# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Douglas, William (d.1606)

​DOUGLAS, Sir WILLIAM, of Lochleven, sixth or seventh Earl of Morton (d. 1606), was descended from Sir William Douglas of Lugton, who was the third son of Sir John Douglas of Dalkeith, ancestor of the first Earl of Morton, and who received a grant of the castle of Lochleven from Robert II. He was the eldest son of Sir Robert Douglas of Lochleven by Margaret, daughter of John, fourth lord Erskine, who had previously been mistress to James V; and was thus closely related to three nobles, each of whom in turn held the office of regent, Moray being his half-brother, Mar his uncle, and Morton of such near kinship that he made him his second prospective heir. He succeeded to the estate of Lochleven on the death of his father at the battle of Pinkie in 1547. When Queen Mary, after her marriage to Darnley, required James, earl of Morton, to give surety that he would give up Tantallon Castle, she also charged Douglas on 7 Nov. to deliver up the fortalice of Lochleven (Reg. Privy Counc. Scotl. i. 390–1), but having pleaded that he was ‘extremely sick,’ he was allowed to keep it on condition that he should be prepared to deliver it up ‘with all the munition and artillerie’ (which had been placed in it by Moray) on twenty-four hours' warning (ib. 396). He had, however, sufficiently recovered to be present at the murder of Rizzio in the following March, and was denounced as one of the murderers (ib. 437). He joined the confederacy of the lords at Stirling for the protection of the young prince and the avenging of Darnley's murder; and after Mary's surrender at Carberry Hill, his fortalice, owing to its isolated situation and his own near relationship both to Moray and Mar, was selected to be her prison. He received a warrant on 16 June for her commitment, and in answer to his supplication parliament in December passed an act showing that he had acted in obedience to the warrant (Acts Parl. Scotl. iii. 28). It was from no want of vigilance on the part of him or his mother (who was also the mother of Moray) that the queen, by the assistance of his younger brother, made her clever escape; and no charge of carelessness or collusion was ever made against him. At the battle of Langside he held a command in the rear guard, and at a crisis in the battle showed great presence of mind and activity in bringing reinforcements to the right wing (Melville, Memoirs, 202). He also accompanied Moray and Morton when they went to York to accuse the queen (ib. 205). When the Earl of Northumberland, in violation of the customs of the country ‘to succour banished men,’ and in opposition to the strong protests of Morton, who accounted it a ‘great shame and reproach’ (Hunsdon to Cecil, 11 Jan. 1570–1571, quoted in Froude, ix. 170), was taken prisoner at Elizabeth's request by the regent Moray in Liddesdale, Moray, unable to find a place of security for him south of the Forth, delivered him personally on 2 Jan. to his kinsman, Douglas, to be kept in Lochleven (Calderwood, ii. 510). In April 1572, Douglas agreed to deliver him to Elizabeth on receipt of 2,000l., the same sum which had been offered him by the countess to set him at liberty (see various letters, Cal. State Papers, Scotch Ser. i. 345–52). By a confusion between the two earls of Morton this infamous transaction is not unfrequently referred to as a shameful example of the cupidity of James, fourth earl, but in fact he was so far from being concerned in it that it was probably at his instance that the regent Mar threw obstacles in the way and endeavoured to stipulate that Northumberland's life should be saved. The difficulty had been created by the regent Moray, who, shortly after delivering Northumberland to Douglas, was assassinated at Linlithgow. On the occurrence of the tragedy Douglas and his brother Robert, as the nearest kin of the regent, craved summary execution against the murderer (Calderwood, ii. 526), and when in 1575 it was reported that the assassin Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh was to be brought home by the lord of Arbroath, Douglas assembled a force of twelve hundred men and vowed to have vengeance on both.
During the fourth Earl of Morton's regency, Douglas gradually won a large share of his friendship, and latterly, as may be seen from the letters in ‘Reg. Honor. de Morton,’ was specially confided in. It was to Lochleven that Morton retired when he demitted the regency in 1578, and after the Earl of Mar on behalf of Morton seized Stirling Castle, Douglas joined him, and entered into communication with Morton to arrange for his return to power. After the apprehension of Morton on the charge of being concerned in Darnley's murder, Douglas, with other relatives, was on 14 March 1581 summoned to appear before the council ‘to answer to sic thingis as salbe inquirit of them’ (Reg. Privy Counc. Scotl. iii. 365), and on the 30th he found two sureties in 10,000l. for his entry ‘into ward beyond the water of Cromartie’ by the 8th of the following April, and his good behaviour in the ​meantime (ib. 368). The Douglas of Lochleven who took part in the ‘raid of Ruthven’ on 22 Aug. 1582 for the deliverance of James from the power of Lennox, was young Douglas (Calderwood, iii. 637), not the father, as often stated; but the father on 30 Aug. signed the bond of the confederates to remain with the king, and to take measures for the establishment of the ‘true religion and reformation of justice’ (ib. 645). After the counter-revolution at St. Andrews 24 June 1583, he was sent to the castle of Inverness, but on 2 Dec. was ‘released from the horn’ (Reg. Privy Counc. Scotl. iii. 613), on condition that he found caution in 20,000l., which he did on 8 Dec., to depart forth of Scotland, England, and Ireland within thirty days (ib. 615). He and the other principal conspirators went to France, where they organised a plot which resulted in the capture of Stirling Castle on 31 Oct. 1585 and the overthrow of Arran. On 14 July 1587 he was appointed one of the commissioners for the executing of the acts against the jesuits (ib. iv. 463). On the death in 1588 of Archibald, eighth earl of Angus, who had succeeded to the title of Earl of Morton when Lord Maxwell's title was revoked in 1585 (ib. iii. 734), Douglas, in accordance with the will of the regent Morton, succeeded to the earldom of Morton. Lord Maxwell's title was, however, revived in 1592, so that for a time there were two earls of Morton (ib. iv. 767). On 12 July it was declared that the revival of the title in the person of Lord Maxwell should not prejudice Douglas (ib. 768), but the arrangement could scarcely be regarded as satisfactory by either, and on 2 Feb. 1593 they came to blows in the church of Edinburgh on the question of precedency, and had to be parted by the provost. The existence of two persons with the one title has also caused some confusion in contemporary records and in historical indexes. After the marriage of the king, Douglas, as one of the leaders of the presbyterian party, exercised considerable influence at court. In September 1594 he was appointed the king's lieutenant in the south. He died 27 Sept. 1606. By his marriage to Lady Agnes Lesly, eldest daughter of George, fourth earl of Rothes, he had four sons and six daughters. He was succeeded in the estates and earldom by his grandson, William Douglas (1582–1649) [q. v.] John, eighth lord Maxwell, who succeeded his father in 1593, claimed also the earldom of Morton, but in 1600 he was attainted, and from this time his claims ceased to be recognised. In 1620 the title was changed in the Maxwell family to Earl of Nithsdale, with precedency from the grant of the earldom of Morton in 1581.
T. F. H.