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THE WAUCHOPES OF NIDDRIE MARISCHAL

Andrew Gilbert Wauchope came of a long line of ancestry, who have distinguished themselves as soldiers, as churchmen, or in the more commonplace capacity of country gentlemen.

The family history can be traced back for several centuries at least, as occupying in the immediate vicinity of Edinburgh the estate of Niddrie Marischal; and throughout the various troubles in which Scottish history has been involved, the Lairds of Niddrie had their fair share, forfeitures and restorations being an experience not uncommon in their career.

Glancing over their genealogy, one might almost say with truth that the Wauchopes have ever been a fighting race, holding opinions strongly, and as strongly asserting them by word or deed when occasion arose.

The very name of their estate has a smack of the military in it, if it is true, as Celtic scholars say, that 'Niddrie' is derived from the Gaelic Niadh and Ri—signifying, in the British form of Celtic, the king's champion. Then the addition to the word, as distinguishing it from several other Niddries in Scotland, of Marischal, Marishal, or Merschell appears to have been given to the estate from the fact that the Wauchopes of Niddrie were in early times hereditary bailies to Keith Lords Marischal, and later, Marischal-Deputies in Midlothian, in the reign of James v.

Whether it be true, as stated by Mackenzie in his Lives of Eminent Scotsmen, that the Wauchopes had their first rise in the reign of Malcolm Caenmore, and that they came from France, we shall not stay to discuss; but it is generally allowed that the name is a local patronymic, common in the south of Scotland, and that the Wauchopes of Niddrie Marischal belonged originally to Wauchopedale in Roxburghshire, where they were for long vassals of the Earls of Douglas.

The records of the earlier generations of the family having been lost, one cannot with accuracy say who was its founder, or when he lived. In James the Second's reign, for making an inroad into England, and again in Queen Mary's time, for espousing the cause of that unfortunate sovereign, the estate of Niddrie was confiscated and passed for a time into the hands of others, while the feu-charters that remained were afterwards destroyed when the English under Oliver Cromwell came to Scotland. But notwithstanding these misfortunes, there are documents extant which go to show that as far back as the time of Robert III., who began to reign in 1390, there was one Gilbert Wauchope holding the lands of Niddrie from that king, who is supposed to be the grandson of Thomas Wauchope in the county of Edinburgh, mentioned in the Ragman Rolls of 1296.

One scion of the family, born about the year 1500, in the reign of James IV. attained to considerable distinction as an ecclesiastic. This was Robert, the famous Archbishop of Armagh, a younger son of Archibald, the Laird of Niddrie. Defective in his vision almost to blindness, he was, notwithstanding this misfortune, possessed of great natural abilities, and by diligent study attained to high and varied accomplishments. So proficient did he become in the study of the Scriptures, the Fathers, and the Councils, that he was appointed Doctor of Divinity in the University of Paris; and in 1535, having attracted the notice of Pope Paul III., he was called to Rome, and employed by him as legate to the Emperor of Germany and the King of France, in both of which commissions he is said to have exhibited the highest qualifications as an ambassador. Some time after he was promoted to be Archbishop of Armagh, in Ireland. There he laboured with incredible pains to enlighten the ignorant natives, travelling about his diocese, and often preaching to them four or five times a week. Archbishop Wauchope found scope for his great talents at the Council of Trent. This famous council, called together by the Pope to counteract the influence of the Reformation initiated by Luther in Germany, met in March 1544, and continued its sittings till 1551. The archbishop not only took a part in its proceedings, but wrote a full account of them, a labour which, however, proved too much for his strength, for he died at Paris on his way home on 9th November 1551. He appears to have been held by his contemporaries in high admiration. Lesley says: 'Such was his judgment in secular affairs, that few of his age came near him,' and in his capacity as legate 'he acquitted himself so well that every one admired his wit, judgment, and experience.'

Sir James Ware, speaking of him in a similar strain, and alluding, like Lesley, to his having been born blind, says: 'He was sent legate a latere from the Pope to Germany, from whence came the German proverb, "a blind legate to the sharp-sighted Germans."'

Some ancestors

Robert's elder brother, Gilbert Wauchope, was meanwhile Laird of Niddrie, acquiring more property, extending his borders, and getting himself involved in the local feuds peculiar to the time of James V.; that king on one occasion, April 1535, having to grant a letter of protection in favour of him 'and his wife and bairns' against Sir Patrick Hepburn of Wauchtonne and thirty-four others for 'umbesetting the highway for his slaughter.' In this quarrel, even the Pope was called upon to interfere in the interest of peace and safety. In 1539 Paul III. put forth a mandate to the Dean of the Church of Restalrig, stating that a beloved son, a noble man, Gilbert Wauchope, lord in temporals of the place of Niddriffmarschall, within the diocese of St. Andrews, had represented to the Pope that some sons of iniquity, whom he was altogether ignorant of, had wickedly brought many and heavy losses upon the said Gilbert Wauchope by concealing the boundaries and limits or marches of the piece of land or place called Quhitinche, feued to him by the Abbot and Convent of the Monastery of the Holy Cross (Holyrood).... Therefore the Pope intrusted to the discretion of the said Venerable Dean and Commissary to admonish publicly in churches, before the people, ... all holders, etc., and to discover and restore these to the said Gilbert Wauchope or to the Abbot of the Monastery, under a general sentence of excommunication against these persons, till suitable satisfaction was made.

But the Reformation brought many changes, upsetting the laws, customs, and opinions held sacred for centuries. The sons no longer walked in the ways of their fathers, but began to think for themselves. And so we find that Gilbert, the son of the laird who had sought and obtained protection from the Pope, renounced the Pope and took an active part in promoting the Reformation. He was present at Knox's first sermon at St. Andrews in 1547. And at the conference of notables that afterwards was held, where Knox and his preaching were fully discussed, and Wauchope was asked what he thought of the Reformer, 'this answer gave the Laird of Nydre—"a man fervent and uprycht in religioun."' This Gilbert Wauchope of Niddrie was a member of the famous Parliament, held at Edinburgh in August 1560, by which the Reformation was established.

Later on we have a George Wauchope, a celebrated Professor of Civil Law at Caen, in Normandy, who was a grandson of Gilbert, and who in 1595, when he was about twenty-five years of age, wrote A Treatise concerning the Ancient People of Rome.

But the early Wauchopes were a wonderfully varied class of men, who could take their share of fighting when necessary; and towards the close of the sixteenth century their feuds, their 'slauchters,' and political partisanship well-nigh led to their extinction. The feuds with the neighbouring Hepburns and Edmonstons were the occasion of many unhappy conflicts, while their adhesion to the cause of Queen Mary for a time brought ruin on the family. Professor Aytoun, in his poem of 'Bothwell,' referring to Bothwell's attempt to intercept the Queen on her way from Stirling and carry her to Dunbar Castle, says:—

'Hay, bid the trumpets sound the march,

Go, Bolton, to the van;

Young Niddrie follows with the rear;

Set forward every man.'

The estate of Niddrie is quite close to Craigmillar Castle, where Mary frequently resided, and in all probability the fascination of her character brought the Wauchopes into frequent contact with her, and led them to espouse her cause when many of the leaders of the Scottish nobility had declared against her. We find, therefore, that Robert Wauchope and his son Archibald are mentioned in the 'charge agains personis denuncit rebellis' in June 1587. This Archibald appears to have been a youth of wonderful pugnacity, and to have got himself continually involved in trouble with the authorities for breaches of the peace, out of which he as often extricated himself, with no little cleverness. Once, in 1588, for an attempted 'slauchter' of 'umquhile James Giffert, and Johne Edmonston,' the adjoining laird, he was arrested, tried, and warded in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh; but 'no pardoun being granted' by the king, 'and about a thousand persouns in the Tolbuith waiting upon the event, the candles were put furth about ellevin houres at night, and Nidrie and his complices escaped out at the windowes.' It is a curious reflection upon the Wauchopes of this time that their name should be associated with the wild Clan Gregor of Perthshire as disturbers of the peace. King James VI. was married in 1590 to the Princess Anne of Denmark. On the 1st May the king and queen landed at Leith, amid a great concourse of loyal subjects, 'and with volleys of cannon, and orations in their welcome.' James had been absent from Scotland more than six months, and it was remarked at the time, and came to be memorable afterwards, that these months were a time of universal peace and good order in Scotland. 'The only notable exceptions,' according to Spottiswood, 'had been a riot in Edinburgh by Wauchope of Niddry, and an outbreak of the Clan Gregor in Balquhidder.'

In connection with this, we find Wauchope charged by the Privy Council (7th January 1590), 'along with all other keepers of the places and fortalices of Rossyth and Nudry,' to deliver the same to the officer executing these letters, within six hours after charge, under penalty of treason; the said officer to fence the goods and rents belonging to Wauchope, which are ordered to remain under arrest at the instance of the King's Treasurer, 'aye and quhill he be tryit foule or clene of sic crymes quharof he is dilaitet.'

Attack on Holyroodhouse

Not to mention other scrapes of a similar kind, Archibald Wauchope was implicated in the attack on the palace of Holyroodhouse, 27th December 1591, and for this and other misdemeanours he was forfeited, along with the Earl of Bothwell and others, and had to leave the country for a time. He afterwards came to an untimely end by falling from a window in Skinner's Close in Edinburgh, about the year 1596.

It was apparently about this period that the old house or tower of Niddrie Marischal—'so commodious that it could garrison a hundred men'—was destroyed by the enemies of the family.

For some years the estate was in the hands of Sir James Sandilands of Slamannan, until 1608, when, through the good graces of James VI., it was restored to Francis, son of Archibald Wauchope, a restitution which was confirmed by Act of Parliament in 1609. Francis (usually styled Sir Francis Wauchope) appears to have done a good deal for the estate, but his son, Sir John Wauchope, may be regarded as the chief restorer of the house of Niddrie. He was frugal in his living, and he added several adjoining properties to the estate by purchase, and received the honour of knighthood from Charles I. on his visit to Scotland in 1633. He was an intimate friend of the notorious Duke of Lauderdale in their younger days, living with him, and spoken of as 'his bed-fellow.'

Sir John exercised great judgment in the management of his affairs; so much so, that in 1661 he acquired by purchase the border estate of Yetholm or Lochtour, in Roxburghshire, which has remained in the family ever since. He was present in London at the coronation of Charles II.; in 1663 he was elected a member of the Scottish Parliament, and one of the Committee for the Plantation of Kirks; and in 1678 was a member of the Convention of Estates.

Other lairds appear in succession as the years rolled on. There are Williams, Andrews, Gilberts, Roberts, following one another as the leaves succeed in the spring to those that have fallen in the autumn, but it is not our purpose to follow their story. One fought and fell at Killiecrankie with Viscount Dundee in 1689; another fought for the Stuarts at the Revolution, and afterwards rose to high command in the French and Spanish services; and though the Wauchopes took no active part in the Stuart risings of 1715 and 1745, their sympathies were all for the exiled race.

In Niddrie House there are to be seen full-length portraits of Charles I. and his queen; four small half-lengths of the Chevalier and his consort, and their two sons, Prince Charles Edward and the Cardinal York, as boys. These are understood to have been forwarded direct from the Chevalier himself to the Niddrie family as an acknowledgment of their loyalty, and the assistance—pecuniary and otherwise—which the royal line of Stuart had received at their hands.

A 'Minden' hero

To come to more recent times, we find that Andrew Wauchope of Niddrie—the great-grandfather of the subject of our sketch, born about the year 1736—was a captain in the First Regiment of Dragoon Guards, and fought at the battle of Minden in Westphalia, where in 1759 the French were defeated by an army of Anglo-Hanoverian troops. He lived to a good old age, for it was he who was alluded to by Sir Walter Scott in the ballad written on the occasion of the visit of George IV. to Scotland in 1822:—

Come, stately Niddrie, auld and true,

Girt with the sword that Minden knew;

We have owre few sic lairds as you,

Carle, now the King's come.

This Andrew Wauchope married, in 1786, Alicia, daughter of William Baird, Newbyth, and sister of the celebrated Sir David Baird, the hero of Seringapatam, who a few years afterwards—in 1805—commanded the expedition to the Cape of Good Hope which, after a decisive victory over the Dutch, received, on 6th January 1806, the surrender of the colony to Great Britain. There were nine children of this marriage, five boys and four girls. The eldest, Andrew, was killed in 1813 at the battle of the Pyrenees while in command of the 20th Regiment of Foot, and so the second son, William, succeeded to the property, old Andrew Wauchope having resigned it in his favour in 1817, retaining for himself the liferent.

William Wauchope, who had the year before married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Robert Baird of Newbyth, and niece of the then Marchioness of Breadalbane, was a lieutenant-colonel in the army. Curiously enough, William's younger brother, Admiral Robert Wauchope, was stationed at Cape Town at the beginning of the century, where he resided for many years with his wife. They knew the Dutch well, and were on the most friendly terms with both Dutch and English settlers in the colony.

William Wauchope died in 1826, leaving a family of two, the eldest of whom, Andrew Wauchope, born in 1818, being then a minor, succeeded to the property. His sister, Hersey Susan Sydney, was married in 1842 to George Elliot, captain, Royal Navy, eldest son of the Hon. Admiral Elliot. Andrew Wauchope, the father of the subject of our memoir, was for a time in the army—an officer in the dragoons; but, being of a delicate constitution, he retired after his marriage to reside at Niddrie, where he was long known and respected as a kind and indulgent landlord, ever ready to give a helping hand to his tenants or to religious and philanthropic objects. He did a great deal towards completing the extensive improvements begun by his father on the house and grounds of Niddrie.

The newer part of the house, forming the north-east wing, was erected by William Wauchope about seventy-five years ago. It contains some handsome apartments, and it is interesting to note that the celebrated Hugh Miller, when a lad, was employed (in 1823) as a mason at the work, and is said to have carved a number of the ornamental chimneys which form a distinctive feature of a most picturesque edifice. What the father began, the son ultimately completed. The park was extended, new approaches and avenues were formed, lodges erected, and gardens and vineries laid out—the whole place being transformed into one of the most beautiful country seats to be found in the county of Midlothian. These somewhat extensive works, resumed by the father of the General about the year 1850, were steadily carried on year by year until his death, 22nd November 1874, for he took much pride in the work, and made it his life hobby.

Sir William Wallace

So far this brief genealogy of General Wauchope's family has been traced through the male line, but it would be incomplete and lacking in public interest, did we not also refer to his descent on the female side from the family of Sir William Wallace, the champion of Scottish freedom. This interesting connection is traced to James Wauchope, the grandfather of the 'Minden' hero. In 1710 he married Jane, daughter of Sir William Wallace, Bart, of Craigie, near Ayr, whose eldest son, Andrew, succeeded his cousin in 1726, and in his line the property has remained to the present time.

Niddrie Marishchal, Front View

Over the fireplace of the dining-room of Niddrie House there is a painting on canvas inserted in panelling said to be a portrait of 'Wallace Wight.' It has been in possession of the family for nearly two hundred years, being mentioned in various inventories of the property from the year 1707. An interesting notice of it appeared in James Paterson's Wallace and his Times, and the family tradition is that it is a genuine portrait of the hero, the words inscribed above the likeness, 'Gvl: Wallas: Scotvs: Host: ivm: Terror,' certainly giving colour to the supposition. We are more inclined to think, however, that the portrait represents one of the more immediate ancestors of the Jane Wallace who brought the connection into the family—probably Sir William Wallace of Craigie, who distinguished himself as a loyalist in the civil wars. It certainly came into the family through the marriage of James Wauchope in 1710 with Jane, daughter of Sir William Wallace of Craigie, and if it does not represent the champion of Scottish independence, it is from the same source as a similar portrait preserved at Priory Lodge, Cheltenham, in the hands of a descendant of the Craigie-Wallace family.

It was when he was serving with his regiment at Monaghan, in Ireland, that the father of General Wauchope first met his future wife, Frances Maria, daughter of Henry Lloyd of Lloydsburgh, County Tipperary. They were married on 26th March 1840, and two sons and two daughters were the issue of the marriage. These were—

1. William John Wauchope, born in September 1841.

2. Harriet Elizabeth Frances, afterwards married to Lord Ventry of County Kerry, Ireland, by whom she has issue, five sons and four daughters, of whom her daughter, the Hon Hersey Alice Eveleigh-De-Moleyne, is the present Countess of Hopetoun.

3. Andrew Gilbert, the subject of our story, born at Niddrie on 5th July 1846.

4. Hersey Josephine Frances Mary, now residing in London.

A typical Scotsman, loyal to the backbone to the land of his birth, Andrew Gilbert Wauchope had always a warm corner in his heart for Ireland, and was ever ready to acknowledge, and indeed to boast of, his Irish extraction. Combining as he did much of the canniness of the Scot with that steady-going determination of purpose and fearlessness in danger peculiar to his countrymen, he displayed the Irish side of his character in that generous light-heartedness and impulsive good nature which often led him into self-denying deeds of kindness, and now and again into trouble. General Wauchope was, as we have seen, the heir to no mean family traditions. The record of the Wauchopes is one of patriotic energy through five or six hundred years of stirring Scottish history, many of them years of turmoil and strife; and the warlike spirit of the fathers, as well as their more peaceful characteristics, may be found not infrequently imaged in this last scion of the race.