CHAPTER V

 

ARCHIBALD INGLI S OF AUCHINDINNY

 

 

 

ARCHIBALD, eldest son of John Inglis of Auchindinny and Katharine Nisbet, was baptized at Edinburgh on May 5, 1696 in the presence of Sir Robert Dickson of Sornbeg, Mr. Archibald Dickson of Towerland, Patrick Johnston, merchant, present bailie, George Watson, merchant, James Nesmith, depute town clerk, and Archibald Nisbet of Carphin.

After a training in his father’s office he was admitted an advocate on June 17, 1717, and on January 14, 1718 was nominated by the Earl of Rothes, Vice-Admiral of Scotland, to be Principal Clerk in the High Court of Admiralty.

He did not secure his place without a struggle. His com­mission from Lord Rothes was not accepted by the judge, Mr. James Graham, who claimed for himself the right to appoint, and nominated Alexander Gordon, the Deputy Clerk. When the question came to be tried in the Court of Session, a third claimant appeared, with a commission from Lord Polwarth, Lord Clerk Register. The Court decided in favour of Archibald Inglis,1 who took his seat on November 18, 1718, and held the post till his death in 1754; whilst Alexander Gordon had the consolation of being reappointed Deputy Clerk, for which privilege he had to pay Archibald Inglis £800 Scots.

There seems to have been no regular salary attached to the office of Principal Clerk, but the perquisites amounted to about £200 sterling a year,2 derived from Court dues and from payments for the minor appointments in his gift, which were openly put up for sale according to the custom of the time.

 

1 Arnsiton Session Papers (Adv. Lib.), v. 43. Scottish Antiquary, xii. 13.

28

 

 

 

 

ARCHIBALD INGLIS OF AUCHINDINNY                                    29

 

On his father’s death in 1731 Archibald Inglis succeeded to Auchindinny, and in 1747 he acquired Langbyres and Monkshead by adjudication for debts amounting to £750, which had been borrowed from him by his brother Patrick on security of the lands.1

Monkshead was all along held under a right of reversion to the superior, James Douglas of Hisleside, and no doubt it was soon afterwards redeemed, for nothing more is heard of it.  It was a one merk land at Douglas in Lanarkshire, bring­ing it a rental of ‘fourscore pounds Scots and three stone good sufficient cheese.’ 2

In 1748 Archibald Inglis bought from James Scott of Howden, W.S., probably as an investment, the superiority of part of the barony of Kirknewton,3 in the parish of the same name, ten miles south-west of Edinburgh.

On August 30, 1740 he married Jean, second daughter of John Philp of Greenlaw,4 a neighbouring laird. She was born on December 14, 1717, and was thus twenty-one years younger than her husband. Their portraits are in possession of Mr. H. M. Cadell of Grange, but of their personalities little or nothing is known.

They had three daughters—Sophia (Mrs. John Monro), Katharine (Mrs. William Cadell), and Barbara (Mrs. John Inglis).

Archibald Inglis belonged to the Honorable Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland, founded in 1723.

He was a seat-holder in the Tron Church.

His town house at the time of his death was the third story, containing eight rooms and a kitchen, of a new tene­ment called Elphinstone’s and Carbistone’s Land,5 on the

1 Morison’s Dictionary, 9073; G.R. S., vol. 189, p. 4.

2 Register of Deeds (Dalrymple), March 10, 1720, September 3, 1723.

3 .R.M.S, February 13, 1749.

4For the Philps see Chapter xviii.

5Edüibargh Courant, February 6, 1755.

 

30          ARCHIBALD INGLIS OF AUCHINDINNY

 

south side of the High Street, facing the Cross. It had not been paid for when he died, and it was at once offered for sale.

There is an extant inventory of the household ‘plenishing’ at Auchindinny and in the town house. The silver consisted of a tea-service, a dozen knives, forks and spoons, a posset­dish, two ‘juggs,’ two flagons and tumblers, a pair of candle­sticks, four salts, a mustard-dish, pepper-box and sugar-dish. There is no mention of glass or china, all the ‘trenchers’ and ‘ashets’ being pewter. The live stock at Auchindinny included eight kine and a calf, and eight horses and a foal, but no sheep: there were two carts and various saddles, but no carriage.

Archibald Inglis died on April 2, 1754, ‘much esteem’d and justly regreted,’ 1 and was buried at Greyfriars.

A tribute to him occurs in an anonymous poem, ‘The Lairds on North Esk,’ written about 1740: 2

 

‘Newha’3 he is a weel-faured spark,

The Spittal 4he ‘s a silly body,

Penicuik 5 he is an earl’s son,

Greenlaw 6 he is a fisher’s oye.7

 

Young Glencorse 8 he lo’es guid ale,

Woodhouselees 9he winna be the treater,

Auchindinny he bears the gree 10

O’ a’ the lairds a’ Nor’ Esk Water,

 

Young Gourton 11 he ‘s a rude, rude youth,

Young Hawthornden 12 is little better,

 

Roslin 13 for a glass of wine,

And Dryden 14 for a glass of water.’

 

1 Edinbu rgh Courant, April 2, 1754.

2 Popular Rhymes of Scotland, R. Chambers, ed. 1870, p. 250.

‘ Robert Fisher.                                  4 Dr. John Clerk.

         5 Sir John Clerk, married a daughter of the Earl of Galloway.

      6 John Philp, see infra p. 206.     7 Grandson. 8Henry Bothwell.
       9 Patrick Crichton.                10 Prize.    11 .John Preston, see in.fra p. 53.

      12William Drummond.                        13 William sinclair.                   14 George Lockhart.

 

MRS. MONRO OF AUCHINBOWIE                          31

 

On Archibald’s death, his daughters succeeded as co­heiresses under the guardianship of their uncle, David Inglis.

Auchindinny House was let to a Colonel Gordon, who in 1761 took a lease for fourteen years. Mrs. Jnglis and the girls moved to a small house in Milne’s Court, off the north side of the Lawnmarket, and in summer used to go to a cottage at Swanston at the north end of the Pentlands.

Sophia, the eldest girl, was married on July 8, 1757, when she was only sixteen, to John Monro of Auchinbowie,1 advo­cate, eldest son of Dr. Alexander Monro (Primus), Professor of Anatomy in Edinburgh University. In the same year the Professor’s only daughter, Margaret, married Sophia’s uncle, James Philp.

John Monro, who was born on November 5, 1725, had a fair practice at the bar, and on January 21, 1758 was nomin­ated by his brother-in-law, Judge Philp, to be Procurator-Fiscal (Crown Prosecutor) in the Court of Admiralty. He held the post till his death in 1789.

Many years after his marriage Mr. Monro wrote to his brother-in-law, Captain Inglis: ‘I proposed from the first that Mrs. Monro and I should live by ourselves. But this Mrs. Inglis would not hear of, and Mrs. Monro inclineing also to live with her mother, I gave up the point.’ Accordingly Mr. Monro had to enter the establishment in Milne’s Court, which consisted of ‘ a small dining-room, a very small drawing-room, two small bed chambers, a kitchen, and a closet which I used for writing.’ He soon had to take a larger house at the Cross, but he did not succeed in shaking off his mother-in­law, who followed him with her two other daughters.

Mrs. Monro died on April 21, 1775, when she was only thirty-four years old. One of her sisters erected a monument to her in the field opposite the entrance to Auchindinny House—a triangular monolith, each side having a rectangular

 

1 See the author’s Monros of Auchinbowie, p. 83.

 

32                 MRS. MONRO OF AUCHINBOWIE

 

face measuring 9 feet by 2 feet 9 inches, and then tapering to a point about 11 feet 6 inches above the ground. The inscrip­tion is as follows: 1

‘In remembrance of

 

SOPHIA INGLIS

 

eldest daughter of Archibald Inglis

a disconsolate sister caused this to be cut upon

a native stone at Auchindinny

there angel like she spent her infancy.

 

Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble corneth forth as a flower and is cut down, fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

 

                              SOPHIA INGLIS

                                   Born 17th day of February 1741

Departed this life 21st day of April 1775.

 

Muse, at that name thy sacred sorrows shed,

Those tears eternal that embalm the dead

Call round her tomb each object of desire,

Each purer frame informed with purer fire

Bid her be all that cheers or softens life,

The tender sister, daughter, friend and wife

Bid her be all that makes mankind adore,

Recall her memory and be vain no more.’

 

Mr. Monro survived his wife fourteen years, and died on May 24, 1789. Their family consisted of two daughters, who succeeded as co-heiresses to Auchinbowie, which they divided: (1) Jane, who married on November 21, 1785 George Home of Argaty, and had one daughter, Sophia, who married her cousin, David Monro Binning of Softlaw; (2) Isabella, who married on February 23, 1789 Captain Ninian Lowis of Plean, R.N., and had three sons and four daughters.

 

After David Inglis’s death in 1767 his brother George became guardian to his two unmarried nieces, but Mr. Monro acted as factor for Auchindinny and Langbyres down to

 

1, Scotish Monuments (Crampian Club), i. 156.

 

ARCHIBALD INGLIS OF AUCHINDINNY                                    33

 

1776, when Mr. David Forbes, writer, was appointed by all parties to act as law-agent and ‘doer’ for the proprietors.

In 1773 the second girl, Katharine, married Mr. William Cadell, and after Mrs. Monro’s death old Mrs. Inglis seems to have settled herself and her youngest daughter upon her new son-in-law on boarding terms.

After 1777, when Barbara, the youngest girl, married her cousin, Captain John Inglis (afterwards the Admiral), she and her mother were established at a house in Merchiston, a suburb of Edinburgh, where Mrs. Inglis, who had long been in ill health, died on March 31, 1780, at the age of sixty-two and after twenty-five years of widowhood. She was buried beside her husband in Greyfriars Churchyard. Her brother-in-law, Mr. George Inglis, records her death in his account books with the comment, ‘a sober, virtuous woman.’

Her will, the original of which is among the family papers, is signed in her maiden name, ‘Jean Philp.’ It was made in July 1775, soon after her eldest daughter’s death, and con­stituted her daughter Barbara sole legatee, but the property left by her was probably a negligible quantity.