Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hay, John (1626-1697)
HAY, JOHN, second Earl and first Marquis of Tweeddale (1626–1697), eldest son of John, first earl of Tweeddale, by his first wife, Lady Jane Seton, daughter of Alexander, first earl of Dunfermline, was born in 1626. On the outbreak of the civil war in England he joined the standard of Charles I at Nottingham (1642). Dissatisfied, however, with Charles's attitude towards the covenanters, he accepted the command of a regiment in the army raised by the Scots to resist the advance of Charles northwards. With this regiment he fought against the king at Marston Moor (1644). After the surrender of Charles to the Scots, Hay joined the party for upholding the ‘engagement,’ and commanded the East Lothian regiment at the battle of Preston in the army raised on behalf of the king (1648). He was present at the coronation of Charles II at Scone in 1651. Succeeding his father in 1654, he was in the following year chosen member for East Lothian. He formed one of the committee chosen to receive the answer of Cromwell to the petition that he should assume the kingship. In the parliament which met in London 27 Jan. 1659 he sat as one of the commissioners from Scotland. At the Restoration he was sworn a privy councillor, but having opposed the proposal to pass sentence against James Guthrie [q. v.], minister of Stirling, he was by the king's order committed on 17 Sept. to the castle of Edinburgh (Wodrow, Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, i. 219). He wrote to Lauderdale that he was struck as with thunder by the order for committal (Lauderdale Papers, i. 99–100), and after apologising to the king and petitioning the council, he on 4 Oct. received his liberty on a bond of 1,000l., but was ordered to confine himself to his own house under a penalty (Wodrow, i. 221; Nicholl, Diary, p. 344). The misunderstanding between him and the king was soon removed. About May the confinement was remitted, and in June 1663 he was chosen president of the council. In January of the following year he was appointed one of a high commission ‘for the execution of the laws in church affairs,’ and on 2 June of the same year he was made an extraordinary lord of session. Notwithstanding the sufferings which his avowed sympathy with Guthrie had occasioned him, Tweeddale still sought to mitigate the severity of the government towards the covenanters. He chiefly aimed at effecting a compromise, and it was in a great degree due to him that the first indulgence was granted in June 1669, of which the more moderate of the ejected ministers took advantage. Ultimately he came into sharp conflict with the Duke of Lauderdale. On 20 Nov. 1673 Lauderdale wrote to Charles that Tweeddale, ‘at first an underhand contriver and counsellor’ against the policy of the government, had ‘now shown himself openly’ (Lauderdale Papers, iii. 17). Early in 1674 he was dismissed from his offices and deprived of his seat in the privy council. After the downfall of Lauderdale in 1680 he was restored to his office of commissioner of the treasury. In June of this year he was brought before the council because conventicles had been held in the town barn of Inverkeithing, of which he was proprietor, but on his showing that the ‘barn held burgage of the town’ he was assoilzied, and the process continued against the magistrates (Wodrow, iii. 196). On 11 May 1682 he, with the Duke of Hamilton, was readmitted to the privy council (Fountainhall, Historical Notices, p. 354), and the same month was named commissioner for trying the state of the coinage and mint (ib. p. 355).
Chiefly on account of having become security in large sums for the Earl of Dunfermline, Tweeddale in 1686 found it necessary to part with his ancestral estates in the county of Peebles. He remained in office under James II, but disliked his Scottish policy. He took his stand from the beginning with the revolutionary party, and supported William of Orange. His moderation gained the adherence of many waverers. In March 1689 he and the Earl of Leven were deputed by the estates to present to the Duke of Gordon the order for the deliverance of Holyrood Castle within twenty-four hours. The duke promised that the castle should be surrendered by ten o'clock on the following morning; and but for the arrival of Claverhouse on the scene the promise would have been fulfilled. On 18 May 1689 Tweeddale was sworn a privy councillor under the new régime. On 7 Dec. following he was appointed a lord of the treasury, and on 5 Jan. 1692 was constituted high chancellor of Scotland. He was created marquis by patent 17 Dec. 1694. He was appointed lord high commissioner to the parliament which met at Edinburgh in May of the following year, when he anticipated the action which it was proposed to take in reference to the massacre of Glencoe, by announcing the appointment of a special commission to inquire into the matter. Tweeddale was one of the members of that commission, and had the difficult task of indirectly influencing the deliberations of parliament when the report came to be considered. It is supposed to have been partly to divert the mind of the nation from the Glencoe blunder that Tweeddale lent a willing ear to the Darien schemes of Paterson, the royal assent to the Colonisation Act being given by him on 20 June. The king, absent on the continent, was ignorant of what had been done in his name. When a violent clamour against the scheme arose in England, he expressed dissatisfaction with Tweeddale's conduct and dismissed him in 1696 from the office of chancellor. Tweeddale died on 11 Aug. of the following year.
By his wife Lady Jean Scott, daughter of Walter, first earl of Buccleuch, he had seven sons and two daughters, viz. John, second marquis of Tweeddale [q. v.]; Francis, who died young; Lord David Hay of Belton; Charles Hay, who died young; Lord Alexander Hay of Spott, Haddingtonshire; Lord Gilbert; Lord William; Lady Margaret, married to Robert, third earl of Roxburghe; and Lady Jean married to William, first earl of March. If not one of the ablest, Tweeddale was one of the most honourable and straightforward statesmen of his time. He had not always the courage of his opinions, but his opinions were patriotic and enlightened, and he usually gave good advice.
[Wodrow's Sufferings of Church of Scotland; Lauderdale Papers (Camden Soc.); Balcarres Memoirs and Leven and Melville Papers (both Bannatyne Club); Fountainhall's Hist. Notices; Burnet's Own Time; Douglas's Scottish Peerage, ed. Wood, ii. 608–10; Crawfurd's Officers of State, pp. 235–9; Haig and Brunton's Senators of the College of Justice, pp. 384–6.]