George Douglas, 13th Earl of Morton
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George, born in 1662, was the 5th son of
Sir
James of Smithfield, 10th Earl of Morton and the 3rd of his sons to bear the
Morton titles.
George was a Lt. Colonel in the Army and a Minister of Parliament for
Kirkwall and subsequently for Linlithgow then the Isles of Orkney and Shetland
(following Sir Alexander Douglas)
prior to succeeding to the earldom in 1730.
From 1725 until his death he was Lord Lieutenant of Orkney and Shetland.
George married a daughter of Alexander Muirhead and after she died he married
Frances Adderley, daughter of William Adderley of Holston, Kent.
He died January 4, 1738 at the age of 76.
Douglas entered the army shortly after escaping prosecution for murder in
1685. The dispute which led to the killing originated in the theft of a dog that
was later found in the possession of the laird of Chatto. While Chatto accepted
Douglas’ claim to ownership, this was disputed by one of the laird’s footmen,
who had the temerity to confront him in public. Dismissing the servant as a mere
‘rascal’, Douglas was shocked to find the insult returned in kind, ‘which being
such an indignity and affront to a gentleman’ he ‘did step back and make to his
sword, but the footman before he got it drawn did hit him twice with a cudgel’.
Douglas was thus able to claim self-defence. ‘Still retiring and with his sword
warding the blows’ was how Douglas described his own reaction, whereas that of
the footman was characterized as ‘so earnest and furious that he run himself
upon the point of the petitioner’s sword and so was killed’. This barely
credible account was sufficient to exculpate the son of a peer, though his
departure for military service was perhaps an additional insurance against any
reprisal. Rewarded for his role in quelling the anti-Union disturbances at
Glasgow in 1706, Douglas otherwise proved a competent
but undistinguished soldier. He was passed over for promotion, despite having
for ‘many years undergone the whole care and charge of managing’ his regiment.
When the colonelcy was purchased by Hon. William Kerr in 1709, Douglas retired,
merely receiving a non-regimental commission and a pension of 10s. a day. He
encountered difficulties in extracting payment: not until 1717 was a
retrospective grant made in his favour with effect from December 1710.
Douglas had entered Parliament in 1708 as a supporter of the Duke of
Queensberry’s Court party. His brothers, the 11th Earl of Morton and Hon. Robert
Douglas, were longstanding members of this connexion. Douglas, who had
complained of the passivity of the Scottish Court party prior to the general
election, secured a seat on his own initiative at Linlithgow Burghs. An inactive
Member, Douglas’ only known vote in this Parliament was for the impeachment of
Dr Sacheverell.
Re-elected for Linlithgow Burghs in 1710, Douglas was
described by Richard Dongworth, chaplain to the Duchess of Buccleuch, as a Court
Tory. In common with his patron Queensberry, he supported the new ministry. As
before, he made little impression in Parliament, apart from being mentioned in
the report of the commissioners of accounts on 21 Dec. 1711 in connexion with
the allegedly corrupt handling of forage contracts by Robert Walpole II.
Douglas, who had been favoured by Walpole in 1709–10, gave no evidence to the
commission and was not subjected to any direct censure. His partner John
Montgomerie I did admit that the contracts had been obtained only after the
payment of sweeteners. Douglas spoke in Walpole’s defence on 17 Jan. 1712, but
his intervention was insufficient to prevent expulsion. The death of Queensberry
in July 1711 had left Douglas without an obvious patron among the Scottish
magnates. He gravitated towards the Earl of Mar, but later became dissatisfied
with what he perceived as his neglect, in particular over a civil case in the
court of session. Douglas came gradually into the orbit of the Duke of Argyll
and his brother Lord Ilay. He was listed as absent though in town for the vote
on 7 Feb. 1712 upon the Scottish toleration bill, though it remains unclear
whether this was indicative of scruples or mere indifference. In a letter to
Lord Oxford (Robert Harley), written from Scotland in August, Douglas described
himself as a government supporter; but like other Scots, he came to resent the
ministry’s conduct during the malt tax crisis of 1713. Disillusioned at English
unwillingness either to defer the imposition or reduce the burden of this tax,
Douglas was active in the ensuing campaign for a dissolution of the Union. He
advocated an immediate secession from Parliament and an electoral boycott. This
suggestion was rejected at a combined meeting of Scottish parliamentary
representatives on 26 May 1713. His aggressive stance, in common with that of
Hon. Charles Rosse, may reflect the influence of Argyll, but no conclusive
evidence can be adduced to support this hypothesis. Douglas attended the Lords
on 1 June for the debate on Lord Findlater’s motion for leave to introduce a
bill for dissolving the Union. He thought that Findlater ‘made a handsome
discourse’ and that Mar ‘spoke well’. His highest praise was reserved for
Argyll, however, who ‘spoke like an angel’. Douglas remained disenchanted with
the ministry even after the return to the fold of Mar and other Scottish Court
supporters in the aftermath of Lord Oxford’s narrow victory on this question.
Unwilling to oppose the ministry outright, Douglas nevertheless absented himself
from the votes on 4 and 18 June over the French commerce bill. He returned to
Scotland shortly afterwards, all thoughts of boycott now abandoned, in order to
prepare for the coming election. His activities included advising Morton to
support Robert Munro in the election for Tain Burghs, and forwarding the Earl’s
proxy to Mar for the Scottish peerage election. Morton thus supported the entire
Court list, from which Ilay had been excluded because he and Argyll had fallen
out with the ministry. Douglas neither endorsed nor condemned Ilay’s abortive
attempt to obtain Squadrone votes in the peerage election; but, for his own
reasons, Douglas came to an electoral pact with Sir James Carmichael, 4th Bt.,
who enjoyed Squadrone support in Linlithgowshire.
Douglas’ re-election
for Linlithgow Burghs appeared doubtful because of the determination of the 4th
Duchess of Hamilton to secure the return of her own nominee. Douglas contented
himself, therefore, with a spoiling operation against the Duchess, contriving to
support Carmichael in return for a promise of Lanark’s vote at the next
election. With the family interest in Orkney and Shetland at his disposal, he
was able to obtain an alternative seat. He did not attend the election in
person, but the contest was managed effectively by his brother, Robert. In
return for his speech in 1712, Douglas was promised Walpole’s support over the
subsequent election case. Although a petition was entered against Douglas, it
was never reported.
Little is known of Douglas’ conduct in the 1713
Parliament, but Lord Polwarth’s description of him as a Jacobite in his analysis
of the Scottish returns should not be taken literally. One modern historian has
nevertheless compounded the error by stating that Douglas was involved in
Jacobite plotting, but the letter cited in support of this assertion was written
from France by a Jacobite namesake at a time when Douglas himself was in
Scotland. His only known vote, on 12 May 1714, was against the Whig amendment to
the schism bill which sought to extend its provisions to Catholics. Douglas was
nevertheless listed as a Whig in one comparative analysis of the 1713 and 1715
Parliaments. The Worsley list also classified him as a Whig, but, if an
annotation next to the name of James Moodie (who had never previously sat) was
actually intended to apply to Douglas, he should be regarded as a Whig who had
sometimes voted with the Tories.
By virtue of the pact made at the
previous election, Douglas was returned for Linlithgow Burghs in 1715. He
supported the Argathelian interest under George I, and succeeded as 13th Earl of
Morton in January 1730, being also elected a representative peer at a
by-election later that year caused by the death of Findlater. Douglas was a
government supporter in the Upper House, but was not re-elected in 1734. He died
on 4 Jan. 1738.
- Birth: 1662
- Death: 4 JAN 1738
Father: James (10th Earl of
Morton) Douglas
Mother: Anne Hay
Marriage 1 (of Linhouse) Muirhead
Marriage 2 Bartlett
Children
William Domini Douglas b: 2 MAY
1732 in at or near Belfast in Ireland
- NOTE: It now seems very unlikely that he was a son of the 13th earl, as
DNA testing seems to disprove links back to the earls of Morton at this
stage. Follow the link to his page for more details.
Marriage 3 Frances (of Halsgow) Adderly
Children
James (14th Earl of Morton) Douglas
b: 1709
-
Robert Douglas - Death: 30 APR
1745 in Battle of Fontenoy
See also The Earls of Morton
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