BAILLIE, ROBERT (d. 1684)

This article appears in Volume V03, Page 220 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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BAILLIE, ROBERT (d. 1684) , Scottish conspirator, known as BAILLIE of JERVISwoon, was the son of George Baillie of St. John's Kirk,

Lanarkshire

LANARKSHIRE

. He incurred the resentment of the Scottish government by rescuing, in June 1676, his brother-in-law Kirkton, a Presbyterian minister who had illegally been seized and confined in a

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

by Carstairs, an informer. He was fined L500, remaining in prison for four months and then being liberated on paying one-half the fine to Carstairs. In despair at the state of his country he determined in 1683 to emigrate to

South

SOUTH
SOUTH, ROBERT (1634–1716)

Carolina, but the plan came to nothing. The same year Baillie, with some of his friends, went to London and entered into communication with Monmouth, Russell and their party in order to obtain redress; and on the discovery of the Ry e

House

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

Plot he was arrested. Questioned by the king himself he repudiated any knowledge of the conspiracy, but with striking truthfulness would not deny that he had been consulted with the view of an insurrection in

Scotland

. He was subsequently loaded with irons and sent back a prisoner to

Scotland

. Though there was no evidence whatever to support his connexion with the plot, he was fined 6000 and kept in close confinement. He was already in a languishing state when on the 23rd of December 1684 he was brought up again before the high court on the charge of treason. He was pronounced guilty on the following day and hanged the same afternoon at the market

cross

CROSS

at Edinburgh with all the usual barbarities. His shocking treatment was long remembered as one of the worst crimes committed by the Stuart administration in Scotland. Bishop Burnet, who was his

cousin

, describes him as " in the presbyterian principles but . . . a man of

great

GREAT

piety and virtue, learned in the law, in mathematics and in languages." He married a

sister

SISTER

of Sir Archibald Johnston, Lord Warriston, and left a son, George, who took

refuge

REFUGE

in Holland, afterwards returning with William III. and being restored to his estates.

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