Sir Robert Grierson, 1st Baronet
| Sir Robert Grierson of Lag | |
|---|---|
Cruel Lag's memorial at the Old Kirk of Dunscore burial ground, erected in 1897 by his descendent Sir Alexander Grierson.
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| Born | 1655 Barquhar, Lochrutton parish, Kirkcudbrightshire |
| Died | 31 December 1733 (aged 77–78) Dumfries |
| Resting place | Dunscore Old Kirk |
| Title | 1st Baronet, of Lag and Rockhall |
| Other names | Cruel Lag, Auld Lag |
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Spouse(s) | Lady Henrietta Douglas |
| Parents | William Grierson, Margaret Douglas |
| Occupation | Justice of the Peace, Member of Parliament |
Sir Robert Grierson, 1st Baronet, of Lag (1655/56 – 31 December 1733) was a Scottish baronet.
He is best remembered as a notorious persecutor of the Covenanters, particularly among the people of Galloway, and is still referred to as Cruel Lag. The character of Sir Robert Redgauntlet of Wandering Willie's tale in Sir Walter Scott's Redgauntlet is based on Grierson.
Robert Grierson was born at the farm of Barquhar, the son of the 1st Tutor of Lag, William Grierson (c. 1626-after 6 December 1665), the Laird of Barquhar, Kirkcudbright, Scotland, and his wife, Margaret Douglas (b. c. 1633), the daughter of Sir James Douglas, of Mouswald, Dumfriesshire. The Griersons were an ancient family who claimed descent from Malcolm MacGregor of Glenorchy, supposedly a key ally of Robert the Bruce, and claimed they had been granted the lands of Lag in Dumfriesshire in 1408 by Henry II Sinclair, Earl of Orkney. In 1666, Robert Grierson succeeded his cousin as Laird of Lag and he was for some years Steward of Kirkcudbright. In 1676 he married Henrietta Douglas, the daughter of James, the 2nd Earl of Queensberry; the couple had five children: William, James, John, Gilbert, and Henrietta. Grierson sat as a Member of Parliament for Dumfriesshire between 1678 and 1686.
Between the 1660s and 1680s the Stuart king Charles II acted to suppress dissent among the militant Presbyterians of Galloway, who refused to conform to the king's authority and in several cases broke out into armed rebellion. The local heritors were charged with enforcing this policy, and Lag, a Stuart loyalist and Episcopalian, proved a particularly energetic supporter. In 1678 he made his own tenants sign a bond in which they agreed not to attend illegal conventicles or to commune with "vagrant preachers". He subsequently assisted John Graham of Claverhouse in policing the south-west of the country. As a commissioner for Galloway he was given control of one of the military courts set up to try rebellious Covenanters, and in this capacity was responsible for several executions of those refusing to take the oaths of loyalty to the monarch; he also gained a reputation, at least among subsequent martyrologists, of having a particularly contemptuous attitude towards those before the courts, and of invariably denying his victims' requests for a prayer before punishment. Most traditions make Grierson the presiding officer at the court that condemned the "Wigtown Martyrs", Margaret Wilson and Margaret McLachlan, in May 1685. A Cloud of Witnesses, the principal martyrology of the time, charged him with command of the troop of dragoons that shot John Bell of Whiteside along with four others in Tongland Parish in February 1685, and David Halliday and George Short in Twynholm later in the year.
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