Series 5 > Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, Volume 12

TWEEDDALE’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
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John, 7th of the name, and 2d Earle of Tweeddale was bom at Yester, 1626
and his mother1 dieng the eight day after did committ him to the keeping of
his fathers sister the Countess ofDunfermline2 during his childhood. He stayed
with her untill he was six years of age, and being then sent for by his father he
was in Edinburgh in the 1633 when king Charles the ffirst came to Scotland
for his coronation, then being putt in short cloaths3 he was sent by his
grandmother4 in her coach to kisse the Kings hand at Seatoun where the King
took special notice of him, and kissing him said God make you a better man
then your father, being displeased, as he was with others of the nobility, with
his voting in parliament in the concerns of the Episcopal clergy. His childhood
being past he was sent to the scool of Hadingtoun under the tutory of Mr
Robert Ker a youth of verrie good parts and learning, where he continued
three years. His tutour then dieng, after a years continuing at home under the
tutorie of Mr John Coll, son to Mr Adam Coll Minister of Musselburgh who
had been severall yean in ffrance, he was sent to the Colledge of Edinburgh at
12 years of age, and continued there three years in the beginning wherof the
troubles of Scodand happened to begin, which concluded by the large Treatie
to which his granduncle the Earle of Rothes,3 and his uncle the Earle of
Dunfermline were Commissioners with who his father sent him to London
in the company of the Lord Lowdoun7 where he stayed during all the time of
the Large Treatie being near an year8 and had occasion there to improve
himselfe by the converse with persons and in the knowledge of affairs of state,
and to apply himselfe to exercises becoming his quality, and in the study of the
Mathematicks and came home to Scodand when King Charles the ffirst came
down to hold that parliament wherin the Large Treatie was confirm’d. The
King having-staid some moneths, and then return’d to England, as was said in
publick papers, a Contented King from a Contented People.
1 Jean Seton, daughter of Alexander Seton, 1 st earl ofDunfermline and lord chancellor.
2 Margaret Hay. She became the third wife of Lord Chancellor Dunfermline in 1607. He died in 1622;
in 1633 she married James Livingstone, 1st Lord Almond, subsequendy created earl of Callander.
3 Male children frequently wore long dresses in their first yeats.
4 Mary Ker, daughter of Mark Ker, 1st earl of Lothian.
5 John Leslie, 6th earl of Rothes, was the brother of Grizel Leslie, Lord Chancellor Dunfermline’s second
wife, mother ofjohn’s deceased mother.
6 Charles, 2nd earl, half-brother ofjohn’s mother. As Margaret Hay’s son he was alsojohn’s first cousin.
7 John Campbell, who became earl of Loudoun in 1641.
8 The ‘Large Treatie’, the Treaty of London, amplified and confirmed the arrangements concluded at
Ripon in Oct. 1640. The Scottish commissioners arrived in London in Nov.; the treaty was concluded,
andthekingtravelledtoEdinburgh, in Aug. 1641. See D. Stevenson, The Scottish Revolution, 1637-1644
(Newton Abbot, 1973), ch. 7.