that when shortly afterwards the Abbot of Crossraguel presented himself in Maybole to dispute about the mass, the ‘voice of Maister George Hay so effrayed him that efter ones he wearyed of that exercise’ (ib. p. 352). Hay published the substance of his discourses as ‘The Confutation of the Abbote of Crossraguell's Masse set forth by Maister George Hay, 1563.’ He seems for some time to have held some official position resembling that of chaplain in connection with government ceremonials. In a minute of the general assembly, 30 Dec. 1563, he is styled ‘Minister to the Privy Council’ (Buik of the Universal Kirk, i. 42), and by the ‘courtier’ party ‘George Hay, then called the minister of the court,’ was sent to the assembly of 1564 to require ‘the superintendents and sum of the learned ministers to confer with them’ (Knox, ii. 423). The Earl of Morton requested him at the conference to reason against Knox in regard to the obedience due to magistrates. Maitland of Lethington, the secretary, remarked, upon his declining to do so, ‘Marye, ye ar the weall worst of the twa; for I remember weill your ressonyng whan the Quene wes in Caryke’ (ib. ii. 435). Hay took a prominent part in the discussions of succeeding assemblies, and was a member of the principal committees and commissions. In 1567 he obtained the third of the stipend of both parsonages on condition that he caused his charge where he did not reside to be sufficiently served and charged no further stipend. In 1568, on complaint that he neither preached nor administered the sacraments in the parish of Eddlestone, he was sharply rebuked. Though not always approved by the church courts, he was on 5 March 1570–1 elected moderator of the assembly. In 1576 he published a book against Tyrie the jesuit, which a committee of the assembly was directed to revise (Calderwood, iii. 363). In the following year he was appointed one of the deputies to the general council at Magdeburg for establishing the Augsburg confession. On 25 Jan. 1578 he was appointed one of the visitors of the college of Aberdeen. He died in 1588. He had a brother, William Hay of Eddilstoun, from whom the family of Leith Hay of Rannes is descended.
[Knox's Works; Calderwood's Hist. of the Kirk of Scotland; Melville's Autobiography; Wodrow's Miscellanies; Hew Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scot. i. 239–40, iii. 677–8.]
HAY, Sir GEORGE, first Earl of Kinnoull (1572–1634), lord chancellor of Scotland, descended from a younger branch of the family of William de Haya, ancestor of the Earls of Errol, fourth son of Sir Peter Hay of Megginch (d. 1596), was born in 1572. About 1590 he was sent to the Scots College at Douay, where he studied under his uncle Edmund Hay [q. v.] ‘the jesuit.’ Not long after his return to Scotland in 1596, he was appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber. On 18 Feb. 1598 he received the commendam of the Charterhouse of Perth with a seat in parliament, and also the ecclesiastical lands of Errol. On the ground, however, that the rents of these lands were too small to support the dignity of a lord of parliament, he resigned his seat. On the death of the Earl of Gowrie at Perth, 5 Aug. 1600, he received the lands of Nethercliff out of his forfeited estates. In July 1605 he was appointed along with three other commissioners to repress outrages in Lewis (Reg. P. C. Scotl. vii. 86), caused by jealousy of traders from the lowlands. Proceeding there in August, they succeeded in compelling the unruly persons ‘to remove furth of the isle, and give security not to return,’ but the effect of the visit was only temporary, for the old settlers soon returned, and compelled the new settlers to resign their claims for small sums of money. Some time in 1609 Hay received the honour of knighthood, his name appearing as Sir George Hay in an action against Patrick Douglas of Kilspindie on 3 Aug. of that year (ib. viii. 339). On 24 Dec. of the following year he received from the king a patent for the manufacture of iron and glass in Scotland. A proclamation was made on 19 May 1613 against any of his majesty's lieges transporting out of the kingdom any iron ore in prejudice of Sir George Hay's works (Balfour, Annals, ii. 42). On 26 March 1616 he was made clerk-register and an ordinary lord of session. Hay is mentioned by Calderwood as one of three who, on the occasion of the meeting of parliament in May 1617, received the communion in the chapel of Holyrood after the English form, ‘not regarding either Christs institution or the ordour of our kirk’ (Hist. vii. 247), and he was also one of those who voted for the five articles of Perth establishing a modified ceremonial (ib. p. 499). In July 1622 he was made lord high chancellor of Scotland. When Charles I, in July 1626, sent down twelve articles to the lords of session to regulate their duties, Hay and others so firmly opposed them that they became entirely inoperative (Balfour, Annals, ii. 138). Hay also steadfastly resisted the command of the king, made on 12 July of this year, that the Archbishop of St. Andrews should have precedency of the lord chancellor. On 4 May 1627 he was created Viscount of Dupplin and Lord Hay of Kinfauns, and on the occasion of the king's coronation in Scotland he was, on 25 May 1633, created Earl of Kinnoull by patent to him
