Volume 2 > Half-Volume 4

529
private practice, surgical and general, and in this he
continued during the last twenty years of his life,
with occasional appearances as an author. It was
in keeping with his long and hard-working career,
that at the close he should die in harness. On the
20th of May, 1860, he had been out as usual in the
forenoon on his round of professional duties, but
feeling drowsy, had returned home. Insensibility
gradually grew upon him without any return of con-
sciousness, and on the following evening he died
without pain.
LOCKHART, SIR GEORGE, a distinguished con-
stitutional lawyer, and lord-president of the Court of
Session, was the second son of Sir James Lockhart
of Lee, a judge of the Court of Session. The period
of his birth is unknown, and the earliest circum-
stance of his life which has been recorded is, that he
studied for the bar, to which he was admitted on the
8th of January, 1656, by the commissioners ap-
pointed for the administration of justice in Scotland
under the government of Cromwell.1 The well-
known personal interest of his brother Sir William
Lockhart with the Protector, was probably the
means of introducing his talents to early notice; and
on the I4th May, 1658, he was appointed "sole
attorney," or lord-advocate of Scotland. On the
restoration of the monarchy his family influence pro-
cured him favour at court; and after taking the oath
of allegiance, along with the performance of other
somewhat humiliating ceremonies, expressive of re-
gret for his support to the fallen government, he was
permitted the exercise of his profession, and received
the honour of knighthood in 1663. Sir George dis-
tinguished himself as an able barrister, and became
a man of power and influence. Notwithstanding
favours extended towards him, such as monarchs too
often find sufficient to secure unhesitating tools, he
used the privileges of his profession frequently against
the court; and through the progress of the dark deeds
perpetrated by Tweeddale and Lauderdale, his name
frequently occurs in the Books of Adjournal (the
criminal record of Scotland), as using his professional
abilities in favour of the Covenanters. One of the
most prominent features of his life is the struggle
which he headed in 1674 for procuring by indirect
means, and partly through the influence of the bar,
an appeal from the courts of law to the legislature,
unauthorized by the theory of the constitution of
Scotland, and directly against the wishes of the court,
to which a body of paid judges, removable at plea-
sure, seemed a more pliable engine than an assembly
of men, partly elected, partly holding by hereditary
right. He was the person who, in the suit between
the Earl of Dunfermline and the Earl of Callender
and Lord Almond, advised the last-mentioned to
present an appeal to parliament.2 The earl being
cited before the privy-council to answer for this act,
applied to Sir George Lockhart, Sir Robert Sinclair,
Sir George Cunningham, and Sir George Mackenzie,
for information how to act in the matter; and a paper
was drawn up for him by these eminent men, de-
claring "that he desired nothing thereby, but to
protest for remeid of law;" in other words, that he
did not wish the decree of the Court of Session to
be reduced on the ground of injustice or oppression,
but a revisal by the parliament, declaratory or statu-
tory, as to the law on the point. "In all which,"
says Sir George Mackenzie, with the bitterness of
1  Brunton and Haig's Hist, of Col. of just. 419.
2  Those readers who are not acquainted with the details of
this event, may find such circumstances connected with it as
are here omitted, in the life of SIR JOHN LAUDER OF FOUN-
TAINHALL.
VOL.   II.
disappointment, "Sir George Lockhart's design was
to bring in this trial before the parliament, hoping
thereby that they would lay aside the president, and
leave the chair vacant for him." Lauderdale im-
mediately proceeded to court, accompanied by the
president of the Court of Session and one of the
judges; and on their report of the proceedings Charles
found the matter of sufficient importance to demand
personal interference, and wrote a letter to the privy-
council, in which, expressing his conviction of the
necessity of preserving the supreme power of the
College of Justice, and his "abhorrence" of appeals,
he was graciously pleased that no proceeding should
be instituted against those who had maintained the
political heresy, in case they disavowed it; but that
if they did not, they should be debarred the exercise
of their professions. The consequence of this letter
was the banishment of Lockhart and Cunningham,
and the voluntary exile of fifty advocates, who chose
to resent the insult: but the manner in which the act
is detailed by Sir George Mackenzie, and the curious
views which he casts on the motives and conduct of
his great rival, prompt us to extract the passage:�
"His majesty having ordained by his letters such as
would adhere to that appeal to be debarred from
pleading, and Sir George Lockhart and Sir John
Cunningham being thereupon called in before the
lords, they owned that though formal appeals might
be said to be contrary to the 62 act. Par. 14 James
II., yet a protestation for remeid of law might be
allowed; whereupon they were debarred from their
employments till the king should declare his further
pleasure. And albeit it might have been reasonably
concluded that this exclusion should have pleased
the younger advocates whom those seniors over-
shaded, interrupting the chief advantage and honour
that was to be expected in that society; yet most
fearing to offend so eminent men, who they knew
would soon return to their stations, and being pushed
on by the lords of the party, and the discontented
persons to whom they owed their employments, went
tumultuarily out of the session-house with those who
were debarred; and thus, as Sir George Lockhart
broke that society at first by his avarice in the matter
of the regulations, he broke them now again by his
pride in the matter of the appeals; and by raising a
clamour against the president, and joining in the
popular dissatisfaction, he diverted early from him-
self that great hatred which was so justly conceived
against his insolence and his avarice�two crimes
which were more eminent in him than his learning."
Although the causes of the enmity entertained by
Mackenzie towards Lockhart are not fully explained,
the allusions of the former make it quite clear that
it arose from professional and political rivalry. The
king had written to the burghs, advising them to
renew their old acts against the choosing of repre-
sentatives. "The king's design in this was," says
Sir George, " to exclude such as had been factious
in the former parliament, and to engage the burghs
to an immediate dependence on the crown." The dis-
affected advocates endeavoured to inspire the burghs
with a wish to oppose the designs of the court; in
the meantime, however, it was necessary that the
king's letters should be answered, and a draught of
such a document was prepared for the committee by
Sir George Mackenzie. This letter was sent for the
perusal of Lockhart, who altered it "so as of a dis-
creet and dutiful letter, it became, by adding what
was humorous, and striking out what was discreet,
a most unpolisht and indiscreet paper. And when
Sir George Lockhart was askt why he had deformed
it so, his answer to James Stewart was, that it was
fit to make Sir George Mackenzie unpardonable."
69