History of the Johnstones, 1191-1909, with ... - Electric Scotland

138 THE LAIRD OF JOHNSTOUN
Sir Richard fought at Edgehill under Charles I., and died in 1653. When
Agnes and George Johnstoun were living at Annan they were only thirteen
miles from her cousin's abode.
The transfer of executive authority in Dumfriesshire into the hands of a
few courtiers, who hung about the King at Windsor or Theobalds to advance
their own interests instead of attending to their duties in Scotland, led to an
extraordinary degree of lawlessness, which the Privy Council could hardly cope
with. Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick 1 sent his son Thomas to prison to keep him
out of mischief, and complained to the Privy Council that he was released
because he feigned illness, since which time he had continued his undutiful
conduct. Elizabeth Carlile, Lady Douglas, arrested at Dumfries for a debt,
was rescued from the authorities by Alexander Carlile and other armed
relatives, and conveyed for safety to Annan. A case in 1633 was brought by
Mr Walter Whitford, parson of Moffat (afterwards Bishop of Brechin), against
the young Laird of Johnstoun, who had been married six years, for unlawfully
convoking his kin and friends and assaulting people in Moffat. The Borderers
seem to have had a passion for litigation, and so little discredit attached to
these exploits that the Laird of Johnstoun was raised to the Peerage the same
year by Charles I.
In several legal writs, years after he was ennobled, the Laird is only called
James Johnstoun of that Ilk, and it was the same with his father-in-law, Drumlanrig.
In 1643 he was created Earl of Hartfell. He adhered to the Royal
cause during the Civil War, and was imprisoned and his estates sequestered ;
but after his death, and the accession of Charles II., his son James was restored
to his lands and honours. When the last Murray Earl of Annandale died
without male heirs, this title was given to Johnstoun, who also obtained a grant
of the hereditary Stewardship of Annandale and the office of hereditary Constable
of the Castle of Lochmaben.
The reign of Cromwell was disastrous to Dumfriesshire, if not to all
Scotland. When the monastic lands had been distributed among the laity
it was with the understanding that the new owners should help to maintain
the ministers and the kirks. As this was done very inadequately, Charles
I. tried to divert a portion of the rents for their proper maintenance. He
also reversed the attainder of Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, which obliged Buccleuch
to restore some of the forfeited lands he had received from James VI. While
the Johnstouns, Grahams, and Irvings supported Charles, Buccleuch and all his
clan, with others of the landed gentry who had benefited by the Church lands,
ranged themselves on the Puritan side ; and the entire disappearance of public
registers and Charters in Dumfriesshire during the middle part of the seven-
teenth century shows the destruction caused by the Civil War. The taxation
was excessive. The salt works on the Solway had been very remunerative to
the Johnstouns of Newbie and the Murrays of Cockpool. In the first year
of Charles II. (1661) an Act of Parliament relieved the salters in those parts
of any payment of excise for the future. It states that " some poor people and
1 He was a Groom of the Chamber to James VI.