CARMICHAEL, Sir JOHN (d. 1600), of Carmichael, a powerful border chief, was the eldest son of Sir John Carmichael and Elizabeth, third daughter of the fifth lord of Somerville. He married Margaret, daughter of Sir George Douglas of Pittendreich, sister of the regent Morton, and in 1581 he and his son Hugh were found guilty of a treasonable conspiracy in assembling two hundred men at the rocks of Braid, with the view of rescuing Morton from the Castle of Edinburgh. They, however, escaped punishment by fleeing the kingdom, and having afterwards returned were attained in 1584 for being concerned in the raid of Ruthven, when they again fled the kingdom. In August 1588 Carmichael was appointed captain-general of the troops of light horse raised to assist in resisting the threatened invasion by the Spaniards (Register of the Privy Council, iv. 315); and when his services were not found necessary, he was appointed warden of the west marshes. He was one of the ambassadors sent to Denmark to negotiate the marriage between James VI and the Princess Anne of Denmark. In 1590 he was despatched on an important mission to Queen Elizabeth, with a result entirely satisfactory. In 1592 he resigned the warden-ship in favour of the Earl of Angus; but on that nobleman resigning it in 1598, he was restored to the office. While on his way to Lochmaben, to hold a warden's court for the punishment of offences committed on the borders, he was attacked (16 June 1600) by a body of the Armstrongs and shot dead with a hacbut. For this murder Thomas Armstrong, nephew of Kinmont Willie [see Armstrong, William, fl. 1596], was executed in the following November, and Alexander Armstrong of Rowanburne in February 1606. According to Sir Walter Scott, tradition affirms the well-known ballad, 'Armstrong's Good Night,' to have been composed by Thomas Armstrong previous to his execution.
[Crawford's Scottish Peerage; Douglas's Scottish Peerage, ii. 752; Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vols. iii. iv. and v.; Irving's Upper Ward of Lanarkshire, i. 13-16.]
CARMICHAEL, JOHN, second Lord Carmichael and first Earl of Hyndford (1638–1710), son of William, master of Carmichael, and Lady Grizel Douglas, third daughter of the first marquis of Douglas, was born on 28 Feb. 1638. He succeeded his grandfather as Lord Carmichael in 1672. In 1689 he was appointed by William one of the commissioners of the privy seal and a privy councillor. The following year he was appointed William's commissioner to the first general assembly of the newly established church of Scotland. In 1693 he was appointed to the command of a regiment of dragoons, which he held till the peace of Ryswick in 1697. In December 1696 he was made secretary of state for Scotland, and in January 1696-7 was chosen commissioner by the general assembly. By patent at Kensington, on 5 June 1701, he was created Earl of Hyndford. He retained the offices of secretary of state and privy councillor under Queen Anne. He was one of the commissioners for the treaty of union, and cordially supported the act for carrying it into effect. He died on 20 Sept. 1710. By his wife, Beatrice Drummond, second daughter of the third Lord Madderty, he had seven sons and three daughters.
[Douglas's Scottish Peerage, ii. 756; Irving's Upper Ward of Lanarkshire, i. 21-4; Luttrell's Relation, ii. iii. iv. v.]
CARMICHAEL, JOHN, third Earl of Hyndford (1701–1767), diplomatist, son of James, second earl, and Lady Elizabeth Maitland, only daughter of John, fifth earl of Lauderdale, was born at Edinburgh on 15 March 1701. He entered the third regiment of foot-guards, in which he became captain in 1733. He succeeded to his father's title and estates on 10 Aug. 1737, and was chosen a representative peer on 14 March 1738, and again in 1741, 1747, 1754, and 1761. He was appointed one of the lords of police in March 1738, and constituted sheriff-principal and lord-lieutenant of Lanark on 9 April 1739. In 1739 and 1740 he acted as lord high commissioner to the general assembly of the kirk of Scotland. When Frederick II invaded Silesia in 1741, the Earl of Hyndford was sent to George II as envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary, to mediate between the king and Maria Theresa. Carlyle, in his 'Life of Frederick,' thus delineates his characteristics: 'We can discern a certain rough tenacity and horse-dealer finesse in the man; a broad-based, shewdly practical Scotch gentleman, wide awake; and can conjecture that the diplomatic function in that element might have been in worse hands. He is often laid metaphorically at the king's feet, king of England's; and haunts personally the king of Prussia's elbow at all times, watching every glance of him like a British house-dog, that will not be taken in with suspicious travellers if he can help it; and casting perpetual horoscopes in his dull mind.' It was in a great degree owing to the patience and persistence of Hyndford that the treaty of
