Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Douglas, George (d.1741)
DOUGLAS, Lord GEORGE, fourth Lord Mordington (d. 1741), was the only son of James, third baron Mordington, by his wife, Jean Seton, eldest daughter of Alexander, first viscount Kingston. He was the author of ‘The Great Blessing of a Monarchical Government, when fenced about with and bounded by the Laws, and those Laws secured, defended, and observed by the Monarch; also that as a Popish Government is inconsistent with the true happiness of these kingdoms, so great also are the Miseries and Confusions of Anarchy,’ London, 1724. This book, which was dedicated to George I, is a rambling discourse of fifty-two pages on monarchy, patriotism, and first principles generally. In the preface Mordington speaks of his not being ‘insensible that what I sent into the world at two different times about three years since, occasioned by a weekly paper called “The Independent Whig,” created me some enemies,’ referring to two tracts which he had published. The first of these was ‘Aminadab, or the Quaker Vision; a satirical tract in defence of Dr. Sacheverell's Sermon before the Lord Mayor;’ the other ‘A Letter from Lord Mordington to the Lord Archbishop of York, occasioned by a most impious and scandalous weekly paper call'd “The Independent Whig,”’ 1721. It is not easy to believe that either of these pamphlets could have created enemies, or have been regarded as a serious contribution to controversy. The former, however, was answered anonymously in ‘The Tory Quaker, or Aminadab's new vision in a Field after a drop of the Creature.’ Mordington married Catherine, daughter of Dr. Robert Lauder, rector of Shenty, Hertfordshire, and by her he had a son, Charles, and two daughters, Mary and Campbellina. He died in Covent Garden, London, on 10 June 1741. His son Charles did not assume the title on his father's death, having no landed property; but on being taken prisoner in the rebellion of 1745 and put on trial he pleaded his peerage, and the trial was put off. He died, however, in prison, and with him the male line of the family became extinct. His sister Mary, who was married to William Weaver, an officer of the horse guards, then assumed the title of Mordington; but she dying without issue, it finally lapsed in July 1791.
[Douglas and Wood's Peerage of Scotland, ii. 263; Park's Walpole, v. 147; Lord Mordington's publications.]