Archibald Douglas (formerly Stewart) (1748-1827) was a litigant and politician whose life was overshadowed by his claim of inheritance. He was the son of Lady Jane Douglas, sister of the Duke of Douglas, and the former Jacobite sympathiser, Sir John Stewart of Grandtully, 3rd Baronet. His mother, Lady Jane, had married without her brother’s knowledge and fled to the Continent. Her pregnancy with twins at the age of fifty was questioned by her brother, and her family were cut off. This was largely due to the influence of the Duke of Hamilton’s family, who stood to gain the most as next in line. Upon their return to the country, Archibald’s father went to debtor’s prison and his mother and brother died in 1753, leaving him at the age of five to be brought up by a series of relatives, including the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry who managed his education. His uncle married Margaret Douglas of Mains in 1758 and she lobbied for Archibald’s claim to the Douglas estates and convinced his uncle to reinvestigate and name Archibald as heir. The Duke died in 1761 and Archibald was served heir and took the name Douglas.

Despite this, the Hamiltons continued to call into question Douglas’s inheritance and took him to court in what would become known as the ‘Douglas Cause’. After a long and expensive litigation, with great public interest, the Hamiltons won their case. However, Douglas appealed to the House of Lords, and with the help of Lords Mansfield and Camden, the decision was reversed and Douglas was reinstated as heir.

He married Lady Lucie Graham, daughter of the 2nd Duke of Montrose, in 1771. She died in 1780 and he later married Lady Frances Scott, sister of the 3rd Duke of Buccleuch in 1783. He was also an investor in the Ayr Bank of Douglas, Heron & Co but suffered financial consequences following its crash in 1772. Politically, he was a loyal follower of Henry Dundas and William Pitt and had achieved some prominence in his work to resurrect the Douglas interest in areas such as Lanarkshire, Berwickshire and Forfarshire. He was elected a Member of Parliament for Forfarshire in 1782, created a British peer in 1790, made Lord Lieutenant of Forfarshire in 1794, and raised a regiment of fencibles in 1795. He committed himself to improving his estates died on the Bothwell estate in 1827.

It has been suggested by Bolton that the following drawings from the Adam office were made for either William Home, 8th Earl of Home (1681-1761) or William Home (1757-81) son of the 9th Earl of Home. However, the Earls of Home did not inherit the estate of Bothwell Castle until the nineteenth century, as descendants of Archibald Douglas.

Bothwell Castle was first built in the thirteenth century. When Douglas’s uncle inherited the estate in the seventeenth-century, he sought to establish a new country house which was later rebuilt by Douglas and is attributed to James Playfair. In 1775, the Adam office made two designs for a lodge and gateway on the Bothwell estate. The building comprised a pyramidal lodge with a central arched passage flanked by walls with openings in them. These designs do not appear to have been executed.

Literature: A.T. Bolton, The Architecture of Robert and James Adam, Volume II, Index, 1922, pp. 4, 68; D. King, The Complete Works of Robert & James Adam and Unbuilt Adam, Volume 2, 2001, pp. 183-4, 215; W. Lowe, ‘Douglas [formerly Stewart], Archibald James Edward, first Baron Douglas (1748–1827)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online [accessed 29 November 2023]

Louisa Catt, 2023