The Fourteen Marquesses

John Hay was a central figure in the political upheavals of late 17th-century Scotland. A committed Presbyterian and supporter of constitutional government, he rallied to the cause of William of Orange during the Glorious Revolution of 1688, a decision that would reshape both his family's fortunes and Scotland itself.

Appointed Lord Chancellor of Scotland in 1692, he became the most powerful legal and political figure in the country. In recognition of his loyalty, King William III elevated him to Marquess of Tweeddale on 17 December 1694, simultaneously creating the subsidiary titles of Earl of Gifford and Viscount Walden.

As Lord High Commissioner to the Parliament of Scotland from 1694 to 1696, he presided over the legislature at a critical moment. It was under his authority that the official inquiry into the infamous Massacre of Glencoe (1692) was finally ordered in 1695. This act helped hold the government accountable for one of the darkest episodes in Highland history.

The 2nd Marquess inherited both his father's title and his taste for political life. A military man as well as a statesman, he held a colonelcy from 1668 to 1689, commanding regiments across Scotland during a period of religious and political tension.

His greatest political role came in the years leading up to the Acts of Union in 1707. Appointed Lord High Commissioner to the Parliament of Scotland in 1704 and Lord Chancellor of Scotland from 1704 to 1705, he was at the very centre of the debate over whether Scotland should unite with England.

He led the influential Squadrone Volante, a faction of Scottish nobles who held the balance of power. Though initially cautious, the Squadrone ultimately cast its votes in favour of the Union, a decision that changed the course of British history. The 2nd Marquess thus played a pivotal, if controversial, role in the creation of Great Britain.

Charles Hay succeeded his father in 1713 and held the marquessate for only two years, a brief tenure set against the backdrop of one of Scotland's most volatile periods. The death of Queen Anne in 1714 and the Hanoverian succession brought renewed tension between supporters of the new King George I and Jacobite sympathisers loyal to the exiled Stuart line.

He married Susanna Hamilton in 1694, connecting the Hay family to another powerful Scottish dynasty. The 3rd Marquess died in December 1715, the very year of the first major Jacobite rising, passing the title to his son at a moment of profound national uncertainty.

The 4th Marquess was the most politically consequential holder of the title since his great-grandfather. Following the fall of Robert Walpole in 1742, he was appointed Secretary of State for Scotland, one of the highest offices in the British government responsible for Scottish affairs. He simultaneously served as Principal Keeper of the Signet and was sworn to the Privy Council.

His tenure, however, ended in disgrace. When the Jacobite Rising of 1745 erupted, Tweeddale (based in London) was slow to grasp its seriousness. He reportedly remained sceptical of the threat even as Bonnie Prince Charlie's Highland army marched south from Perth. His poor advice to General Sir John Cope, the military commander in Scotland, was blamed for the government's disastrously slow response.

The political fallout was severe: Tweeddale was dismissed, and the office of Secretary of State for Scotland was abolished entirely, not to be restored until 1885. He went on to serve as Governor of the Bank of Scotland from 1742 and as Lord Justice General in 1761, the year before his death in London.

The 5th Marquess held the title for only eight years during the age of the Scottish Enlightenment, when Edinburgh was becoming known as the "Athens of the North." While the great thinkers of the era (David Hume, Adam Smith, and others) reshaped the intellectual landscape, the 5th Marquess served as a quiet steward of the Yester estates in East Lothian.

His was a period of consolidation rather than public drama, managing the family's substantial landholdings during an era of agricultural transformation in the Scottish Lowlands.

The 6th Marquess had one of the longest lives of any holder of the title, living to eighty-seven. He succeeded to the marquessate relatively late and presided over the Yester estates during a period of significant agricultural improvement in Scotland.

The late 18th century saw the transformation of the Scottish Lowlands through enclosure, new farming techniques, and improved land management, changes that reshaped the rural economy and the landscape itself. As one of East Lothian's most prominent landowners, the 6th Marquess was part of this wave of modernisation.

The 7th Marquess held the title during the era of the French Revolution and the early Napoleonic Wars, a period of profound anxiety for the British aristocracy. He married Lady Hannah Charlotte Maitland, connecting the Hay family to the distinguished Maitland line, Earls of Lauderdale.

His greatest legacy may be his eldest son: George Hay, the 8th Marquess, who was born at Yester House in 1787 and would go on to become one of the most celebrated military figures of the 19th century. The 7th Marquess died in 1804, just as the Napoleonic Wars were intensifying.

The 8th Marquess was by far the most distinguished military figure in the family's history, rising to the supreme rank of Field Marshal in the British Army. Born at Yester House, he entered military service during the Napoleonic Wars and served as a staff officer under Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington.

He saw action at the Second Battle of Porto in May 1809, when British forces crossed the Douro River and routed Marshal Soult's French troops in a daring surprise attack. He fought at the Battle of Bussaco (1810) and the Battle of Vitoria (1813), engagements that helped turn the tide of the Peninsular War and ultimately drove Napoleon's forces from the Iberian Peninsula.

After the wars, his career took a colonial turn. He was appointed Governor of Madras (now Chennai) and simultaneously served as Commander-in-Chief of the Madras Army, governing one of the most important provinces of British India. He held the Hereditary Chamberlainship of Dunfermline and was honoured with the Knight of the Thistle (KT) and Knight Grand Cross of the Bath (GCB).

He lived to the remarkable age of eighty-nine, one of the longest-lived peers of his era, and remains the most decorated holder of the Tweeddale title.

Colonel Arthur Hay brought a strikingly different dimension to the Tweeddale legacy. Born at Yester House, the son of the celebrated 8th Marquess, he followed his father into the military and rose to the rank of Colonel in the Grenadier Guards, receiving his commission in 1841.

But it was as a pioneering ornithologist that the 9th Marquess made his most lasting mark. He became a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London (F.Z.S.) and devoted years to the study and cataloguing of birds, with a particular focus on the avifauna of the Philippines and Southeast Asia. His ornithological collections and publications contributed significantly to Victorian-era natural science.

He succeeded his father in 1876 but held the title for only two years before his own death in 1878, aged just fifty-four.

The 10th Marquess combined colonial experience with parliamentary service. Born at Yester House, he spent years in British India as a member of the Bengal Civil Service, gaining firsthand knowledge of imperial administration before returning to Britain.

Back home, he entered politics as a Liberal Member of Parliament, representing his constituents during the reforming era of Gladstone. He succeeded his brother Arthur as Marquess in 1878 and served in the House of Lords, where in 1881 he was additionally created Baron Tweeddale of Yester in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, the first UK peerage held alongside the Scottish titles, giving him a seat in the Lords in his own right.

He oversaw the management of the Yester estates during a period of significant change in Scottish land ownership, navigating the agricultural depression of the late Victorian period.

The 11th Marquess held the title for over half a century, the longest tenure of any holder, steering the family through some of the most transformative decades in British history. A soldier and landowner, he bore the weight of the title through both World Wars, the decline of the great estates, and the sweeping social changes that redefined the British aristocracy in the 20th century.

He succeeded his father in 1911, on the eve of the Great War, and lived through the era of universal suffrage, the welfare state, and the dismantling of empire. His was a period of adaptation: the old world of hereditary privilege was giving way to a democratic age, and the great Scottish landed families had to find new ways to sustain their heritage.

The 12th Marquess was a man of exceptional personal courage. Educated at Eton College, he served as a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve during the Second World War. In 1941, he was awarded the Albert Medal for extraordinary bravery, an honour later exchanged for the George Cross, the highest civilian decoration for gallantry in the United Kingdom.

The circumstances of his award speak to a character forged in wartime: the Albert Medal was reserved for acts of supreme courage in saving life, and it was subsequently deemed equivalent to the George Cross when that decoration was instituted.

He married Hon. Sonia Mary Peake in 1946 (the marriage was dissolved in 1958) and later married Nella Doreen Dutton in 1959. His twin sons, Edward and Charles, would become the 13th and 14th Marquesses respectively.

The elder of the twin sons born to the 12th Marquess, Edward Hay was educated at Milton Abbey School and Trinity College, Oxford, where he graduated with a BA. He worked professionally as an insurance broker, a sign of the changing times, as the aristocracy increasingly pursued careers in the City and commerce.

He succeeded his father as Marquess in 1979 and served as a member of the House of Lords during a period of constitutional change, including the debates leading to the House of Lords Act 1999, which removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in the upper chamber.

The 13th Marquess died unmarried on 1 February 2005, aged fifty-seven. The title passed to his younger twin brother, Charles.

The current and 14th Marquess of Tweeddale is the younger twin brother of the 13th Marquess. Like his brother, he was educated at Milton Abbey School and Trinity College, Oxford.

He succeeded to the marquessate and all its subsidiary titles in February 2005 upon the death of his brother Edward. As the present holder of a title created over three centuries ago, he represents the living continuation of a legacy stretching back to the Glorious Revolution, the Acts of Union, the Peninsular War, and beyond.

The Marquessate of Tweeddale endures: a thread connecting the Scotland of William III to the Scotland of the 21st century.