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



John Swinton/' writes the gossiping chronicler on the 29th 

 September, 1697, "has gained his mistress the Advocate's 

 daughter, and there is a minute of a contract signed by them." 

 A fortnight later he records that the lady has told her lover that 

 " though she will obey her father in what he commands her, 

 yet if the thing be left to her own choice, and death were laid in 

 one balance, and he in the other, she would choose death." 

 Though after this plain speaking, Sir John is said to be " still 

 courting her" on the 10th of November, we find him married on 

 the 17th of February following to another lady, Anne Sinclair, 

 daughter of Sir Eobert Sinclair of Longformacus. Anne Sinclair's 

 mother was Margaret, daughter of Lord Alexander, who was the 

 eldest son of William first Earl of Stirling, the well known 

 poet and courtier, whose name was recalled to the present gener- 

 ation, by an audacious attempt to establish, by forged documents, 

 a claim of succession to his earldom.* In consequence of this 

 connection between the Alexanders and the Swintons, the head 

 of the latter family, fourth in succession to Sir John, was one of 

 three persons to whom an Edinburgh genealogist propounded 

 the idea of claiming as theirs by right of inheritance, the terri- 

 tory in Nova Scotia, which was granted by James VI., and 

 Charles L, to the Earl of Stirling. The scheme was never 

 seriously entertained by the parties interested. But it cost its 

 sanguine projector the life of his son, who, having been sent by 

 his father to Canada to investigate the supposed claim, perished 

 in the loss of the steam-ship President, in the spring of 1841. 



By his marriage with Anne Sinclair Sir John Swinton had, 

 besides John his heir, three younger sons and four daughters. 

 Eobert the second son, merchant in North Berwick, married 

 Catherine, eldest daughter of Eutherfurd of Fairnylee. Their 

 son, John Swinton, is one of the witnesses to the marriage con- 

 tract between Walter Scott, Writer to. the Signet (Sir Walter's 

 father), and Anne Eutherfurd, dated 25th April, I758.f The 

 third son, Francis, M.D., died abroad unmarried. William, the 

 fourth, was also a merchant in North Berwick. Of the daughters 

 Anne, the youngest, died in childhood. Jean, the eldest, married 

 Dr John Eutherfurd, Professor of Medicine in the University 



* See Eeport of the trial of Alexander Humphreys, or Alexander claiming 

 the title of Earl of Stirling, by Archibald Swinton, Advocate, Edinburgh, 

 1839. 



t Scott Centenary Catalogue, p. 148. 



