Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lyon, Patrick (d.1695?)

1452160Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 34 — Lyon, Patrick (d.1695?)1893Alexander Hastie Millar

LYON, Sir PATRICK (d. 1695?), of Carse, lord of session, was second cousin of Patrick Lyon, first earl of Strathmore [q. v.], and was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates on 11 July 1671. He had previously been professor of philosophy in the college of St. Andrews. For many years his family had an intimate connection with Dundee, his residence in that burgh having been in Whitehall Close, a passage now transformed into an open street. A splendid sculptured stone, bearing the arms of the United Kingdom, the initials of Charles II, and the date 1660, is still preserved in Dundee Museum, and is reasonably supposed to have been erected by Lyon in front of his residence to commemorate the Restoration. On the death of Lord Nairn he became an ordinary lord of session, taking his seat, with the title of Lord Carse, on 10 Nov. 1683. He was appointed one of the lords of justiciary on 20 Feb. 1684, but as he was an ardent Jacobite he was deprived of both offices at the revolution of 1688. His son, Magister Patrick Lyon of Carse, was declared his heir on 30 Oct. 1695. There is a portrait of Lyon in the drawing-room at Glamis Castle, which was painted by Jacob de Witt, a Dutch artist who was engaged in the decoration of that castle in 1688. Lyon is known to antiquaries as the author of a manuscript ‘Genealogy of the Principal Scottish Families,’ which is now in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, and formed the foundation of Sir George Mackenzie's well-known work on this subject.

[Brunton and Haig's Senators of the College of Justice, p. 418; Millar's Glamis Papers (Scott. Hist. Society).]

A. H. M.