HAY, James (fl. 1630-1659), formerly of Forret, Fife.

Colonel James Hay was a younger son of Peter Hay of Naughton, and his brothers included George Hay of Naughton, who was commissioner for Fife in the Scottish Parliament of 1650-1, Peter Hay of Blebo, and Patrick Hay, described in 1655 as ‘formerly a colonel in Germany’.7Young, Parliaments of Scot. i. 135; Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVI, unfol.: 1 Feb. 1655; Swedish Krigsarchiv, Muster Roll 1635/20-6, 29-31; 1636/17, 18. Little is known of James Hay’s early career. He had joined his brother as a soldier on the continent by 1630, when he was an ensign in a Swedish regiment, and he may have served in Germany later in the decade, but he is not mentioned in the official muster rolls.8Swedish Krigsarchiv, Muster Roll 1630/29-31. By the mid-1640s Hay had returned to Scotland, where he joined the royalist forces in the highlands. He may have fought under James Graham, marquess of Montrose, at Philiphaugh, as in November 1645 he was imprisoned in St Andrews Castle along with the 1st earl of Hartfell, Lord Ogilvie and others captured after the defeat.9Scot. under the Covenanters, ed. Stevenson, 51-2. Unsurprisingly, Hay played no part in Scottish politics in the later 1640s, although he may have been the Colonel Hay summoned by the Scottish Parliament in May 1650, and he was one of the ‘commanders’ in Fife during the summer of 1651.10Acts Parl. Scot. vi. pt. 2, p. 570; Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 14.

In September 1651, after George Monck’s* seizure of Dundee, Hay was chosen ‘to treat with the English forces to have their cess moderated’, and to present the shire’s formal submission to the conquerors.11Diary of John Lamont, ed. G.R. Kintoch (Edinburgh, 1830), 35; Scot. and Commonwealth ed. Firth, 14. In February 1652 he was again chosen as one of four Fife gentlemen to treat with the English government, but the strict ‘Kirkists’ objected, and he was not eventually sent to Dalkeith to negotiate the tender of union.12Cromwellian Union ed. Terry, 26n. Despite his uncertain support locally, during the early 1650s Hay came to be regarded as a reliable man in English eyes, and he was granted passes into Fife and Perthshire and the southern areas of Scotland in the spring and summer of 1654.13Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLV, unfol.: 7 Feb., 8 June 1654. When he was elected as MP for Fife on 2 August, Hay was described by John Lamont as ‘a gentleman intimate with the English’, and when he travelled to London a few days later he carried letters of recommendation from Monck to Oliver Cromwell and John Lambert*.14Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLV, unfol.: 7 Aug. 1654. Hay may have had financial reasons for seeking election. A series of grants in 1653 and 1654 resulted in the loss of his lands in Fife, Forfarshire and Perthshire, including the manor house at Forret, which he had acquired from his brother, Peter Hay of Blebo, as recently as 1648.15Reg. Gt. Seal Scot. 1652-9, pp. 74-5, 84, 119-21. His own problems were matched by those of his elder brother, George Hay of Naughton, who was fined £1,000 under the Act of Pardon and Grace of April 1654. James accompanied George to London in the summer of 1654 in an attempt to reduce this fine, and in 1655 Naughton’s fine was indeed reduced to a third of the original total, but whether or not this was thanks to Hay’s efforts is uncertain.16Young, Parliaments of Scot. i. 325; Dow, Cromwellian Scot. 152.

Hay’s activity in Parliament would be almost entirely obscure were it not for the printing of his speech ‘upon the debate concerning toleration’ in February 1655. It is unlikely that Hay was behind its publication – the title page says that ‘it was taken by Anonymus, a Member of this House’ – as its contents were inflammatory. He described religion in the state as ‘in distemper’ and his diagnosis was that ‘by granting too large a toleration you dishonour God, and disorder the state’. The government, by ‘misregarding all law and ecclesiastical constitution and practices, strive to turn the bounded Christian, the household of faith, into a drove of rambling, untied, untoward enthusiasts’.17Colonel James Hays Speech (1655), 4-5 (E.828.4). Hay went on to attack even those who had pressed for a national confession of faith with limited toleration, which he said was ‘a law … of no force [which] leaves all to a graceless liberty’.18Hays Speech, 7. The bible showed that God condemned toleration and delighted in ‘the truth, the unity of worship, the entireness of religion’ and also detested ‘heresy’.19Hays Speech, 10. Hay went on to cite examples from scripture, reiterating God’s refusal to tolerate Israel when it went astray, threatening ‘to have extinguished the very name of Israel’.20Hays Speech, 21. He concluded that there was ‘no warrant in all the scriptures to blaspheme God’s name: and I am persuaded the toleration now aimed at will tend to that in the highest degree’, urging his audience: ‘Be not ashamed to assert the truth, nor afraid to condemn errors, and then you’ll know both what to tolerate, and whom to compel’.21Hays Speech, 28, 32. Despite his earlier service of the Stuarts, Hay was evidently a dyed-in-the-wool Presbyterian, fearful of the implications of religious liberty. Furthermore, his hard-line attitude to toleration not only attacked what was clear government policy; it also went far beyond what most of the English Presbyterians in the Commons were trying to achieve in 1654-5.

After the speech was published, Hay’s relations with the authorities soured. In April 1655 Monck ordered that Hay be arrested and sent to the marshal-general at Edinburgh Castle, and although he was released soon afterwards he was forced to sign a bond for £1,500 guaranteeing his good behaviour. In the summer of 1659, during Sir George Boothe’s* rising in northern England, Hay was again investigated as a known royalist, and in August he was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle for refusing to sign an engagement not to lend support to Charles Stuart, and enter a bond for £1,000.22Clarke Pprs. iv. 41; J. Nicoll, Diary of Public Transactions (Edinburgh, 1836), 247; Dow, Cromwellian Scot. 247. Curiously, the Clarke Papers describe Hay as being a ‘recusant’ at this time.23Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLIII, f. 88v; Clarke Pprs. iv. 28. In December 1659 Hay was again accused of plotting, this time with Lord Brechin, the earl of Southesk and others, who, according to Monck’s informant, had met ‘to do a disservice to your lordship and the commonwealth’.24Clarke Pprs. iv. 200-1. It is likely that Hay died soon after 1660, as there is no record of him receiving any reward for his services after the Restoration. His wife, Jean Home, was buried in Edinburgh on 12 November 1661.25Reg. Interments, Greyfriars, 298.