Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/36

 between them which was given into Scott's keeping (, p. 121); but by the accidental capture of Bothwell's servant the plot was discovered, and Scott was immediately apprehended and lodged in the castle of Edinburgh. On 23 Jan. 1595 he was brought to the Tolbooth gaol, and kept there all night. On being interrogated he delivered up the band, and, according to Calderwood, made a confession to the effect that ‘the king should have been taken, committed to perpetual prison, the prince crowned king, Huntly, Erroll, and Angus chosen regents.’ Notwithstanding this extraordinary revelation, ‘he was,’ says Calderwood, ‘permitted to keep his own chamber upon the 29th of January, and was fined in twenty thousand pounds, which the hungry courtiers gaped for, but got not’ (History, v. 359). Calderwood also publishes the heads of the band (ib. p. 360), and Scott's confession is fully noticed in the record of the meeting of the privy council of 11 Feb. (Reg. P. C. Scotl. v. 205). Nevertheless the matter does not appear to have been taken very seriously by the council, it being only too manifest that if the earls had the will, they had not the power to effect any such revolution. On 25 Jan. Scott obtained a remission under the great seal, much to the chagrin of the ministers of Edinburgh, who desired the task of excommunicating him (cf., v. 365). On 29 Aug. 1599 he was required to give caution that he would keep the peace (Reg. P. C. Scotl. v. 748). If during the remainder of his life he eschewed entangling himself in politics, there is evidence that he remained, as heretofore, restless and unruly. Having on 5 Nov. 1601 been denounced for failing to answer a charge of destroying the growing corn of Patrick Pitcairne of Pitlour (ib. p. 301), he on 16 Oct. 1602 found caution in three thousand merks not to harm him (ib. p. 702). On account of his repeated fines, Scott was compelled to sell various portions of his estates, until in 1600 all that remained in his possession was the tower and fortalice of Strathmiglo, with the village and the lands adjoining. On 13 Dec. 1606 a decree was passed against him lying at the horn for debt (ib. vii. 251), and various other decrees at the instance of different complainers were passed on subsequent occasions (ib. passim). Before his death the remaining portions were disposed of, and he left no heritage to his successor. The downfall of the family affected the popular imagination, and gave birth to traditions more or less apocryphal. According to one of these, although his inveterate quarrelsomeness made him lose his all, he was very mean and miserly; and on one occasion, while looking over his window directing his servants, who were throwing old and mouldy oatmeal into the moat, he was accosted by a beggar man, who desired to be allowed to fill his wallet with it. This the harsh baron of Balwearie refused, whereupon the beggar pronounced his curse upon him, and declared that he himself should yet be glad to get what he then refused. The date of his death is not recorded. By his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Andrew Wardlaw of Torrie, he had two sons, William and James, and a daughter Janet, married to Sir John Boswell of Balmuto.



SCOTT, JAMES (known as and as ),  (1649–1685), born at Rotterdam on 9 April 1649, was the natural son of Charles II, by Lucy, daughter of Richard Walter or Walters of Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire. Charles seems to have met Lucy Walters at The Hague, while she was still under the protection of Robert Sidney (third son of Robert Sidney, second earl of Leicester [q. v.]), whom Monmouth was said to closely resemble (see, Life of James II, i. 491–2). Evelyn, who met her in Paris in August 1649, when she went by the name of Barlow, describes her as a ‘browne, beautifull, bold, but insipid creature.’ After a narrow escape from being kidnapped as an infant (Heroick Life, pp. 9–12), James was taken to Paris in 1650, and in January 1656 brought by his mother to England. Courted by the cavaliers, ‘Mrs. Barlo’ was placed in the Tower with her boy, whom she declared to be the son of King Charles. On her discharge on 12 July there was found on her a grant signed ‘Charles R.’ of an annuity of five thousand livres (, p. 649). Expelled from England, Lucy repaired at once with her child to Paris; but before long she became completely estranged from Charles, relapsed into evil courses, and died, wrote James II, ‘of the disease incident to that profession’ (for pedigree see, Heraldic Visitations of Wales, i. 228; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. ii. 374–5, but cf. Miscellanea Genealog. et Herald. 2nd ser. iv. 265).

After her death, the youth was entrusted to the charge of Lord Crofts, as whose kinsman he now passed, and by whose name he was known. His tutors were first an English oratorian named Stephen Goffe or Gough [q. v.], and then Thomas Ross (d. 1675) [q. v.]