BRODIE, Alexander (1617-80), of Brodie, Elginshire.

The Brodies were among the oldest families in the north east of Scotland, having received the castle and lands of Brodie from Malcolm IV in the twelfth century. Their regional importance was underlined by the marriages contracted by the family in the early seventeenth century. David Brodie married the daughter of Thomas Dunbar of Grange, and in 1636 his eldest son, Alexander, was matched with the daughter of Sir Robert Innes of that ilk, who was a granddaughter of the 2nd earl of Moray.16Brodie Diary, pp. xv-xvii. These close-knit families, along with the Brodies of Lethen, formed a powerful faction in the shires of Elgin and Nairn which challenged the authority of the Gordons, headed by the marquess of Huntly, in the later 1630s. Alexander Brodie of Brodie had undergone a religious conversion while an undergraduate at Aberdeen, ‘after some loose walking in St Andrews’, and although he was appointed a commissioner for the rival ‘king’s covenant’ in 1638, thereafter he was a strong supporter of the National Covenant.17Brodie Diary, 137. His zeal can be seen in an incident in December 1640, when he and his brother-in-law, the younger laird of Innes, led an iconoclastic attack on the cathedral at Elgin, tearing down religious paintings and destroying carved woodwork.18Brodie Diary, p. xvii. He was a ruling elder in his local Presbytery, and in 1643 he became a member of the General Assembly of the Kirk, as well as a commissioner to the convention of estates and a member of its executive, the committee of estates.19Young, Parliaments of Scot. i. 68; Brodie Diary, p. xxi. Brodie’s uncompromising stance made him a hate-figure for Scottish royalists, whose fortunes had recovered under the leadership of Montrose, and in 1645 a force of ‘wild Irishes’ from Inverness attacked Brodie Castle, leaving Brodie to mourn ‘my house … burnt to the ground, and my estate made desolate’.20Brodie Diary, 139. In response, the Scottish Parliament granted him compensation, and in 1646 passed a charter incorporating his lands into a free barony.21Young, Parliaments of Scot. i. 68.

Brodie was fiercely opposed to the royalist Engagement of 1647-8, and was prominent in his support for measures to punish its adherents in the winter of 1648-9. This brought him into close contact with other radicals, including the marquess of Argyll (Archibald Campbell*), Alexander Jaffray* and Sir Archibald Johnston* of Wariston, who now dominated the Scottish Parliament.22Scotland under the Covenanters ed. Stevenson, 85, 88, 92, 94, 104. In June 1649 Brodie was appointed as an ordinary lord of the session.23Brodie Diary, p. xxxiii. Later in the same year, and again in March 1650, he was sent to Breda on a commission, which included Jaffray and the earls of Lothian and Cassillis, authorised to invite Charles Stuart to return as king if he would agree to subscribe the covenant, accept the Presbyterian church settlement, and continue the harsh laws against Catholics. The last clause was a sticking point for the royalists, as were attempts to restrict the restoration of former Engagers, and the talks continued until June when an uneasy compromise was reached.24CCSP ii. 51-2, 55-9, 61, 65-7, 69; Nicoll, Diary, 4. This final agreement split the Scottish commissioners, with Lothian and others supporting ‘the prince and his interests’ while Cassillis, Jaffray and Brodie, ‘are very refractory to him’.25Charles the Second and Scotland in 1650 ed. S.R. Gardiner (Edinburgh, 1894), 105. Charles Stuart arrived in Scotland in July 1650, and Brodie reluctantly found himself cast in the role of a royalist. As Oliver Cromwell’s* army advanced into Scotland in August, Brodie was one of the leading members of the committee of estates, which co-ordinated resistance.26Recs. Burgh Edinburgh, 1642-55, 257-8. The English threat did not curb Brodie’s tongue, however. At the end of July, during the siege of Edinburgh, Wariston reported that ‘my Lord Brodie and I spake our mind freely to the king against his biding here’, and Brodie went on to join Cassillis in his call for a purge of the Scottish army, opposing the employment of ‘Engagers’, ‘English malignants’ and ‘the king’s old party’.27Wariston Diary, ii. 6, 11. The last-minute purge of the army, led by Brodie and his friends, weakened its officer corps, and contributed to the defeat of the Scottish army at Dunbar in September 1650.

Dunbar not only put much of the south of Scotland under Cromwellian control; it also split the Kirk, with Brodie and others signing the Remonstrance (or Protestation) against corruptions within the General Assembly.28Recs. General Assembly, 1650-2 ed. J. Christie (Edinburgh, 1909), 66. Thereafter, Brodie’s relationship with the Stuarts became increasingly strained. In October 1650 he was appointed as commissary-general and collector-general of the assessments, but refused to accept either office.29Scotland under the Covenanters ed. Stevenson, 193. In January 1651 he was one of the lairds ordered to organise the raising of forces for the king’s army, and he undertook his duties with diligence, but not enthusiasm.30Ancram Corresp. ii. 331. Charles was displeased by the prominence of radicals in his counsels, and Wariston recorded his ‘sharp expressions’ against Brodie in April, ‘although he has most helped the provisions of their army’.31Wariston Diary, ii. 42. Nothing is known of Brodie’s activities during the summer of 1651. He probably withdrew from the government altogether, and he was certainly not implicated in the disastrous Worcester campaign. With the establishment of English rule, Brodie was among those Protesters who made private approaches to the new government in the early weeks of 1652, coming to the headquarters at Dalkeith ‘expecting we would have taken them into our bosoms upon old acquaintance’, but who left shortly afterwards ‘extremely discontented’ at their cool reception.32Cromwellian Union, ed. Terry, 11, 16. Brodie was unrepentant. When the English government issued its ‘tender’ of union to the Scots in February 1652, he encouraged the Morayshire (or Elginshire) gentry to send their own paper of demands instead. As the more compliant Wariston recorded, later in the spring Brodie was at pains ‘to justify the paper of Moray, which was rejected by the English commissioners, with reflections on him’.33Wariston Diary, ii. 154. This false start did not prevent Brodie from making informal contacts with English officials, such as Judge Moseley and Major-general Robert Lilburne*, but he was increasingly ill at ease with the Cromwellian regime and with those Protesters, such as Wariston and John Swinton* of Swinton, who were willing to collaborate with it.34Brodie Diary, 34-5, 35, 43, 47-8, 50. In May 1653 Brodie made a private resolution ‘in the Lord’s strength, to eschew and avoid employments under Cromwell’.35Brodie Diary, 41.

Brodie’s decision was made less than a month before he received a summons from Cromwell requiring his attendance as one of the five Scotsmen of the Nominated Assembly. The summons left Brodie in a state of Calvinist angst. In his diary of 4 July he described it as ‘Goliath … the strongest and greatest temptation’, and he was well aware of his ‘former resolutions’ to avoid employment under the new regime; but he was also attracted by the offer of a place at Westminster. He accepted that representative institutions were divinely sanctioned if ‘lawfully chosen’, and he realised that the ‘settling and enlarging of his outward estate’ might be facilitated by his agreeing to sit.36Brodie Diary, 64, 66. Yet, without a clear indication from God whether he should accept or refuse that offer, Brodie was unable to discern the right path to take. All he could do was beg for divine guidance, with the anguished cry: ‘Lord, clear thy providences’.37Brodie Diary, 57-8, 61. Others, with fewer scruples, pressed Brodie to go to London. Alexander Jaffray repeatedly urged Brodie to join him in Parliament, but Brodie, praying for ‘inward grace and strength against consenting or delighting in any of these motions and projects of earthly designs’ could only reply (on 27 July) that ‘I would not take any employment on me, and that I laid aside all thoughts of coming to London’.38Brodie Diary, 63-4, 66, 76. This state of spiritual paralysis continued even after his definite refusal to sit. On 31 July he feared that ‘the inordinate desires of his heart’ in worldly things would make ‘his affections and desires after the Lord’ grow even fainter; and on 7 August, a Sabbath, he reached rock bottom, writing that he ‘could see no light, nor find any life … Nor any thirst for the Lord Jesus … but a heart overwhelmed with… earthliness’.39Brodie Diary, 67, 74. This ‘formality, deadness, looseness of spirit’ had not cleared by the new year of 1654, when the earl of Glencairn’s royalist rebels invaded the north east.40Brodie Diary, 78. Even though Brodie had news ‘that they had a purpose to seize his person’, he refused to leave his house without divine guidance, ‘not knowing if it were safest and freest from temptations to stay at home or to withdraw’.41Brodie Diary, 105-6; Wariston Diary, ii. 198, 207. The arrival of English forces prevented Brodie suffering the consequences of his inaction (although his uncle, the laird of Lethen, had his estates torched by the rebels), but further complicated his religious dilemma:

this shall not serve to persuade [me] to join issue with the English; for the Lord doeth secretly keep off, and interdict my spirit from leaning to, or closing with them. But, oh Lord! here does my temptation lie.42Brodie Diary, 109.

Brodie’s sense of spiritual desolation lifted during 1654, although in later years he would still castigate himself for his ‘sinful affection’ in pruning the trees in his garden, and his ‘carnal delight’ in the beauty of the fields and woods near his home.43Brodie Diary, 123, 179. Although he continued to be wary of collaboration with the English, and attacked Argyll for his ‘base flattering letter to the lord protector offering and engaging himself to his service’, during this period he sided with the pro-English wing of the Protesters, led by Patrick Gillespie, and was included in the commission for approving ministers in August 1654 as a result.44Wariston Diary, ii. 220, 223-4; Nicoll, Diary, 167. He also benefited from favours from the new commander-in-chief, George Monck*, who exempted Brodie from fines, and requested the payment of his arrears as lord of the session, ‘he being a gentleman who deserves well for his peaceable living and good affections.45Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke XLVI, unfol.: 14 Oct, 20 Nov. 1654. Despite Brodie’s criticisms of Argyll, during 1654 he came into closer contact with the marquess, who had taken over the territorial interests of his royalist brother-in-law, the marquess of Huntly, in the north east. In October, for example, Brodie and the lairds of Innes were important supporters for Argyll in his efforts to take possession of the Huntly lands on Speyside.46Account of the Family of Innes ed. C. Innes (Aberdeen, 1864), 177-8. 1655-6 saw a further increase in Brodie’s political activity, spurred on by the possibility of recovering the expenses promised by the Scottish Parliament to its commissioners to Holland in 1650, and by the need to defend the interests of the earl of Moray (Alexander Stewart*) and other friends against the fines imposed by the English government in 1654.47Brodie Diary, 122, 124, 133, 139. Significantly, Brodie brushed aside Sir John Cheisley’s warnings ‘to take heed of snares in that Holland business’, and on 30 July 1655 resolved ‘that my going to London was not a sin against any express command of God, only it might expose me to snares’.48Brodie Diary, 129, 143. On 18 September, when Brodie attended Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*) and Charles Howard*, newly arrived in Edinburgh, his main concern was with his reputation, for ‘I fell in a necessity to convoy and accompany them up the way, to the offence, I fear, of many’, although he was also left wondering ‘if my visiting or my carriage was sinful’.49Brodie Diary, 155. The gradual softening of his line against the Cromwellian regime can best be seen in his attitude to the justices of the peace. When the creation of magistrates was suggested in October 1655, Brodie agreed in principle to participate, ‘if others should be joined that were as fit as I’; but when the scheme was put into force in December 1655 he found that the required oath breached the terms of the Covenant, and he refused to take it.50Brodie Diary, 163; Dow, Cromwellian Scot. 180-1. Brodie again refused to participate in February and April 1656, and a revised oath, drawn up by the local gentry, was dismissed by the sheriff in May, but by July he had capitulated. The decision was not an easy one, and he was left to consider ‘how would I answer the Lords Cassillis and Wariston for accepting to be a justice of the peace’, but he had taken the oath, and agreed to collaborate with the English government for the first time.51Brodie Diary, 174, 176, 178, 183, 188.

The Cromwellian government, perhaps impressed by Brodie’s integrity, remained remarkably patient of his prevarications. Monck seemed willing to play a waiting game, encouraging Brodie through concessions. In April 1655 he was allowed £242 to cover his arrears as lord of the sessions before 1652, and in April 1656 the ‘Holland commissioners’ from 1650 were given authority to raise their expenses according to the earlier orders of the Scottish Parliament.52CSP Dom. 1655, p. 126; 1655-6, p. 296; 1656-7, p. 10. Brodie’s acceptance of the commission of the peace encouraged a more direct approach. In July 1656 Major-general Thomas Morgan visited Brodie, ‘and spoke to me for choosing the earl of Moray to the Parliament ensuing’, although Brodie apparently refused, professing himself scandalised by Moray’s willingness to collaborate so openly with the regime.53Brodie Diary, 184-5. A month later, however, Brodie was in Edinburgh, attending Lord Broghill ‘in our business’, and he was happy to entertain Judges George Smyth* and Edward Moseley at his house.54Brodie Diary, 188. From then on, it was only a matter of time before Brodie was brought back into the government. In February 1657 approaches were made to Brodie and Wariston, who had been mooted as possible members of the Scottish council.55Wariston Diary, iii. 59. In July the protector told Wariston privately that he approved of Brodie’s ‘ability and tenderness’ and considered ‘putting him on the exchequer and making his maintenance honourable’.56Wariston Diary, iii. 93. Later in the same month the protectoral council recommended that Brodie be appointed as one of the judges of the high court of justice in Edinburgh.57CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 34. Brodie was tempted by the last but turned it down, telling Monck that his refusal was caused only by illness, ‘so that few expected his recovery’, and that he was ‘disabled from discharging not only public employment, but the least private or domestic business’.58Wariston Diary, iii. 98; TSP vi. 364. There is little doubt that Brodie’s sickness was genuine, rather than diplomatic, and Monck was forced to recommend another candidate to the protector.59TSP vi. 351, 367. By the winter of 1657-8, however, Brodie had recovered, and was now prepared to take an active role in Scottish affairs. Alexander Douglas of Spynie told the earl of Morton on 5 December 1657 that Brodie was likely to be appointed to the high court of justice, assuring him that ‘if he be a judge, your lordship will have a friend in the court’ and, in any case, ‘there is none in Scotland in more reputation with them’.60NRS, GD 150/3447/3. Spynie’s information proved accurate. On 9 January 1658 ‘after a long call and invitation … my Lord Brodie was brought in and admitted to be one of the judges … who then embraced the office and sat upon the bench that same day’.61Nicoll, Diary, 210.

During 1658 and 1659 Brodie was active in the judiciary, for example liaising with the Edinburgh city council over its internal governance and privileges.62Recs. Burgh Edinburgh, 1655-65, 95, 134, 139, 152. He was also working with the marquess of Argyll during this period, despite frictions between Argyll and Monck, although Spynie was probably exaggerating when he claimed that Brodie ‘will do anything at my Lord Argyll’s desire’ as early as December 1657.63NRS, GD 150/3447/3. Brodie’s equivocal relationship with Argyll can also be seen in his continued contacts with the earl of Moray, who was openly hostile to the marquess by this time.64NRAS 217 (Stewart earls of Moray), box 6, no. 883. It was probably Monck, rather than Argyll, who put forward Brodie as a candidate for the new Scottish commission, considered but not appointed during the summer and autumn of 1659, despite objections at Whitehall that Brodie ‘would not take the Engagement’.65Wariston Diary, iii. 126, 142, 148. Aside from Monck, Brodie’s most useful ally in the months before the Restoration was his former colleague on the 1650 commission, the earl of Lothian. The ‘business of our Holland negotiation’ had not been resolved before the collapse of the protectorate.66Ancram Corresp. ii. 422-3. Brodie was also one of Lothian’s creditors.67Ancram Corresp. ii. 467-8. The financial links between the two men were further strengthened when Brodie’s only son married Lothian’s daughter in July 1659.68Brodie Diary, p. xxxviii. After the Restoration, the Holland commissioners at last received compensation, under an act passed by the Scottish Parliament on 4 July 1661.69Brodie Diary, p. xl. Lothian also advised Brodie on how to attempt a reconciliation with the Stuarts, and interceded with the marquess of Tweeddale (John Hay*) and the duke of Lauderdale on Brodie’s behalf, in case ‘any prejudice stick with the king’.70Ancram Corresp. ii. 450. Despite going to London to present his case in person in the summer of 1661, there was little that Brodie (or Lothian) could do to change the minds of his staunchest enemies, however, especially as Brodie had courted controversy by defending Lord Lorne, the son and heir of the condemned marquess of Argyll.71Brodie Diary, pp. xl-xlviii. The royalists, led by the earl of Middleton, ensured that Brodie was fined £4,800 under the Scottish act of Indemnity in September 1662.72Acts Parl. Scot. vii. 424.

In the later 1660s Brodie retired to the north east, where he tried to live privately, and conformed outwardly to the new religious settlement. Brodie justified his decision ‘to communicate with these who conform’, saying that ‘I think I may lawfully do it without partaking of their sin’, but he was deeply upset by ‘the offence that honest men took at it’, and in the 1670s he ceased to attend the local church altogether. By this time he was increasingly crippled by his ‘old disease of the stone’, and he died, aged 63, on 17 April 1680.73Brodie Diary, pp. liii-lix. Brodie was succeeded by his son, James, who died in 1708, having had nine daughters and no male heir. The Brodie estate passed to a cousin, George Brodie of Aslisk, who had married one of James’s daughters.74Brodie Diary, p. lxiv.