiastic power or matter of national tendency, or of strength in any party in whom they had no confidence’ preferring that ‘all parties be broken, and they be supreme above all’.54Wariston Diary, iii. 11. As a way to extend Swinton’s usefulness as a go-between, the English tried to engineer some sort of reconciliation between him and the Kirk parties, beginning by the request that his excommunication be rescinded. According to the Resolutioner minister Robert Baillie, in 1656 ‘sundry of his [Swinton’s] friends were earnest to have him relaxed, that in their necessary affairs they might have the more liberty to employ his help’, but Swinton refused to ‘acknowledge a fault nor petition for favour’, and although the excommunication was lifted, many objected that it was ‘a mere scorn of our discipline’.55Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. iii. 316-7. Such moves could only compromise the initiatives of Lord Broghill, who was eager to reconcile the Resolutioner majority of the Kirk to the Cromwellian regime. Broghill also had cause to complain of Swinton’s pluralism: as a councillor he neglected his judicial function, threatening a ‘great stop of justice’ in Scotland, as well as burdening the state with the cost of paying both his salaries.56TSP iv. 268-9. There was also the prospect that, as a member of the executive as well as the judiciary, Swinton would ‘overawe’ his fellow judges, and pervert the course of justice.57TSP iv. 324.

Although Swinton should probably be accounted an ally of George Monck on the Scottish council in the mid-1650s, his true patron remained John Lambert, who still held sway in the Scottish committee at Whitehall. The benefits which Swinton derived from his official position certainly originated from the protectoral council, not its counterpart in Edinburgh. Thus, in April 1656, when the English council extended the powers of the commissioners for the act of pardon and grace to release forfeited estates, in order to allow creditors’ claims to be settled, they made sure Swinton was continued in post, alongside another beneficiary of a donative carved out of Lauderdale’s lands, Henry Whalley*.58CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 279, 362. A month later the protectoral council recommended Swinton to be one of the judges of the exchequer and lord of the session – an appointment only confirmed in August 1657, possibly because it was opposed by Broghill and others concerned at such blatant pluralism.59CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 326; NLS, MS 7032, f. 100v. During the summer and autumn of 1656 the council repeatedly considered ways of protecting Swinton’s estates, and allowed a re-grant of his Lauderdale lands on preferential terms.60CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 65, 142, 153, 173. The new grant was confirmed by the protector on 26 November. This last favour, which had direct implications for Lambert and others who held forfeited estates, was to prove especially controversial. For one critic, the abuse of the donatives was unjust not only to the earl of Lauderdale but also to ‘many of his creditors … like to perish for want of bread’.61Nicoll Diary, 239. According to Lauderdale himself, Swinton’s new grant was illegal according to Scottish practice, as ‘a forfalting of his first gift by the law of Scotland’.62Add. 23113, f. 78. As with the ‘relaxing’ of the excommunication and the ‘overawing’ of justice, Swinton’s donative threatened to subvert Scottish legal custom, at the very time when Broghill was trying to stabilise the country by reintroducing traditional forms of government.

In the August 1656 parliamentary elections Swinton was again returned for Berwickshire.63Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XXVIII, f. 86. He left Scotland at the beginning of September, having been granted an armed guard for his house at Branstoun, and had taken his seat at Westminster by 18 September, when he was named to the committee of privileges.64Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVIII, unfol.: 5 Sept. 1656; CJ vii. 368b. Despite his deliberate absence, along with others who favoured the admission of the excluded Members, from the vote on 22 September, in the early stages of the Parliament Swinton’s committee appointments reflect his position as a Scottish councillor and servant of the protectorate.65Clarke Pprs. iii. 74. On 23 September he was named to the committee of Scottish affairs, and on the same day he was added to the committee on wards and liveries, with a specific remit to consider wardship and tenures in Scotland.66CJ vii. 427a-b. Three days later he was named to the committee on the bill for the security of the protector – and went on to be appointed as a commissioner for Scotland for the same in November.67CJ vii. 429a; A. and O. ii. 1040. Local concerns presumably prompted his inclusion on committees to maintain ministers in England, Wales and Berwick (31 Oct.), and to suppress theft on the Scottish borders (4 Dec.).68CJ vii. 448b, 464a. Also on 4 December, Swinton intervened in the debate on the rights of burghs in the Scottish union bill, suggesting a compromise to bring the acrimonious debate to an end.69Burton’s Diary, i. 15. Important though such interventions might have been, Swinton’s absence at Westminster left only two councillors in Edinburgh, and soon only Monck remained north of border. Without a quorum the Scottish council was left in a state where ‘business cannot now be carried on’.70Add. 4157, f. 104. As a result, on 27 December the Commons gave Swinton and his fellow councillor, Charles Howard*, leave to go into the country – ‘in regard his highness has occasions for them in his council in Scotland’.71CJ vii. 476b; Burton’s Diary, i. 265. Swinton did not move quickly. On 22 January 1657 Monck asked the protector to ‘hasten down’ Swinton, and on 3 February he still had not arrived.72Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS LI, ff. 3v, 4. To add further insult, on 12 January the protectoral council had decided to override Broghill’s earlier objections, and confirm that Swinton was to receive both his concilial and judicial salaries – despite being an absentee from both positions.73CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 239.

When he did eventually travel north, Swinton was in Scotland for no more than two months. He was given a pass to travel south on 22 April, and was back at Westminster on 28 April, in time to be added to the committee on Irish and Scottish donatives (including the Lauderdale lands) on 29 April.74Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVIII, unfol.: 22 Apr. 1657; Burton’s Diary, ii. 65; CJ vii. 526a. Swinton was soon able to use his authority to manipulate the donative debate. As the earl of Lauderdale’s agent explained on 29 April ‘there was a stop in the business of the forfeiture which was done by Swinton’s means and nothing could be done till his donative were satisfied, he being one of the council’.75Add. 23113, f. 56. Swinton’s attack was coldly calculating. First, he moved ‘that the countess of Lauderdale may have no benefit of the £600 per annum given to her by that order, unless within six months she release her jointure’. This proviso passed with George Downing’s* support. Then Swinton reinforced his position by introducing another measure saying that the new bill should not compromise any articles made by George Monck and confirmed by the protector – a move supported by Broghill. Finally, Swinton ‘offered another proviso’ for the pardon of the earl of Callander and Lord Cranston – a measure seconded by Broghill and the earl of Tweeddale (James Hay*) – the latter being Callander’s kinsman. A committee to draft a bill for the pardon of Callander and Cranston was introduced on the same day (with Swinton, Lambert, Tweeddale and Broghill all nominated to it).76CJ vii. 527b; Little and Smith, Cromwellian Protectorate, 278-9.

Swinton’s tactics, to isolate the Lauderdale case from more popular ones, and thus to attract the support of moderates like Broghill as well as the more radical elements in the House, was very effective. On 2 June the countess of Lauderdale reported that, although Sir Gilbert Pykeringe* and Edward Montagu II* had spoken to him, Swinton would only allow her jointure payments ‘if he kept what he had’, and she added that with Pykeringe and Montagu out of London ‘I am afraid the bill may come in and so pass for he will watch his opportunity now they are away’.77Add. 23113, f. 58. The earl of Lauderdale later claimed that the insufficiency of the fine to satisfy both Swinton and Whalley had prevented him from compounding for his estate.78Cal. Baxter Corresp. i. 314. As Swinton was currently receiving £800 a year rather than the £400 he was legally entitled to, he was happy to let this situation continue. And it is tempting to see his dogged opposition to any settlement as being on behalf of others with interests in the Lauderdale estates as well as himself: principally Henry Whalley and John Lambert. Having secured his position (and that of his friends) Swinton reverted to acting as a Scottish councillor in Parliament, being involved in the committee to prepare the Additional Petition and Advice – with its further restrictions of the Scottish franchise – as a single bill on 27 May; and he was named to the committee to consider a land grant as a reward to the president of the Scottish council, Lord Broghill, on 5 June.79CJ vii. 540b, 546a.

Swinton had greatly benefited from the parliamentary sitting of 1656-7, which had confirmed his political influence and secured his stake in the Lauderdale estates. But the rancorous debates over kingship had fatally damaged the protector’s confidence in Lambert, who was dismissed from the English council, and stripped of his military posts in July 1657. Swinton was appointed as baron of the exchequer and re-appointed as commissioner for the administration of justice in August, but these were the last favours he received from Whitehall, and, although he remained in London, and attended the second sitting of Parliament in January 1658, he was no longer able to exert any significant influence over the protectoral regime.80NLS, MS 7032, ff. 100v, 106v; CJ vii. 589a. Swinton’s earlier high-handed behaviour left him with few alternative allies. George Monck, for example, had come to see the absentee Swinton as something of a liability, and in June 1657 he pointedly asked Cromwell whether all the Scottish judges were to have privileged treatment, or just Swinton.81TSP vi. 372. By 1659 an official report on Scottish justice noted that ‘Judge Swinton for his pleasure sometimes sits and sometimes not’.82Scot. and Protectorate, ed. Firth, 386. Swinton’s relations with Wariston and the Protesters were also problematic, as Wariston was jealous of Swinton and his friends ‘forking at court for my place’ as clerk of the registers, and he discovered in February 1657 that Sir William Lockhart had approached the protector directly, asking that Swinton replace Wariston.83Wariston Diary, iii. 49, 57, 71; TSP v. 769. Despite this suspicion, with the fall of Lambert, Swinton was forced to mend fences with the Protesters, who were increasingly associated with the marquess of Argyll (Archibald Campbell*). In October 1657 the Resolutioner agent James Sharp reported the Swinton and Argyll spent much time with each other in London, and in June 1658 Robert Baillie referred to Swinton as the ‘confident friend’ of the leading Protester minister, James Guthrie, and wrote warily of ‘Wariston, Swinton, Argyll and the rest of the faction’.84NLS Wodrow Folio MS 26, f. 36; Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. iii. 356, 361.

Swinton was re-elected for Berwickshire for the third protectorate Parliament, which met in January 1659.85TSP vii. 656. Edmund Ludlowe II* singled out Swinton, among the ‘pretended members for Scotland and Ireland’ as the only one who ‘modestly withdrew’ when the question of their continued presence in the Commons was debated.86Ludlow, Mems. ii. 57-8. Swinton had returned to the fray after ‘two or three days’, however, to support the union of Scotland and England. Speaking on 18 March, he declared that he was ‘fully satisfied’ that by the declaration of 1652 ‘the Parliament of England intended a union, and intended to make it good’ and that the Scots should be allowed to sit ‘to keep your faith’. ‘As for withdrawing’ he added, ‘I hope it is not expected. If you should be about to distribute an assessment upon a county or nation, must all the Members that serve for that county or nation withdraw?’87Burton’s Diary, iv. 187; Schilling thesis, 242-3. On 21 March, Swinton again supported the right of the Scottish MPs to sit, saying that ‘the way to do the commonwealth right, this House right, that nation right, is to put it upon a fair issue, whether they have a right, and ought to continue’.88Burton’s Diary, iv. 218-9. In his arguments for union, Swinton referred not to the Humble Petition or even the Instrument of Government, but to the agreements of 1652-3; he also argued for what was best for the ‘commonwealth’: both indicate that Swinton’s support for Scottish involvement (and therefore his own place in the Commons) did not automatically mean that he supported the protectorate. His initial withdrawal from the debate is also revealing. In two further votes – on whether the Commons should ‘transact’ with the Other House (28 Mar.), and whether the words ‘both Houses of Parliament’ should be used at all (5 Apr.) – Swinton again withdrew.89Burton’s Diary, iv. 293, 341. By doing so, he also withdrew his support from the protectorate on an issue which was crucial to its survival. And it was no coincidence that on the last two occasions he withdrew from the House in the company of the discontented marquess of Argyll.

Swinton greeted the fall of the protectorate with enthusiasm. According to Wariston, ‘Argyll and Swinton [were] so much inclined’ to the return of the Rump as early as 1 May 1659.90Wariston Diary, iii. 107. When councillors of state were chosen at Whitehall, both Wariston and Swinton were candidates, and there were reports from William Purefoy I* that ‘he heard of nobody’s name in the House but Swinton’s’.91Wariston Diary, iii. 111-2. As Sir Henry Vane II* told Wariston on 9 June, when the committee dealing with the choice of councillors met, ‘they were speaking of nominating one Scotsman out of a design to have Swinton, but some exceptions were taken against him’ and Wariston was selected instead.92Wariston Diary, iii. 119; Clarke Pprs. v. 295. This rebuff did not halt Swinton’s political renascence. In May he had been liaising with Sir James MacDowell*, David Barclay* and Sir Alexander Gibson* for a new union proposal (‘in name of the deputies [of] 1652 or put it in some other way’), in June he joined Wariston and Lockhart as mediator of some of Argyll’s private debts, and in August he again joined with Barclay in a renewed attempt to wrest the clerkship from Wariston.93Wariston Diary, iii. 116, 134; Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, pp. lxxxix-xc; CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 370. In September, there were moves, allegedly led by Mrs Swinton, ‘that Swinton might be a commissioner to Scotland’.94Wariston Diary, iii. 138. There is also evidence that Swinton had re-established contact with John Lambert at this time, and by October, as relations between Lambert and Parliament worsened, Swinton ‘was feared to be put out’ of his post as judge.95Wariston Diary, iii. 141. Lambert’s military coup, and the months of crisis which followed, marked the end of Swinton’s political pretentions. Despite efforts to woo Monck, the general remained suspicious of Swinton, and in January 1660, on hearing intelligence that he ‘have secret correspondence with … Lord Lambert’ Swinton was arrested and imprisoned in Leith Citadel.96Wariston Diary, iii. 173; Nicoll Diary, 270.

The restoration of the monarchy gave Swinton’s enemies their long-awaited chance for revenge. Although Swinton had apparently been released by Monck in the spring of 1660, and had then made his way to London, he was re-arrested in the summer, ‘taken in King’s Street, out of his bed, in a Quaker’s house’ and sent to the Tower.97Nicoll Diary, 296. In December he and the equally unfortunate Argyll – ‘those arch-traitors’ – were sent to Edinburgh by ship.98CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 406, 419. Both men were paraded through the streets of the city, but Swinton ‘being a fanatic and a Quaker’ was treated with particular contempt by his countrymen.99Nicoll Diary, 309. Argyll was later tried and executed. Swinton also faced a treason trial – with the charges the same as those brought against him, in his absence, in 1651 – and the prosecution was led by Lord Middleton, a close ally of Lauderdale.100Ludlow, Mems. ii. 289; Swintons of that Ilk, 71. In a mirror image of the situation a decade before, Lauderdale was now promised the lands and lordship of Swinton if the laird was found guilty, and this no doubt influenced the guilty verdict passed by the Scottish Parliament on 12 July 1661.101NRS, GD12/221. In the event, Swinton’s sincere acknowledgement of his past errors, made ‘with a sort of eloquence that moved the whole house’, counted in his favour, and he was spared the death sentence, instead suffering a further decree of forfeiture and imprisonment in Edinburgh Castle.102G. Burnet, History of his Own Time (6 vols. Oxford, 1833), i. 230-1. He was released from prison for short periods from 1663, and finally gained his freedom in 1667.103Regs. PC Scot. 1661-4, pp. 368, 578, 584, 592.

The last years of Swinton’s life were guided by his Quaker beliefs. Surviving letters, written from his prison cell to encourage other Quakers in 1660-1, show that he now spurned worldly gain. ‘Keep low in the fear that you may be preserved in this day that is approaching’ he urged in 1661, and in an earlier letter he spoke of the need to ‘sink down and dwell in that which neither gives the offence nor receiveth it’.104Add. 36735, ff. 3, 8. Other passages were overtly apocalyptic: ‘dear friends stand still, stand still, the hour draws near, the great and terrible hour such as hath been none before it nor shall be after it … and ye shall see the greatest salvation that was ever wrought for man upon the earth’, for God has ‘proclaimed against this generation which hath corrupted their ways’.105Add. 36735, ff. 3v, 12. Swinton’s first wife died in childbirth in Edinburgh Castle in December 1662, and in 1671, at the Quaker meeting in Westminster, he married Frances White, a Quaker from a Haddingtonshire family. By 1678 Swinton had returned to Berwickshire, where he resided at the Home castle at Blackadder, and then moved south, staying with the Cockburns at Borthwick in Lancashire, where he died in the following year.106Westminster Quaker meeting reg.; Swintons of that Ilk, 71-5. His testament shows how far he had fallen: apart from ‘an old sorrel horse’ and ‘a little grey nag’ and two cows, his estate was worth little more than £30 sterling, and this money, and more, was it owed to creditors.107NRS, CC15/5/7. After Swinton’s death the family was gradually rehabilitated. In June 1680 the king allowed his widow and sons a pension of £104, originally granted to the family in March 1662, and possibly resurrected through the intercession of duchess of Lennox, who was related to the family through Swinton’s first wife.108NRS, GD12/219; Swintons of that Ilk, 75. Ten years later, Swinton’s son (John Swinton, his younger son, who succeeded his brother Alexander as 22nd laird) secured the lifting of the forfeiture on the estate, and had the acts of 1651 and 1661 annulled.109NRS, GD12/221-2.