Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/468

 444 S T A S T A governor, who took the name De Stafford from that of the town, aud was the originator of the great family of the Staffords. At this time it contained a royal mint ; some of the coins are still extant, bearing on the obverse the head and name of the king, and on the reverse "Godwinne on Staef." Godwinne was the "kind's moneyer." The castle of Robert de Torri was rebuilt by Ralph de Stafford in the reign of Edward III. ; during the Civil War it was held for the Royalists by the earl of Northampton, but was taken for the Parliament by Sir William Brereton in May 1643. The castle was soon afterwards demolished by order of the Parliament. When fortified, Stafford had four gates. That on the south, near the river bridge, called the Green-gate, was taken down in 1780. The arch of the East-gate was standing a few years ago. The Gaol-gate was in ruins in 1680. The site of the fourth gate is unknown. King John confirmed and enlarged the privileges granted by the old charter. This was again confirmed by Edward VI., and on August 6, 1575, Elizabeth visited the town. Stafford adopted the Local Government Act, 1858, on April 23, 1872 ; and in 1876 an Act was obtained for extending the borough boundaries. The corporation now consists of a mayor, eight aldermen, and twenty-four councillors. STAG. See DEER. STAHL, GEORG ERNST (1660-1734), chemist, was bora on 21st October 1660 at Ansbach, studied at Jena, and became court-pliysician to the duke of Weimar in 1687. In 1694 he was appointed professor of medicine in Halle and in 1716 physician to the king of Prussia. He died at Berlin on May 14, 1734. His Theoria Medica Vera appeared at Halle in 1707 (see MEDICINE, vol. xv. p. 812), and his Experimenta et Observations Chemicae, at Berlin in 1731 (see CHEMISTRY, vol. v. pp. 460-61). STAIR, JAMES DALRYMPLE, FIRST VISCOUNT (1619- 1695), was born in May 1619 at Drummurchie in Ayrshire. He was descended from a family for several generations in- clined to the principles of the Reformation, and had ances- tors both on the father's and the mother's side amongst the Lollards of Kyle. His father James Dalrymple, laird of the small estate of Stair in Kyle, died when he was an infant ; his mother, Janet Kennedy of Knockdaw, is described as " a woman of excellent spirit," who took care to have him well educated. From the grammar school at Mauchline he went in 1633 to the university of Glasgow, where he graduated in arts on July 26, 1637. Next year he went to Edinburgh, probably with the intention of studying law, but the troubles of the times then approaching a crisis led him to change his course, and we next find him serving in the earl of Glencairn's regiment in the war of the Covenant. What part he took in it is not certainly known, but he was in command of a troop when recalled in 1641 to compete for a regency (as a tutorship or professorship was then called) in the university of Glasgow. He was elected in March. Mathematics, logic, ethics, and politics were the chief subjects of his lectures, and a note- book on logic by one of his students has been preserved. His activity and skill in matters of college business were praised by his colleagues, who numbered amongst them some of the leading Covenanting divines, and his zeal in teaching was gratefully acknowledged by his students. After nearly seven years' service he resigned his regency, and removed to Edinburgh, where he was admitted to the bar on February 17, 1648. This step had probably been rendered easier by his marriage four years before to Margaret Ross, co-heiress of Balneil in Wigtown. Stair's practice at the bar does not appear to have been large ; his talents lay rather in the direction of learning and business than of oratory or advocacy. His reputation and the confidence reposed in him were shown by his appoint- ment in 1649 as secretary to the commission sent to The Hague to treat with Charles II. by the parliament of Scotland. The negotiation having been broken off through the unwillingness of the young king to accept the terms of the Covenanters, Stair was again sent in the following year to Breda, where the failure of Montrose's expedition forced Charles to change his attitude, and to return to Scotland as the covenanted king. Stair had preceded him, and met him on his landing in Aberdeenshire, probably carrying with him the news of the execution of Montrose, which he had witnessed. During the Commonwealth Stair continued to practise at the bar ; but like most of his brethren he refused in 1654 to take the oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth and abjuration of royalty. Three years later, on the death of Lord Balcomie, Stair was appointed one of the- commissioners for the administration of justice in Scotland on the recommendation of Monk. His appointment to the bench on 1st July 1657 by Monk was confirmed by Cromwell on the 26th. Stair's association with the English judges at this time must have enlarged his acquaintance with English law, as his travels had extended his knowledge of the civil law and the modern European systems which followed it. He thus acquired a singular advantage when he came to write on law, regarding it from a cosmopolitan or international rather than a merely local or national point of view. His actual discharge of judicial duty at this time was short, for after the death of Cromwell the courts in Scotland were shut, a new commission issued in 1660 not having taken effect, it being uncertain in whose name the commission ought to run. It was during this period that Stair became intimate with Monk, who is said to have been advised by him when he left Scotland to call a full and free parliament. Soon after the Restoration Stair went to London, where he was received with favour by Charles, knighted, and included in the new nomination of judges in the Court of Session on 13th February 1661. He was also put on various important commissions, busied himself with local and agricultural affairs, and, like most of the Scottish judges of this and the following century, acted with zest and credit the part of a good country gentleman. In 1662 he was one of the judges who refused to take the declaration that the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant were unlawful oaths, and, forestalling the deposition which had been threatened as the penalty of continued non-compliance, he placed his resignation in the king's hands. The king, however, sum- moned him to London, and allowed him to take the decla- ration under an implied reservation. The next five years of Stair's life were comparatively uneventful, but in 1669 a family calamity, the exact facts of which will probably never be ascertained, overtook him. His daughter Janet, who had been betrothed to Lord Rutherfurd, was married to Dunbar of Baldoon, and some tragic incident occurred on the wedding night, from the effects of which she never recovered. As the traditions vary on the central fact, whether it was the bride who stabbed her husband, or the husband who stabbed the bride, no credence can be given to the mass of superstitions and spiteful slander which surrounded it, principally levelled at Lady Stair. In 1670 Stair served as one of the Scottish commissioners who went to London to treat of the Union ; but the project, not seriously pressed by Charles and his ministers, broke down through a claim on the part of the Scots to what was deemed an excessive representation in the British par- liament. In January 1671 Stair was appointed president of the Court of Session. In the following year, and again in 1673, he was returned to parliament for Wigtownshire, and took part in the important legislation of those years in the department of private law. During the bad time of Lauderdale's government Stair used his influence in the privy council and with Lauderdale to mitigate the severity of the orders passed against ecclesiastical offenders, but for the most part he abstained from attending a board whose policy he could not approve. In 1679 he went to London to defend the court against charges of partiality and injustice which had been made against it, and was