Series 5 > Miscellany [of the Scottish History Society] XIII

304
MISCELLANY XIII
he had fermed to Sir Will[iam] Sharp.
Whereupon the Lord Hatton & his sons finding themselves
disappoynted of succeeding him in that imployment, began to be more
earnest that theire succession to his Estate might be secured, and
ent[e]ring into ane treaty with my Lady about it, gave her so great
cause of displeasure that the winter following, in the month off ]'
she perswads the Duke of Lawderdale to make ane new Disposition
and resignation of his Estate in favours of his grandchildren wherin
there were severall provisions in her favours, Restrictions, Limitations
& conditions to be performed by the L[or]d Yester, that rendered the
succession most hurtfull to the Lord Yester & the Earle of Tweeddales
Familie. And yet not content to clog it with these only, she by her
Confident my Lord Glendoig, caused intimat to the Earle of
Tweeddale that this was only done in order to a treaty with him & his
sone, the Lord Yester, for which effect it was her desire that Sir
Patfrick] Murray2 might be sent up to London, to commune with her
about them. But the Earle of Tweeddale being perswaded that there
was nothing less meant, then the selling of the succession of her Lords
fortoun upon his Grandchild, but that she made use of that feint, only
to make the better bargain with Hatton & his son, would not at all
listen to any such treaty, nor medle therewith, yet allowing his son to
make the best of it he could, who according to her desire sends up Sir
Patfrick] Murray to London (who though he had been engaged in all
the affairs against the Duke, being highly provoked therto) yet upon
this occasion is well received & highly caressed, both by her & her
Duke, of whom she had now the government as of a child. And his
bussiness being to hear only what she had to propose, in conclusion
she demands, besides the conditions contained in the Disposition &
Resigna[ti]on already made, that the Lord Yester might prevaill with
his father to dispone to her the Lands of Pinkie in inheritance to be
disposed of at her pleasure, upon the selling of Lawderdales estate
without reversion, and the sending up of his Grandchild to wait upon
him, whom he intended by his power & moyen with the King to
1 Left blank in the MS. The action was taken in the summer of 1681; Yester drafted a
couple of obsequious thank-you letters, dated 6 Aug., to the duke and duchess
before he learned of the duchess’s terms. NLS, MS 14414, fo. 49.
2 Sir Patrick Murray was an old friend and confidant of Tweeddale’s; he had been
collector-general of customs and foreign excise between 1668 and 1670, when
Tweeddale in effect headed the treasury commission. Lennox, ‘Lauderdale and
Scotland’, 316, n. 46. Recently he had been involved in Tweeddale’s negotiations
over his debt to the Buccleuch estate.