Last year I started transcribing a set of letters written as the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715 was brewing. (I still was ‘of the University of Glasgow’ then so that description is accurate in the text of the link that follows!)
The advocate Charles Cockburn of Sandybed was the Deputy Keeper of the Signet at this interesting time. He was the second son of Adam Cockburn, Lord Ormiston, Lord Justice Clerk. The younger Cockburn kept up a lively correspondence with Cornelius Kennedy, the London-based secretary of James Graham, Duke of Montrose. Montrose was the Keeper of the Signet and a Secretary of State. His letters are full of gossip alongside the practical concerns of his responsibilities as Deputy Keeper of the Signet, his reports of the doings of the Scottish nobility, and his intelligence about local elections – including his brother John’s – and how they are demonstrating political alliances of Whig or Jacobite leanings.
Signet Library MS 106 was presented to the WS Society by John D. B. Campbell WS in 1937. Other collections of letters from Cockburn to Kennedy survive in the National Records of Scotland. (GD27/3 and GD220/5).
The Signet collection is comprised of 70 letters dating from 30 September 1714 to 25 September 1715.
It soon became clear that a key was needed to identify the people mentioned in the letters. Which ‘E: Hyndford’? Who was ‘the Lyon’ at the time? Some of Cockburn’s spelling of names needed to be puzzled out, too: ‘Campbell of Glenderwell’ turned out to be ‘of Glendaruel’. And ‘Glenogill’ was William Lyon of Wester Ogil. So I compiled some biographical notes to go with the transcription of the letters. These identify the people and only briefly state what each person was up to in 1714 to 1715.
The transcription and biographical guide are part of the Signet Library’s Online Exhibition for 2024 (released on 10 October), created and curated by James Hamilton, Research Principal of the WS Society, and can be found here: https://www.wssociety-heritage.co.uk/the-last-of-the-old-deputy-keepers-the-letters-of-charles-cockburn-dks-1714-1715/
The full exhibition, ‘The Signet Library’s Long Eighteenth Century 1722-1837’ is here: https://www.wssociety-heritage.co.uk/the-signet-librarys-long-eighteenth-century-1722-1837/