Alexander Brodie (1697–1754)

Coat of arms of Alexander Brodie of that Ilk

Alexander Brodie, 19th of that Ilk (17 August 1697 – 9 March 1754)^[1] was a Scottish clan chief and politician from Moray. He sat in the House of Commons of Great Britain for 34 years, as a government supporter. For 27 years he was Lord Lyon King of Arms, the most junior of the Scottish Great Officers of State, responsible for regulating the heraldry of Scotland.

Early life

Brodie was the second son of George Brodie of Brodie and Aslick in Moray.^[2] His mother Emilia was the 5th daughter and co-heir of James Brodie of that Ilk.^[3]

He was educated at Marischal College in Aberdeen, and possibly also at the at Leiden University in the Netherlands.^[2] In 1724 he married Mary Sleigh (1704–1760), daughter of Major Samuel Sleigh of the 16th Foot. They had two children: a daughter Emilia (born 1730) who married John Macleod, and a son, Alexander (1741–1759).^[3][4]

Career

Brodie's older brother James had inherited their father's estates, and was elected in 1720 as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Elginshire.^[5] However, James died later that year aged 25,^[1] and Alexander succeeded to his estates as laird of Brodie. At the resulting by-election on 29 December 1720, Alexander was elected unopposed in James's place, in the interest of Sir James Grant.^[2]

The Grants of that Ilk had become the dominant interest in the county since the 7th Earl of Moray, the hereditary sheriff of Elginshire, had been implicated in the 1715 Jacobite rising. After the death of Alexander Grant in 1719, Sir James supported first James Brodie and then Alexander Brodie in the Elginshire seat. This arrangement continued until 1735, when Sir James passed his estates on to his son Ludovick Grant, who took the seat at the 1741 election.^[6]

Brodie was instead returned for Caithness by the county's hereditary sheriff George Sinclair of Ulbster, who was Brodie's nephew.^[2] As an alternating constituency, Caithness was not represented in the 1747–54 Parliament, and at the 1747 general election arrangements were made for Brodie to be returned for the Inverness Burghs, as part of a plan by Henry Pelham to avoid electoral contests between Scottish supporters of the government.^[2]

Lord Lyon

Brodie's loyalty to the government was rewarded in July 1727, when he was appointed as Lord Lyon King of Arms, with a salary of £300 per year (equivalent to £40,000 in 2015^[7]).^[2]

His predecessor Sir Alexander Erskine of Cambo had been a Jacobite, and the Lyon's office was known to include other Jacobites, so the office was viewed with suspicion.^[4] The appointment of the staunchly Hanoverian Brodie was intended to remove those Jacobite connections, and to make the office less Scottish. Brodie was the first ever Lyon not be crowned, and the first since the early 16th century not be knighted when appointed.^[8]

Brodie fulfilled the office with diligence. He was reputed to have enforced the laws of arms without fear or favour, and removed bogus arms even from senior peers.^[2][4]

Brodie attached himself to Lord Ilay, Walpole's manager of elections in Scotland, and was accused of "airs of being my Lord Ilay’s minister in the north".^[4] In 1733 he fell out with Lord Lovat, and at the 1734 election this spread to a series of intrigues which escalated into a serious disturbance at a by-election in 1735 in Nairnshire,^[2] where he put up a candidate unsuccessfully at a by-election in which both sides used force.^[9]

After the 1745 Jacobite rising, Brodie became an informer.^[2] He told the Duke of Newcastle that the Earl of Sutherland had sheltered a rebel,and is reported to have helped gather evidence against Lord Lovat. In 1746, he supported the Highland Dress Bill, insisting that it should apply even to those clans who had taken the government's side during the rising.^[4]

However, he was magnanimous to staff in the Lyon office who had supported the Jacobites. He intervened to protect them from punishment, ensured that their salaries were reinstated, and won a pardon from a death sentence one of his clerks.^[4]

Death

Brodie died in London on 9 March 1754, of heart failure. His body was brought back to Moray and buried at Dyke, close to Brodie House.^[4]

References

1. Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "E" (part 2)
2. Simpson, J. M. (1970). R. Sedgwick, ed. "BRODIE, Alexander (1697-1754), of Brodie, Elgin". The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754. Boydell and Brewer. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
3. Foster, Joseph (1882). Members of Parliament, Scotland, including the minor barons, the commissioners for the shires, and the commissioners for the burghs, 1357-1882 : on the basis of the parliamentary return 1880, with genealogical and biographical notices (2nd ed. rev. and cor. ed.). pp. 34–5. Retrieved 30 April 2015 – via Open Library.
4. Lang, Andrew M. (2009) [2004]. "Brodie, Alexander, of Brodie (1697–1754)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/64093. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
5. Simpson, J. M. (1970). R. Sedgwick, ed. "BRODIE, James (1695-1720), of Brodie, Elgin". The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754. Boydell and Brewer. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
6. Simpson, J. M. (1970). R. Sedgwick, ed. "Elginshire (Morayshire) 1715-1754". The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754. Boydell and Brewer. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
7. UK CPI inflation numbers based on data available from Gregory Clark (2016), "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)" MeasuringWorth.
8. Matikkala, Antti (2008). The Orders of Knighthood and the Formation of the British Honours System, 1660-1760. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. pp. 269–271. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
9. Watson, Paula (1970). R. Sedgwick, ed. "Nairnshire 1715-1754". The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754. Boydell and Brewer. Retrieved 30 April 2015.