Sir John Arnot

John Arnot of Birswick (Orkney) (1530–1616) was a 16th-century Scottish merchant and landowner who served as Lord Provost of Edinburgh from 1587 to 1591 and from 1608 to death. He was Deputy Treasurer to King James VI.[1]

Life

He was born in 1530 the son of William Arnot and his wife, Margaret Wallace.

At the Reformation of 1560 the family converted to Protestantism.

In 1587 he succeeded William Little as Provost of Edinburgh. When Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell murdered William Stewart of Monkton in July 1588, Arnot's men captured Lord Maxwell who had escaped from Robert Gourlay's house on the High Street.[2]

Arnot and William Fairlie issued a pass for shipwrecked sailors from the Spanish Armada in October 1588. The 46 men had been crew or soldiers of the Ballanzara, (La Trinidad Valencera) wrecked in Ireland. They were to be allowed passage to Spain via Scottish merchant ships going to France.[3]

On 19 February 1590 James VI wrote from Kronborg in Denmark to the kirk minister Robert Bruce and asked him to ensure the Provost prepared four ships for his return to Scotland, and provided craftsmen for William Schaw to finish repairs to Holyrood Palace. The town council organised a ceremony of welcome for his bride Anne of Denmark on 19 May.[4]

Arnot wrote to the former ambassador from England, William Ashby in April 1590, about the loss of a cargo to pirates some years previously. He wanted to revive his claim for redress and his son-in-law in London planned to make a claim to Queen Elizabeth, and Arnot hoped Ashby could help.[5]

On 29 May 1593 the Privy Council asked Edinburgh council to pay him £10,000 Scots in part repayment of money lent by him by the king, from the town's tax bill.[6] In 1594 Arnot supplied wine and beer to the ambassadors who had come for the baptism of Prince Henry, advanced money for the royal households, and lent money to the royal mint. James VI gave him a valuable gold cup in security for repayment, and the income from various lands for a few years.[7]

In 1604 he was appointed Treasurer-depute of Scotland, under the Lord Treasurer, George Home, 1st Earl of Dunbar.

In 1608 he (or possibly his son) served a second term as Provost, in succession to Alexander Seton.[8]

In 1609, during his second term as Provost, he was found innocent of any complicity in the Gowrie plot. At this time it is clear that he acquired some of the lands forfeited by Robert Logan of Restalrig including lands at North Berwick and possibly also Lochend House (which would have served as his Edinburgh residence).[9]

He died in 1614 aged 83 (some records state 1616 which would make him 85). At death he left an estate of around £20,000 (around £2 million in modern terms).[10]

The 1616 death makes more sense in terms of the succession of Lord Provosts as, not until 1616, does William Nisbet of Dean fill the role as the next Lord Provost, yet at age 83/85 Sir John's death could not be described as unexpected.

The names "John Arnot" and "James Arnot" and "John Nesbit" appear with others on a poetry manuscript in the Laing collection at the University of Edinburgh and it is thought the manuscript was made for a group of prominent Edinburgh burgesses.[11]

Family

He married twice: firstly to Margaret Craig of Riccarton, daughter of Thomas Craig of Riccarton.[12] They had two daughters, Rachel and Marion, following her death in 1615 he married Helen Johnston, and has one further daughter, Helen or Helena Arnot (1568-1650). Helen married Sir George Hume or Home of Manderston.[13] George Home owed Sir John £14,000 but was apparently upset at receiving nothing in his will. The relationship between George and Helen deteriorated to the point that she was accused of witchcraft against him in 1629/1630. Not surprisingly she divorced him in November 1630.[14] This was forty years after the North Berwick witch trials.

Marion married James Nisbet, son of Henry Nisbet of Dean and brother of William Nisbet of Dean. Marion seems to have inherited Lochend House from her father. James Nisbet was known as James Nisbet of Restalrig after the marriage (Lochend House lies close to the village of Restalrig).

His sister Rachel Arnot married the Edinburgh burgess, Archibald Johnston of Warriston, ancestor of the future Lord Provost Sir Patrick Johnston.

It is thought that Alexander Home of North Berwick, Provost of Edinburgh from 1593 to 1597, was an in-law or cousin.

References
  1. https://scottish-monumental-inscriptions.com/pages/alderman-provests-and-lord-provests-of-the-royal-burgh-and-city-of-edinburgh
  2. Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 9 (Edinburgh, 1915), p. 586.
  3. Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 9 (Edinburgh, 1915), pp. 624, 628.
  4. David Calderwood, History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. 5, p. 82.
  5. Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 269.
  6. Marguerite Wood, Extracts from the Burgh Records of Edinburgh: 1589-1603, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1927), p. 88.
  7. Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1882), pp. 167-8.
  8. List of Lord Provosts, Edinburgh City Chambers
  9. https://www.rps.ac.uk/search.php?action=print&id=12335&filename=jamesvi_trans&type=trans
  10. Louise Yeoman, 'Hunting the rich witch in Scotland', in Julian Goodare, The Scottish Witch Hunt in Context, pp. 112-4.
  11. Sebastiaan Verweij, The Literary Culture of Early Modern Scotland (Oxford, 2017), pp. 148-151: EUL Laing III.447.
  12. http://www.thepeerage.com/p66626.htm
  13. http://www.clanmacfarlanegenealogy.info/genealogy/TNGWebsite/getperson.php?personID=I32257&tree=CC
  14. Louise Yeoman, 'Hunting the rich witch in Scotland', in Julian Goodare, The Scottish Witch Hunt in Context, pp. 112-4.


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