John Hay 1626-1697

John HAY, 1st Marquess of Tweeddale 1626-1697

Biographical Note

Hay was the eldest son of John Hay, eighth Lord Hay of Yester, who became first Earl of Tweeddale in 1646, and of his first wife, Lady Jean Seton, daughter of the first Earl of Dunfermline. As a young man he initially supported Charles I but then took up arms against him. However, after the regicide he supported Charles II, attending his coronation at Scone at the beginning of 1651. Nevertheless, he served as a Scottish Member of Parliament under Cromwell, having become second Earl of Tweeddale in 1654. After the Restoration his fortunes fluctuated. He became a Privy Councillor in 1661, but was subsequently imprisoned and then put under house arrest. With a reversal of government attitude he became President of the Privy Council in 1663 and an extraordinary Lord of Session in 1664. Thereafter he was politically influential as a moderate until he fell out with the Duke of Lauderdale in 1674. After Lauderdale’s own fall in 1680 he once more became influential. He supported William III, became Lord High Chancellor for Scotland in 1692 and was made a Marquess late in 1694. However, he lost his office in 1696 after his support of the Darien Scheme, and died the next year.

Books

Accounts in the Tweeddale family papers (the Yester Papers) in the National Library of Scotland show Lord Tweeddale to have been purchasing books on a number of subjects over several decades, although relevant records relating to his son, later the second Marquess, in the lifetime of his father are more numerous. Letters sent to Tweeddale in 1678 by James Fall show that the Earl had an easy familiarity with the various methods of acquiring books from continental sources. His books on his death presumably became added to the library of his son.

Sources

• Simpson, Murray C. T., ‘Some Aspects of Book Purchasing in Restoration Scotland: Two Letters from James Fall to the Earl of Tweeddale, May 1678’, Transactions of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, 7 (1990), 2-9
• Yester Papers, National Library of Scotland, MSS 14629, 14636
• Young, John R. ‘Hay, John, first marquess of Tweeddale (1626-1697), politician’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography