Moodie book

38
The Moodie Book.
Melsetter estates in 1714, and had taken possession, ejecting his nephew, the
young Laird, who was, in common with the majority of the Orkney gentlemen, a
strong Jacobite. He was, on the other hand, a strong Hanoverian, and his
having commanded the vessel that conveyed the Elector George to England had
made him greatly disliked, and it is probable that this was the real cause of his
murder by Sir James Stewart of Burray in the streets of Kirkwall, when over
eighty years of age, 26th October 1725. There are several versions of the affair
though, according to one, the Stewarts, when shooting on the Melsetter estates,
had been deprived of their firearms by the servants of the Moodie family, and,
though apologies had been tendered, had never forgiven the insult. According
to another, 1 Alexander Stewart, younger brother of Sir James, havino-
been too marked in his attentions to Mrs Moodie or Lady Melsetter, as
she was called, according to Scottish custom, had been forbidden the
house by her husband, and having been caught at Melsetter afterwards by
Moodie, was, \>y his directions, flogged on the bare back with a piece of tang or
seaweed. For this degrading treatment Alexander Stewart is said in vain to
have demanded satisfaction from Moodie, who, however, refused to go out,
perhaps thinking that his character for courage stood sufficiently high for him to
do so. At last, stung to madness by the schoolboy's discipline he had been forced
to submit to, Alexander Stewart determined to have his revenge. How he took
it is described in a draft letter from the Sheriff Deputy to the Magistrates of
Kirkwall, discovered some years ago among the county papers. The Sheriff,
Robert Honeyman, the Sheriff's Clerk, or, as he was then termed, the Stewart-
Clerk, and Captain James Moodie were in Kirkwall to hold a Justice of the
1 Walter Traill Dennison's " Orcadian Sketch-Book " (Kirkwall, 1880,) is the only authority for
the story of the intrigue between Mrs Moodie and Alexander Stewart. -Mr J. 6. F. Moodie Heddle
writes : — " Christian Crawford is said to have been herself related to the Stewarts of Burray. How it
works out I do not know, but I suspect thai the intimacy which the relationship involved is largely
the foundation for the tale of intrigue, for the truth of which there is not one iota of authentic, or
indeed contemporary, testimony. The manner in which she is said to have fanned the feelings of
vengeance in her son's mind from the first, seems wholly inconsistent with that view, as also the fact
that even after Sir James Stewart's death, she raised an action against Lord Galloway for damages on
account of her husband's death." From the Melsetter title-deeds, it would seem that there was a
dispute between the two families as to the ownership of certain property in Walls, that of the Sandi-
sones of Ayre. Lord Galloway finally cedes the point, by way of compromise of the action raised by
Mrs Moodie, or some other action. It is not improbable that this dispute may have been largely at
the bottom of the whole matter, added, no doubt, to Commodore Moodie's political unpopularity, and
an unjust but very natural resentment at his treatment of his nephew, a Jacobite, be it remem-
bered, and half a Stewart. It is not clear when the dispute over the Sandisone lands began, but the
acquisition of them may well have been an object of ambition with both families even before the
Commodore took possession of Melsetter. The young captain's political leanings, Stewart blood, and
personal popularity may have kept the dispute in check till then. The Stewarts of Burray held
Flotta, the next island to Walls, and, indeed, part of the parish thereof, and the story of their trying
to pick a quarrel over a shooting expedition looks much more like a dispute over boundaries than a
rational or probable method of emphasising general political antagonism. It may be, however, that
the shooting expedition, if it ever took place, was a gentle hint to the old Commodore that the
Stewarts still regarded his Jacobite nephew as the real owner of the property. No doubt they could
have settled the Sandisone business to their better advantage with him.