# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nisbet, John (1609?-1687)

​NISBET, Sir JOHN (1609?–1687), lord-advocate during the covenanting persecution, and also a lord of session, with the title of Lord Dirleton, born about 1609, was the ​son of Patrick Nisbet of Eastbank. The father—third son of James Nisbet, merchant, Edinburgh, by Margaret Craig, sister of Thomas Craig of Riccarton, Midlothian, was admitted an ordinary lord of session in place of Lord Newhall, on 1 Nov. 1635, when he took the title of Lord Eastbank. He was knighted by the royal commissioner, the Marquis of Hamilton, 14 Nov. 1638, but on 13 Nov. 1641 he and three other judges were superseded by the estates for certain ‘crimes libelled against them’ (Sir James Balfour, Annals, iii. 152). The son was admitted advocate 30 Nov. 1633. In 1639 he was named sheriff-depute of the county of Edinburgh, and he was afterwards appointed one of the commissioners of Edinburgh. At the request of Montrose he was along with John Gilmore appointed one of the advocates for his defence in 1641 (ib. p. 22). Subsequently he gradually acquired a lucrative practice, and in 1663 he purchased the lands of Dirleton, Midlothian. On 14 Oct. 1664 he was appointed lord-advocate, and he was at the same time raised to the bench by the title Lord Dirleton.
As a persecutor of the covenanters, the severity of Nisbet almost equalled that of his successor, Sir George Mackenzie [q. v.]; and although he enjoyed the reputation of being an abler lawyer, he was no more scrupulous in regulating his conduct as prosecutor by a semblance of legality. After the Pentland rising he, on 15 Aug. 1667, moved that fifty persons, accused of being concerned in the rising, should be tried in their absence. This was agreed to by the judges, and sentence of death was passed against them; but in order to remove the dissatisfaction at such an exceptional method of procedure, it was found advisable to pass an act declaring that the judges had done right, and ratifying the sentence of death. As an instance of the unscrupulous expedients to which he sometimes had recourse to procure evidence, Wodrow relates that when one Robert Gray refused to reveal the hiding-place of certain covenanters, Nisbet took off a ring from his finger and sent it to his wife with the intimation that her husband had revealed all he knew, and had sent the ring to her as a token that she might do the same. She thereupon made known the places of concealment, which so affected her husband that he ‘sickened and in a few days died’ (Sufferings of the Kirk of Scotland, ii. 118). It must however be remembered that the uncorroborated testimony of Wodrow is insufficient to authenticate such a story.
In 1670 Nisbet was one of the commissioners sent to London to confer about the union of the kingdoms, and he opposed the proposal for the abolition of the separate parliament for Scotland. Having incurred the hostility of the Maitlands, Nisbet was ultimately forced to resign his office in 1677. His cousin, Sir Patrick Nisbet of Dean, having been accused before the privy council of perjury, the lord-advocate was suspected of having advised him to pay his accuser four thousand merks to settle the case; but it was found impossible to actually prove the collusion on his part. Shortly after he was, however, accused by Lord Halton of having given advice and taken fees on both sides in a case relating to the entail of the Leven estates. The judges of the court of session were directed to investigate the case; and the office of lord-advocate was offered to Sir George Mackenzie. At first Mackenzie refused to accept the office, and advised Nisbet to defend himself against the charge, promising him at the same time every assistance; but Nisbet, says Mackenzie, ‘fearing Halton's influence, and finding it impossible to stand in the ticklish employment without the favour of the first ministers, did demit his employment under his own hand’ (Memoirs, p. 326). He died in April 1687. He was married to one of the Monypennys of Pitmilly, Fifeshire.
Burnet declares Nisbet to ‘have been one of the worthiest and most learned men of his age’ (Own Time, ed. 1832, p. 275); and if he is generally admitted to have been mercenary and time-serving, allowance must be made for the low standard of public morality at this time in Scotland. He was especially devoted to the study of Greek; and at the burning of his house is said to have lost a curious Greek manuscript, for the recovery of which he offered 1,000l. sterling. Lord Dirleton's ‘Law Doubts,’ methodised by Sir William Hamilton of Whitelaw, and his ‘Decisions from 7th December 1665 to 26th June 1677,’ were published in 1698. A portrait in water-colours of Nisbet by an unknown hand is in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.
[Lauder of Fountainhall's Historical Notices; Sir James Balfour's Annals; Burnet's Own Time; Sir George Mackenzie's Memoirs; Brunton and Haig's Senators of the College of Justice, pp. 295, 389–90; Omond's Lord-Advocates of Scotland, pp. 196–9.]
T. F. H.