Spottiswood

The barony of Spottiswood lies in the parish of Gordon in Berwickshire. The first person of note recorded is Robert de Spotteswode, who appears in 1296 on the Ragman Roll, submitting to Edward I of England for his land in Berwick. His seal is noted as bearing a wild boar, a device which was to later appear on the arms of Spottiswood of that Ilk. William Spottiswood of Spottiswood fell at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. He had married Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Pringle of Torsonce, and from this union came, in successive generations, two notable Scottish clergymen. The Reverend John Spottiswood of that Ilk was born in 1510. He studied divinity at the University of Glasgow and was converted to the Protestant faith. He went to England and was admitted to holy orders by Archbishop Cranmer. Returning to Scotland, he fell under the patronage of Sir James Sandilands, Lord Torphichen, a fervent Protestant. He was part of the Scottish entourage of Mary, Queen of Scots when she was married to the Dauphin, heir to the kingdom of France. He was also active during the Reformation of the Scottish Church, being one of the six ministers appointed to prepare the first Book of Discipline, as well as being instrumental in framing the Confession of Faith. He was opposed to Queen Mary’s Catholicism, and when she escaped from Lochleven Castle in May 1568, he denounced her as ‘that wicked woman, whose iniquity, knowen and lawfully convict, deserveth more than ten deaths’. He was appointed superintendent of the churches of Lothian, Berwick and Teviotdale, and died in 1585. His eldest son, also John, was born when his father was minister at Mid Calder near Edinburgh in 1565. Despite his father’s vehement attack upon the queen, he rose high in royal favour in the reigns of her son and grandson, and was appointed Archbishop of Glasgow by James VI in 1603. He was a staunch supporter of the king’s plans to establish an episcopal, rather than a presbyterian, church in Scotland. In 1629 Charles I translated him to the see of St Andrews, and in 1633 he officiated at Charles’ coronation in the Abbey of Holyrood. He was appointed Lord Chancellor of Scotland with precedence before the whole nobility of the realm, an advancement which greatly increased the resentment of the nobility against the king’s religious reforms. Archbishop Spottiswood was present at the famous incident in the Cathedral of St Giles in Edinburgh on 23 July 1637, when Jenny Geddes is said to have picked up her stool during the sermon and, throwing it at the celebrant’s head, exclaimed, ‘Thou false thief, dost thou say Mass at my lug?’ The archbishop witnessed the ensuing riot from his throne. The archbishop’s grandson, John Spottiswood, was a supporter of the Marquess of Montrose, fighting for Charles I against the forces of the Covenant, and was executed in 1650. Sir Robert Spottiswood, Secretary of State for Scotland, had already been executed in 1646, meeting his end at the hands of ‘the maiden’, a Scottish version of the beheading machine later to be called the guillotine. Alexander Spottiswood is credited with encouragement of the development of the tobacco plantations of Virginia and the development of that industry in Glasgow. Alicia Spottiswood, wife of Lord John son of the fourth Duke of Buccleuch, resumed the surname of Spottiswood in compliance with her father’s will. She was succeeded by her great nephew, John Roderick Spottiswood of Spottiswood, who died in 1946