THE STORY OF LADY GRANGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2105, 28 June 1894, Page 40

THE STORY OF LADY GRANGE.

By Dinornjs.

In the following fcimple sketch I have attempted to describe an episode in Scottish life in the middle of last century. My intention was to make this a part of the paper, " Life on Lone St. Kilda," but it, along with other matter, was crashed out for want of space. The story of Lady Grange is told with minuteness by Robert Chambers in his " Traditions of Edinburgh." In commenting upon It Mr Chambers says : "It is humbly thought this story casts a curious and faithful light upon the days of our grandfathers, showing things in a kind of transition from thesanguinary violence of an earlier age to the humanity of the present time." It is just foi this reason that I have rewritten for the Witness the story of the sad fate of Lady Grange. Lady Grange, though an aristocrat by birth, was unhappily the daughter of a man whose name occupies an unenviable place in the criminal records of Scotland.

When we observe a child, or for that matter an adult, displaying marked characteristics of any kind we usually find it easy to trace the origin of these characteristics to one or other of the parents. Not tbat this can always be done successfully, for it is patent to every observer that in the case of many great geniuses on the one liand, and in that of many great criminals on the other, the rale won't work at all. More exact science and more careful reasoning tell us now that the criminal ia a survival from the lower, and the man or woman of genius a secretion of the higher, developments of human life. Without further comment I may say that the father of Lady Grange, Chiesly of Dairy, in cold blood murdered President Lockhart because, in the Court of Session, Lord Lockh'art had given decree against him. for a sum to be paid to his wife ani children. Chiesly was a man utterly and entirely under the sway of most terrible passions. Had he lived later there is little doubt but that he would have been locked up in an asylum as beiDg too dangerous a character to be left at large. In those days, however, there were no such aßyluma in Scotland, and maniacs such as this man was went free, at any rate till the perpetration of some such crime as brought upon them the savage and barbarous retribution of the time. Ohiesly of Dairy was a murderer of a demoniacal type. In London, half a year before the deed was done, he told a Mr Stuart that he was resolved to go to Scotland before Candlemas and kill the president. On Stuart remarking " the very imagination of such a thing was a sin before God," Ohiesly replied: "Let God and me alone; we have many things to reckon betwixt us, and we will reckon this too." President Lockhart, though warned of the threat to bring about his death, paid no heed to the menace to his safety. Pity that he had not done so, for on a Sunday afternoon soon after, as Lockhart was passing down the Old Bank close in Edinburgh, and nearing his own house door, Ohiesly came behind him and shot him in the back with a pistol. Lockhart was carried inside his home and died immediately after. Chiesly was seized and conveyed to prison. When told that the president was dead he boasted that " he was not used to do things by halves." He was tortured, with the object of discovering his accomplices, if any. Then, condemned by the magistrates oE Bdinbuigh, he was carried on a hurdle to the Oross and hanged, with the fatal pistol tied about his neck. In accordance with the barbarous custom of the time, his body was ordered to be suspended in chains at tbe Gallow Lee, and his right hand affixed to tbe West Port— that is, the West Gate of Edinburgh. The murder of Lockhart and the execution of Chiesly took place in ICB9. It is from 1730, some 40 years after the above-mentioned tragedy took place, that public interest attaches to that one of Oaiesly's daughters who had by her marriage with a Lord of Session become Lady Grange. Lord Grange is described as being a man moving in the first society of his t'me ; also as having been a " professor of ultra-evange-lical-views of religion," and at the same time — like too many others — of far from exemplary private life. He was, although a Lord of the Court of Session, a man utterly unscrupulous and equally without regard for either law or humanity.. It is probable that Lord and Lady Gracga never led a very happy life together, but into the merits of tbat, beyond stating that in this case, as in many such, there were faults on both sides, it is needless at this time of day to enter.

By the year 1730 mutual discontent and bicker Id gs had brought matters to a olimax, and " with great reluctance on the part of the lady," it is said, a separation was agreed on between them. She was to have £100 a year so long as she kept away from her husband and children, to the latter of whom Lord Grange declared she was, unless restrained, likely to bring endless injury and affront. Lady Gl.G 1 . ange retired t j the ccuutry for a few months, but soon returned to Edinburgh and took a house near that of her husband. She then began trying, as she said, to induce her husband to take her back, and at the same time took what opportunities She could find of seeing her children. According to Lord Grange she began to torment him by following him and tbe children in the street in a shameful and scandalous manner, and coming to his house and calling reproaches through tbe windows. At one time she would attack him in church ; at another he would have to take ths refuge of a tavern for a few hours. She threatened to assail him in the Court of Ssssion, but of course with means other than legal.

The culminating point was reached when the lady " threatened to expose her husband to the Government for certain treasonable practices." It is now known that she had the power to do so, for Lord Grange had compromised himself by intrigue with the Jacobite party, and hia wife had possessed herse'f of a letter whicb, in those time^, might', with judicious handling, have caused his head to roll loose upon the Castle Hill. She had declared her intention of going to London to accuse her hu9band, and had actually taken a seat in a stage coach for that purpose. Lord Grange must have had reason to feel very uncomfortable, for he caused a friend to go and bribe the coach-

man to hire her seat to another person, and thuß frustrated her project for the time ; but she still declared that she would go. Her husband, however, had decided that she never would see London again if be could prevent it ; and he did prevent it.

The subsequent incidents in the life of Lady Grange read more like fragments from an old ballad than actual occurrences of last century. Lord Grange had in his confidence a number of Highland chiefs, some of them of evil reputation. Foremost among them was the notorious Lord Lovat, of whom even Lady Grange stood in fear, for it is recorded that she ran from the outside of her husband's house on hearing Lovat's voice within.

One evening in January 1732 a party of Highlandmen, wearing the Lovat badge, made their way into Lady Grange's lodging in Edinburgh. She was seized, rudely thrown down, gagged and bound, and a cloth tied about her head . In this plight, like a corpse, she was carried to the stair-foot, lifted into a Sedan chair, and conveyed to the outskirts of the town. She was then taken from the chair and mounted on a horse behind a man, to whom she was tied. They rode along the "long way," a track or bridle path, upon which Princes street now stands. The new town of Edinburgh was not then thought of.. The party was under the command of a country gentleman — Mr Forster of Goreebonny — but he paid no other heed to the lady's complaint that she suffered from cramp in her side than to order the ban "ages, which had been removed, to be once more tied over her mouth. They rode for 20 miles, and stopped for the night at the mansion house of Muiravonside, where they were expected, servants being in waiting to receive the lady. She was here detained without even an opportunity of enjoying decent reposs till the next night, when she was taken out and remounted as before. They then rode through the Torwood to a place called Wester Polmain.

Here she was imprisoned for 14 weeks in a little room in an old tower. Her prison cell had a trap-door in the floor and another in the roof, and one small window, which wa9 carefully boarded over. At the end of that time, fearing that she was going to die on their hands, her keepers allowed her, under a guard, to walk in the little courtyard, but to the adjoining garden she was denied access.

This life she led till Augast of that year, when Forster and a band of Lovat's mercenaries once more appeared on the scsne, and carried her off during the night by way of Stirling bridge into the Highland?. The treatment she received was barbarous. She was never allowed to ba alone for a moment, and she was lodged sometimes in a bain, sometimes in a cowhouse, and sometimes in the open air. The party travelled by night and hid by day, not because there waß anyone to fear, but because their course would be less likely to be known. She was finally put on board a vessel and carried to the small island of Heskir, where she was detained for nearly two years. Besides herself and her custodians (Alexander M'Donald and his wife) there was not a human being on the island. Htere she lived in a most wretched state, sharing the abject poverty of her jailers in every particular. During the first year she never saw bread, and wanted many other things which may be described as necessaries of life. She had no clothing save what she was carried off in, and it may well be imagined that time and its vicissitudes had made havoc with that.

It may be assumed that her husband and his friends kept their eyes ana ears open during the entire period of her captivity. Hearing that an attempt at rescue was about to be made by the friends of the lady, the conspirators promptly made a fresh move. This time she was carried off to St. Kilda, the most remote and unthought-of fragment of Britain. In St. Kilda she was kept a close prisoner during seven years, but she had not the same hardships to endure there as in her previous scenes of banishment. She was supplied with provisions, and bal a tworoomed house of fair size, and a woman to wait on her. MacLeod's steward, on bis yearly visit, brought for the lady a supply of tea, sugar, wheat, and whisky. She wbb, unfortunately, too fond of the latter. She is said at times to have drunk to excess, and was subject to ungovernable fits of passion. Sometimes she would ask the women to come and dance with her. The islanders were very reticent when questioned afterwards about her habits, but said that she usually slept during the day and moved about at night. She was kind to the poor islanders, and gave freely oE her own stores in cases of need ; but her temper was always beyond control, and she would even use violence when any one displeased her in however slight a degree. Once daring the seven years a stray vessel Bent a boat ashore for water. At this time a Highland minister named MacLennan and hia wife were on the island, and Lady Grange despatched Mrs MacLennan to entreat the sailors to effect her rescue; but the boat was gone ere the messenger reached the shore.

The captive lady was nob allowed writing material, and no successful inquiry was made after her till, at last» on theMacLennans leaving the island, she induced Mrs MacLennan to carry a letter to Mr Hope, of Rankeilor, her lawyer and man of business. He promptly applied fora warrant to search for and liberate Lady Grange ; but the Lord Justice Olerk, Supreme Criminal Judge in Scotland, refused to issue such a warrant. Not to be daunted, Mr Hope hired a vessel, and putting an armed crew on board, sent it off with Mrs MacLennan for a guide to find and free the lady. This piratical craft only proceeded as far as the bay on which Oban now stands. This attempt by the lady's friends caused a new move to be made by the husband, and Lady Grange was again carried off — this time to Wateniisb, in the island of Sky c, where, it was reported, that she was kept in more humane circumstances. At Wafernieb, in May 1745, she died, and was aeoretly buried in the churchyard of Trumpao.

Any oomment on my part would be entirely superfluous. Of course the husband who bad thus so strongly asserted the upper hand made equally strong efforts to justify h'mself. It is certain, however, that nothing be urged is a justification of his cruel and arbitrary action. The fact that he was brother to the Earl of Mar, who headed the rebellion of 1745, throws a clearer light upon the whole episode than

do all his excuses. His wife knew too mncb, yet could not be depended upon to keep silence. His associates, notably the crafty and double-dealing Lo vat, were all ci fch er secret or avowed partisans of the Souse of Stuart. These gentry wanted to overturn and drive out the German dynasty, but they also wanted to save their own heads In oase their pretty plot should fail. Some of them did this and some did not. Within a year or two of Lady Grange's death, Lovafe's head rolled from his shoulders on Tower Hill. What became of the others it does not now much matter.