The Swintons of that Ilk, by A. Campbell Swinton. 339 



gentlemen,"* as a contemporary writer calls them, who accom- 

 panied the Provost and Magistrates of Edinburgh, and a large 

 crowd, in an attack on the Palace of Holyrood, for the purpose 

 of taking revenge on one Captain Wallace, who, on the previous 

 day had ordered his men to fire on a number of the inhabitants. 

 In one account of this affair Lord Mersington is described, as 

 " the fanatical judge" heading the rabble with " a halbert in 

 his hand, and as drunk as ale and brandy could make him." 

 But this passage, which has been ascribed to Lord Balcarras,f 

 occurs, not in the genuine edition of that writer's memoirs, but 

 in one of the " transcripts so mutilated and interpolated as fre- 

 quently to be unintelligible, and in many instances to reflect the 

 opinions and sentiments of the copyist, rather than those of the 

 original author. "| And there can be little doubt that the story 

 in its aggravated form is wholly unfounded. Lord Mersington 

 was the only judge in Scotland who sat on the bench at the 

 period of the Revolution, and was re-appointed after it. His 

 death in August, 1700, is thus described by the Lord Advocate, 

 Sir James Stewart, writing to Principal Carstares : — " On Tues- 

 day last the Lord Mersington dined well with a friend in the 

 Merse, and went well to bed, but was found dead before four in 

 the morning — his lady in bed with him, who knew nothing of his 

 dying. A warning stroke. He was a good honest man, and is 

 much regretted. "§ He was twice married. By his first wife, a 

 daughter of Sir Alexander Dalmahoy, of that Ilk, he had two 

 sons, of whom all we know is that they " went to England." || 

 There have been, and are, more than one family of the name 

 south of the Tweed. But the only English Swinton known to 

 fame, and who may possibly have been a grandson of Lord 

 Mersington, is the Rev. John Swinton, Fellow of Wadham Col- 

 lege, Oxford, born at Bexton, in Cheshire, in 1703.^[ He was a 



* Earl of Balcarras' Memoirs, printed for the Bannatyne Club, p. 16. 

 t Brunton and Haig's Historical Account of the Senators of the College of 

 Justice, p. 432. 



% Preface by Lord Lindsay to the Earl of Balcarras Memoirs. 



§ Carstares' State Papers, p. 625. 



|| Douglas' Baronage of Scotland, p. 131. 



If A. Swinton, Esq., was the author of " Travels into Norway, Denmark, 



and Russia, in the years 1788, 1789, 1790, and 1791." London, 1792. There 



is also a family of Swintons in the United States. 



1Q 



