Bloody Advocate Mackenzie - Monster or Genius?

There are two men of Angus who were prominent during the time of the Covenanters in the late 17th century and whose reputations have been forever blackened by their roles in prosecuting those whom the state believed to be dangerous religious zealots.  One of these men was John Graham, Viscount Dundee, whom I have briefly written about previously (see my post on Bonnie Dundee). The other man has somewhat slipped back into obscurity in recent times.  However his ill-fame in the minds of hard line Presbyterians earned him an afterlife of ill fame for several centuries.  Sir Walter Scott included him (along with Dundee) in his supernatural rogues gallery in his chilling story 'Wandering Willie's Tale'.

   Sir George Mackenzie was born in Dundee in 1636, though his paternal family were not from the area, having their roots in Ross-shire and the ancient house of the Mackenzies of Kintail. His father, Simon Mackenzie of Lochslin, was the brother of the Earl of Seaforth.  His mother was Elizabeth Bruce, daughter of Dr Peter Bruce, principal of St Leonard's College, St Andrews.  His maternal grandmother, in whose household he spent his first few years, was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Alexander Wedderburn of Kingennie, town-clerk of Dundee.  Simon Mackenzie 'was added to the Burgesses and Brethren of the Guild' of Dundee, 'for his numerous services to the State,' on 3rd June, 1634.  He died around 1666 and his son became a burgess of the burgh in 1661.

 George was educated to the highest standard of his age.  He was said to have devoured all the leading classical authors by the time he was ten.  He went to the universities of Aberdeen and St Andrews, then studies civil law at Bourges.  Back in Scotland, he was admitted to the bar in 1659 and quickly gained a reputation as an accomplished advocate.  He also began to indulge in a talent for writing literature (as detailed below).

   As a criminal judge and member of the privy council, Sir George soon came into conflict with the large body of Scots whose religious stringency set them at odds with the establishment.  This followed his appointment as Lord Advocate of Scotland in 1677. He resigned when King James VII was replaced at the revolution by the Prince of Orange and was a strong opponent of the proposed Union between Scotland and England.  He retired to the University of Oxford and died in London in May 1691.  His body was conveyed by land back to Scotland and his funeral in Greyfriars Kirkyard was attended by all the council, the major nobility and 'a greater concourse of people than was ever seen on any similar occasion.'

Mackenzie as an Author

Apart from highly influential works on legal matters, such as Institutes of the Scots Law, Mackenzie wrote a  range of allegorical and philosophical works which earned him wide admiration, including from discerning men like the poet Dryden, who called him 'that noble wit of Scotland'.  His first published work, a romance called Aretina (Edinburgh, 1660) has allegedly not stood the test of time and critical judgement, for his biographer Andrew Lang states it 'is no longer readable "for human pleasure".'  His follow-up, The Religious Stoic (1663) was a more sober affair.

Achievements and Reputation

Apart from his towering legal reputation, Mackenzie founded what became the Advocate's Library in Edinburgh in 1689. Sometimes held up as an opponent of the prosecution of witches, Mackenzie was not outright sceptical on the matter, though he states that real witches were few er than was popularly believed and he pertinently stated that most confessions were the result of torture. His role in the prosecution of Covenanters and extreme Protestants earned him ill fame. Large scale arrests were followed by some executions, imprisonment, transportation to the West Indies, plus incidents of torture.  Mackenzie was not alone in imposing harsh judgements, but acted according to the precedence of the law.  The leaders of the various extreme factions were often charismatic and sometimes prone, like biblical heroes, to prophecy.  So, Donald Cargill not only prophesied his own violent demise but also foretold that Sir George Mackenzie would die in no ordinary way.  Evidently Mackenzie expired in agony, 'all the passages of his body running blood'.  This is said to have been fulfilled as Mackenzie was seen to be vomiting blood for three quarters of an hour prior to his decease.

Continued Local Connections

In 1665, George Mackenzie  was chosen as Advocate for the town of Dundee, his retaining fee being the moderate sum of £46 (Scots). Most of his estates were held in Angus and eastern Perthshire (Gowrie), including  Bannatyne House, nearby in Newtyle. (A later Mackenzie, Lord Privy Seal James Mackenzie was responsible for building the observatory on Kinpurney Hill in the vicinity.) Sir George also owned the nearby Belmont estate in Meigle, Perthshire, and also Keilor. It was probably here that he made his second wife, Margaret Haliburton, daughter of the Laird of Pitcur (a place now in Perthshire, but formerly firmly in Angus), and they lived together in a house called Shank, near Edinburgh.  Writer Andrew Lang admits very little is known of this lady.  He cites one anecdote to show she may have been in charge of the household finances however.  Very early one morning Lord Tweeddale rode to the house to consult with the lawyer, who was still in bed.  The consultation was conducted from within a four poster bed sight unseen.  When the nobleman came to hand over his gold a lady's hand slipped between the curtains and accepted the gold.  A scrap of gossip states that John Graham of Claverhouse, later Viscount Dundee, had an affair with this lady and that Mackenzie and Graham fell out as a result, but the rumour seems to have been made up by Mackenzie's political enemies.  Mackenzie's brother-in-law incidentally died alongside Claverhouse at the Battle of Killiecrankie. After Sir George's death, his widow married Roderick Mackenzie of Prestonhall, a Lord of Session.

Bannatyne House, Newtyle

Guided to London by an Apparition

You may take the following tale with a pinch of seasoning, or not, at your own discretion.  On evening when Sir George was taking his habitual walk down Leith Walk he was interrupted by an old, eccentric acting gentleman who said:

There is a very important case coming up in London a fortnight from now.  It concerns a large city estate where a false claimant is doing his utmost to disinherit the rightful heir on the grounds that he has no title deeds..  If you will be so good as to visit the mansion house on the grounds of the estate, you will find in the attic an old oak chest with two compartments.  Between the layers you will find hidden the titles required.  I desire you to attend the case.

   Mackenzie heard the address from the old man and watched him walk away.  He thought him insane and did nothing about then  matter. The next night the same man appeared, urging him to take the case and stating he would be well paid.  On the third evening, the same again, with the man urging him not to delay another hour or the matter would be lost.

   His anxiety and sincerity persuaded Mackenzie to ride south on the apparent fool's errand and he arrived the day before the case was due before the courts.  He met the supposed rightful heir and his barrister, both of whom were aggravated by the intervention of this Scottish lawyer.  The barrister was especially scathing and made hateful comments both about Scotland and its distinctive legal system.  But the heir became intrigued and took Sir George into his drawing room.  There was a portrait over the fire of an old man whom the Scot recognised as the person he had met in Edinburgh.  The man informed him that it was his great-grandfather, fifty years dead.   

   Needless to say they went to the old trunk and found the title deeds and the case was won.  Scottish law, via supernatural means, triumphed over its metropolitan counterpart.

Afterlife and Return?

   According to very recent tradition, Sir George does not rest easy in his mausoleum in Edinburgh.  The story of his restless, malevolent spirit is interesting because it seems like a sudden re-occurrence of negative Covenanting propaganda against the former Lord Advocate.  Why it should have cropped up in recent years is a mystery. While the haunting legend is perhaps modern, generations of local laddies regarded the tomb and its occupant as something to be taunted with the following rhyme:

Bluidy Mackenzie, come oot if ye daur!

Lift the sneck and draw the bar!

 
   The story which erupted in the 1980s or 1990s was that many people have been left with bruises, scratches, even bite marks in the vicinity of his burial place. One newspaper says that around 400 people have been attacked to varying degrees in the locality, with one person being knocked unconscious  The most outlandish story is that of a homeless man who broke into the mausoleum in hope of finding secreted treasure there.  However the floor collapsed beneath him and he ended up in the less than pleasant surroundings of a plague pit.  Whether this actually happened or not is uncertain.  But, if Mackenzie is going to behave like this in his afterlife, he's certainly better off in Edinburgh than in Dundee.

Another view of the mausoleum in Edinburgh.