As well as the then Lord Advocate John Dalrymple the 1st Earl of Stair, along with John Campbell the 2nd Duke of Argyll, the characters below are the Scottish nobles who sold out their country in 1707. Alongside their names are the bribes they received for their treachery:
NAME | Amount
of Bribe |
Duke of Montrose | £200 |
Duke of Athole | £1,000 |
Duke of Roxburgh | £500
|
Marquis of Tweeddale | £1,000 |
Earl of Marchmont | £1,104
|
Earl of Cromarty | £300
|
Earl of Balcarres | £500
|
Earl of Dunmore | £200
|
Earl of Eglinton | £200
|
Earl of Forfar | £100
|
Earl of Glen Cairn | £100 |
Earl of Kintore | £200 |
Earl of Findlater | £100 |
Earl of Seafield | £490 |
Lord Prestonhall | £200 |
Lord Ormiston | £200 |
Lord Anstruther | £300 |
Lord Fraser | £100 |
Lord Polwarth | £50 |
Lord Forbes | £50 |
Lord Elibank | £50 |
Lord Banff | £11 |
Provost of Ayr | £100 |
Well may we exclaim, "Such a parcel of rogues in a nation." That a peer should sell his vow and his country for £11 may be regarded as about the most contemptible transaction on record. Even the Provost of Ayr got £100. The Lords Ordinary were to receive £500 a year instead of £100 and all the law servants of the crown received gratuities or increased salaries. When the story of this wholesale bribery became partly known the people were furious, and when the money was taken to Edinburgh to be divided, the citizens could only be kept from destroying it by sheer force of arms. They regarded the gold in the closely guarded wagons as being the price paid in exchange for the delivery of the liberty of the kingdom into the hands of the English. Possibly, had they realized that the money was to be repaid by Scotland into the British treasury, even the protection of the military would have been insufficient to prevent the coffers and their contents being thrown into the Nor' Loch. The Darien scheme, the stock in which was largely held by the Scots commissioners, the members of the Scottish Parliament, and the upper classes generally. This was one of the most thoughtful schemes for making the bribery in connection with the Union be as widespread as could possibly be imagined. There were many more traitors and even the Royal Burghs were stockholders.