wrote of him, 'He affects plainness and familiarity in his conversation, but is not sincere; is very beautiful in his person, with a graceful behaviour, smiling countenance, and a soft tongue' (Memoirs of Secret Services, 18l-2).
[Carstares's State Papers; Lockhart Papers; Marchmont Papers, ed. Rose; Luttrell's Short Relation; Macky's Memoirs of Secret Services; Burnet's Own Time; Crawford's Officers of State, pp. 246-9; Brunton and Haig's Senators of the College of Justice, pp. 472-3; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), i. 686-7.]
OGILVY, JAMES, sixth Earl of Findlater and third Earl of Seafield (1714?–1770), eldest son of James, fifth earl of Findlater and second of Seafield, by Lady Elizabeth Hay, second daughter of Thomas, sixth earl of Kinnoull, was born about 1714. While on foreign travel he made the acquaintance of Horace Walpole, who, in a letter to General Conway on 23 April 1740, wrote of him, 'There are few young people have so good an understanding,' but referred to his 'solemn Scotchery' as not a 'little formidable' (Walpole, Letters, ed. Cunningham, i. 46). Before succeeding his father in 1704 he was known as Lord Deskford. From an early period he took an active interest in promoting manufactures and agriculture. In the parish of Deskford he opened, in 1752, a large bleachfield, and in Cullen he established a manufacture for linen and damask. From 1754 to 1761 he was one of the commissioners of customs for Scotland, and in 1765 he was constituted one of the lords of police. lie was also a trustee for the improvement of fisheries and manufactures, and for the management of the annexed estates in Scotland. By his example and encouragement he did much to promote advanced methods of agriculture in Banffshire. He introduced turnip husbandry, and granted long leases to his tenants on condition that within a certain period they should endorse their lands, and adopt certain improved methods of cropping. To prevent damage to young plantations on his estate, he agreed to give certain of his tenants, on the termination of their leases, every third tree, or its value in money. He died at Cullen House on 3 Nov. 1770. By his wife, Lady Mary, second daughter of John Murray, first duke of Atholl, he had two sons: James, seventh earl of Findlater and fourth earl of Seafield (d. 1811), the last earl of the Ogilvy line; and John (d. 1763).
[Douglas's Scottish Peerage, ed. Wood, i. 688; Horace Walpole's Letters; New Statistical Account of Scotland, xiii. 166. 229, 235. 323; Craddock's Annals of Banff (New Spalding Club).]
OGILVY, JOHN (fl. 1592–1601), political adventurer, commonly called Powrie-Ogilvy, was descended from Sir Patrick Ogilvy, whose son Alexander, in the time of the Bruce, obtained the lands of Ogilvy and Easter Powrie. John was served heir of his father Gilbert in the lands and barony of Easter Powrie on 27 Aug. 1601 (Warden, Angus or Forfarshire, Dundee, 1886, v. 23). His sister Anne married Sir Thomas Erskine of Gogar, who was in 1619 created Earl of Kellie.
Ogilvy came into notice as a young man. In 1592 he was selected, apparently by James VI, to be the bearer to foreign countries of a secret despatch, in which the Scottish king discussed the advantages and disadvantages of a combined attack with Philip II upon England in the summer of that year. Ogilvy was, however, prevented from going abroad at the time, and the despatch was subsequently found upon George Kerr on the discovery of the Spanish blanks in December 1593 (Hist. MSS. Comm. Hatfield MSS. iv. 214; Scottish Review, July 1893, art. 'Spanish Blanks,' p. 23).
In the following year Ogilvy, 'apparent of Poury,' together with John Ogilvy of Craig and Sir Walter Lindsay [q. v.], was proclaimed a traitor and 'trafficking papist' (Reg. Privy Council, v. 172). He is next heard of in Flanders in 1595, when, professing to be an accredited agent of James, he entered into negotiations with the Scottish or anti-Spanish faction among the catholic exiles, 'and at the same time offered his services on behalf of King Philip to Stephen d'Ibarra, the Spanish secretary-at-war. From Flanders he went to Rome, and there presented to the pope, in the name of James VI, a petition to which the king's seal was attached. In this document — 'Petitiones quædam Sermi Regis Scotorum quas a Sanctmo Patre Clemente Papa perimpleri exoptat' (State Papers, Scotl. lviii. 83) — James promised submission to the church of Rome, prayed for papal confirmation of his right to the English throne, and for money in aid of his military enterprises. Ogilvy supported the petition by a paper of 'Considerations' drawn up by himself to show the good disposition of the king towards catholics (ib. lviii. 84). Meanwhile he aroused the suspicions of the Duke of Sesa, the Spanish ambassador, with whom he intrigued in secret, and by Sesa's persuasion he went from Rome into Spain, accompanied by Dr. John Cecil, an English priest, who was then attached to the Spanish faction, and did not believe in the alleged catholic proclivities of James, or in the genuineness of Ogilvy's credentials.
