Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Douglas, William (1582-1650)
DOUGLAS, WILLIAM, seventh or eighth Earl of Morton (1582–1650), lord high treasurer of Scotland, was the only son of Robert Douglas, eldest son of Sir William Douglas of Lochleven, sixth or seventh earl of Morton [q. v.], his mother being Jean, daughter of Lord Glamis. He was born in 1582, and, his father dying when he was an infant, was brought up under the care of his grandfather. He succeeded to the earldom on the death of his grandfather in 1606. Soon afterwards he was made a privy councillor and a gentleman of the chamber to James VI, in which office he was continued by Charles I. He commanded the Scots regiment of three thousand men in the Rochelle expedition of the Duke of Buckingham in 1627 (Balfour, Annals, ii. 159). On the demission of the Earl of Mar he was made lord high treasurer of Scotland, 12 April 1630, and when he resigned it, in 1635, was made captain of the yeomen of the guard, invested with the order of the Garter, and sworn a privy councillor in England. He accompanied King Charles on his visit to Edinburgh in 1633 (Spalding, Memorials, i. 33). Devoting himself to the king's interests, and humouring his Scottish policy, he enjoyed his confidence in regard to Scottish affairs, even after he had demitted the office of lord high treasurer. He was one of the commissioners who accompanied the Lyon king-at-arms to the Scottish camp in 1639, to witness the declaration of the king's proclamation (Balfour, Annals, ii. 329), and was also appointed to assist in arranging the treaty at Ripon in October 1640 (ib. 413). He accompanied the king from London on his journey to Edinburgh in 1641 (Spalding, Memorials, ii. 61). When the king opened the Scottish parliament Morton accompanied him in the procession to the house; but as he had not signed the covenant he was one of the noblemen excluded from entering the room. On the 18th he, however, subscribed the covenant and took his seat (Balfour, Annals, iii. 45). On 20 Sept. the king nominated him for the chancellorship (ib. 68), but his nomination was vehemently objected to by his son-in-law, the Earl of Argyll, afterwards marquis, on the grounds that such an office might shelter him from his creditors, that he was a contemptuous rebel and often at the horn, that he deserted his country in her greatest need, and that he was ‘decrepit and unable’ (ib. 69). Morton replied with ‘great moderation,’ and on the next day asked the king to name some other nobleman for the office, an expedient which the king was reluctantly constrained to accept. Morton accompanied the king on his return journey to London in October (Spalding, ii. 86), waited on him at the great council of the peers at York in March of the following year, and attended him also at Oxford when the court settled there. On the outbreak of the civil war he aided the king by the advance of large sums of money, disposing for this purpose of the castle of Dalkeith to the Buccleuch family. On this account he had a charter, 15 June 1643, of the islands of Orkney and Shetland, with the regalities belonging to them redeemable by the crown on the payment to him of 30,000l. sterling. In 1644 a commission of justiciary was granted to him by parliament for Orkney and Shetland for three years from 1 Aug. He went to wait on Charles I in 1646 when he took refuge with the Scotch army, and after Charles was given up to the parliament he retired to Orkney. He died at the castle of Kirkwall in March 1649–50, his countess, Agnes Keith, daughter of George, earl Marischal, dying on the 30th of the following May (Balfour, Annals, iii. 397). Both were buried in Kirkwall. He had four sons and four daughters. He was succeeded in the earldom by his son Robert, who died on 9 Nov. following. Sir James Douglas of Smithfield, another son, succeeded to the earldom on the death without issue of his nephew William in 1681. This earl, who had been knighted by the Earl of Lindsey for his bravery in the Isle of Rhé, was a gentleman of the privy chamber to Charles I. The four daughters were all married to earls: Anne to George, second earl of Kinnoul; Margaret to Archibald, earl and afterwards marquis of Argyll; Mary to Charles, second earl of Dunfermline; Jean to James, earl of Home; and Isabel to Robert, first earl of Roxburghe, and afterwards to James, second marquis of Montrose.
[Balfour's Annals of Scotland; Robert Baillie's Letters and Journals (Bannatyne Club); Gordon's Scots Affairs (Spalding Club); Spalding's Memorials (Spalding Club); Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), ii. 274–5; Crawfurd's Officers of State, 405–6.]