George Douglas of Parkhead, (died 1602), was a Scottish landowner, mining entrepreneur, Provost of Edinburgh, and Keeper of Edinburgh Castle.

Career George Douglas was a son of George Douglas of Pittendreich, the name of his mother is unknown. His half-sister, Elizabeth, daughter of Lady Dundas, married Smeton Richeson. He married Marioun Douglas, heiress of Parkhead or Parkheid, and so became known as George Douglas of Parkhead. Parkhead is close to the Lanarkshire town of Douglas. He was later Provost of Edinburgh.George R. Hewitt, Scotland Under Morton, 1572-80 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1982), p. 37: David Reid, David Hume of Godscroft's History of the House of Angus, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: STS, Edinburgh, 2005), p. 129.

Refortification of Edinburgh Castle

After Edinburgh Castle was recovered from William Kirkcaldy of Grange in May 1573, George Douglas was appointed its Captain or keeper by his half-brother Regent Morton.Harry Potter, Edinburgh Under Siege, 1571–1573 (Stroud: Tempus, 2003), p. 141: John Duncan Mackie, "Queen Mary's Jewels", Scottish Historical Review, 18:70 (January 1921), p. 89George R. Hewitt, Scotland Under Morton, 1572–80 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1982), p. 49. George Douglas supervised the rebuilding of part of the back wall and other repairs, buying lime, sand, slate and glass.Charles Thorpe McInnes, Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, vol. 12 (Edinburgh: HMSO, 1970), pp. 355-6, 387. Part of the running expenses, or "sustenation" of the castle was paid to Douglas from the customs of Edinburgh town by Robert Gourlay.See National Records of Scotland NRS E25/5/4, 5, 6. Parkhead is credited with building the half-moon battery at Edinburgh castle, the Historie of King James the Sext records that Regent Morton appointed him captain, and caused "masonis to begin to redd (clear away) the bruisit wallis, and to repaire the foirwark to the forme of ane bulwark, platt and braid above, for the resett and ryving (receiving) of many canonis."Historie of James the Sext (Edinburgh, 1804), p. 236.Historie of King James the Sext (Edinburgh, 1830), p. 145. Some building accounts from this work survive.Henry Paton, Accounts of the Masters of Work, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1957), pp. 299-301.

Douglas and Regent Morton Douglas prospered during the regency of his brother, James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton, and his servant Florence Douglas was made Rothesay Herald.George Hewit, Scotland under Morton (Edinburgh, 1982), p. 37. When his brother resigned the regency of Scotland in March 1579, George Douglas of Parkhead made an inventory of the personal jewellery of Mary, Queen of Scots kept in Edinburgh Castle, and of the textiles, the royal tapestries, Mary's remaining costume, her pictures, dolls, and library, and he itemised the artillery of the castle and the tools in its workshops.Thomas Thomson, Collection of Inventories (Edinburgh, 1815), pp. 201-272, (the google scanned images omit pp. 256-257). Another version of the inventory is held by the British Library, Calendar of State Papers Scotland, vol. 5 (1907), p. 383 no. 327 citing Harley MS 4637. The taking of this inventory was described in the chronicle attributed to David Moysie.James Dennistoun, Moysie's Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1830), p. 5

When Morton resigned the Regency in 1578, Parkhead was replaced as provost of Edinburgh by Archibald Stewart. The Douglas family were being displaced by Lennox Stewarts.Gordon Donaldson, All the Queen's men: Power and Politics in Mary Stewart's Scotland (Batsford, 1983), p. 134.

Douglas was involved in lead mining at Wanlockhead and Glengonnar or Leadhills in Lanarkshire and in Orkney. In June 1581 his interest in the lead mines with all the lead ore recovered was confiscated and given to James Stewart, Earl of Arran because he had withheld Torthorwald Castle from the earl.George Hewitt, Scotland under Morton (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1982), pp. 184, 203: Gordon Donaldson, Register of the Privy Seal of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1982), p. 56 no. 340, p. 57 no. 345, p. 110 no. 651.

Parkhead wrote to Francis Walsingham in June 1582 to thank him for hospitality in England, mentioning his friend John Selby of the garrison of Berwick-upon-Tweed. He had written to Selby in May 1582 describing a rumour that James VI would be sent to France.Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1581-1583, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1910), pp. 127, 132-3. Parkhead went to London again in September 1582.Joseph Bain, Border Papers (Edinburgh, 1894), p. 90.

In August 1584 George Douglas and his sons James and George were declared traitors and their goods and lands forfeited for their role "art and part" in the Raid of Stirling in April 1584.Gordon Donaldson, Register of the Privy Seal of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1982), p. 363 no. 2106, p. 400-1 no. 2313. Archibald Douglas, who had been constable of Edinburgh Castle, was executed at Stirling.Steven J. Reid, The Early Life of James VI, A Long Apprenticeship (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2023), p. 239.

Norway James VI of Scotland sailed to Norway to meet his bride Anna of Denmark in October 1589. George Douglas of Parkhead was one of his companions. He wrote from Oslo to the Earl of Morton on 30 November 1589. The king had decided to stay over winter at the Danish court, and the Earl's son Archibald Douglas had decided to go travelling. He had asked Parkhead to go with him.Registrum Honoris de Morton: Original Papers of the Earls of Morton, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1853), p. 164.

Later life After their kinsman William Douglas, 6th Earl of Morton had been imprisoned in their keeping at Edinburgh Castle, Marion Douglas wrote to his wife Agnes Leslie, Countess of Morton to thank her for a gift of cheese from her farms at Fossoway near Lochleven Castle. She said that Morton had "received but very simple entertainment here".National Records of Scotland, NRS GD150/3440/7.

Another of Marion Douglas's letters concerns the lead mines.Margaret H. B. Sanderson, A Kindly Place? Living in Sixteenth-Century Scotland (East Linton: Tuckwell, 2002), p. 152 citing NRS GD90/2/34: Rosalind K. Marshall, Virgins and Viragos: A History of Women in Scotland (Collins, 1983), p. 147. On 6 August 1592 she wrote from Parkhead to Lord Menmuir asking for his decision about the mining concessions between Eustachius Roche and her husband. She had been obliged to order her miners to suspend working, putting them to other work or laying them off.Robert William Cochran-Patrick, Early Records Relating to Mining in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1878), p. 92: Margaret H. B. Sanderson, A Kindly Place? (East Linton: Tuckwell, 2002), p. 153. On 20 December 1593 George Douglas and his son James made over some of their lead mining rights in Glengonnar to the goldsmith and financier Thomas Foulis.Robert William Cochran-Patrick, Early Records Relating to Mining in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1878), pp. 97-8.

An English prospector Stephen Atkinson writing in 1619 stated that "George Parkhead" was killed by a landslide in wet weather at a mine working at "Short-clough brayes". It took three days to dig him out.Stephen Atkinson, The Discoverie and Historie of Gold Mynes in Scotland, 1619 (Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1825), pp. 32-3. The Shortcleuch water joins the Elvan and falls into the Clyde.George Vere Irving, The Upper Ward of Lanarkshire Described and Delineated, vol. 1 (Glasgow, 1864), p. 56. Some sources suggest the victim of this accident was a son of George Douglas of Parkhead, and it occurred in 1586 while he was prospecting for gold.Maureen Meikle, The Scottish People 1490-1625 (lulu 2013), p. 77: Robert William Cochran-Patrick, Early Records Relating to Mining in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1878) p. xviii.

George Douglas of Parkhead's will was registered in Edinburgh in 1602. It mentions oats stored in the barn yard of "Auld Foulden".

Family

The children of George Douglas and Marion Douglas included;G. Harvey Johnston, Heraldry of the Douglases (Edinburgh, 1907, p. 43 James Douglas of Parkhead (d. 1608), who married Elizabeth Carlyle, daughter of William, Master of Carlyle. She was an heiress and the marriage was probably arranged by Regent Morton. It was said that he was cruel to her. On 2 November 1596 James Douglas of Parkhead and his accomplices killed his father's enemy, James Stewart, former Earl of Arran at Symington. They claimed that Stewart was technically a rebel, "at the horn".Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 12 (Edinburgh, 1952), p. 360 no. 291. As his tombstone at Holyrood Abbey mentions, James Douglas was killed on the Royal Mile Edinburgh on 14 July 1608, by Captain William Stewart, son of William Stewart of Monkton and a nephew of Arran. Elizabeth Carlyle then married William Sinclair of Blaas.Keith M. Brown, "Burgh, Lords and Feuds", Michael Lynch, The Early Modern Town in Scotland (Croom Helm, 1987), p. 113: Nicholas Carlisle, Collections for a History of the Ancient Family of Carlisle (London, 1822), pp. 108, 111-113. The children of James Douglas and Elizabeth Carlyle included; James Douglas, who married (1) Elizabeth Gordon of Lochinvar, (2) Anne Saltonstall, daughter of Richard Saltonstall, Lord Mayor of London. George Douglas of Mordington, who married Margaret Dundas, daughter of Archibald Dundas of Fingask, and sister of William Dundas who wrote letters commenting on the court of Anne of Denmark in 1590 and painted ceilings in 1593.Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 2 (London, 1838), pp. 404-6: Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), pp. 377-8. She was the widow of William Kerr of Ancram, and mother of the courtier Robert Kerr.David Laing, Correspondence of the Earls of Ancram and Lothian, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1875), p. vii. The children of George Douglas and Margaret Dundas included; George Douglas ambassador to Poland and Sweden for Charles I of England; and Margaret Douglas who married Sir James Lockhart of Lee, her children included William Lockhart who was ambassador to France for Oliver Cromwell; George Lockhart a lawyer; and Anne Lockhart who married George Lockhart of Tarbrax.Mary Elizabeth Cumming Bruce, Family Records of the Bruces and the Cumyns (Edinburgh, 1870), p. 543. John Douglas, minister of Crail. Catherine Douglas, who married Sir James Dundas of Arniston, governor of Berwick upon Tweed after 1603. Christian (or Margaret) Douglas, who married (1) Edward Sinclair of Roslin and Herbertshire,John Gibson, Lands and lairds of Larbert and Dunipace parishes (Glasgow, 1908), pp. 172–5.David Masson, Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 3 (Edinburgh, 1880), pp. 568–569. (2) Sir Patrick Home of Ayton. Martha Douglas, who married Robert Bruce, minister of Edinburgh in 1590.Nicholas Carlisle, Collections for a History of the Ancient Family of Carlisle (London, 1822), p. 110.John Gibson, Lands and lairds of Larbert and Dunipace parishes (Glasgow, 1908), p. 33. Their betrothal ring was kept by the Bruce family of Kinnaird, Stirlingshire.Mary Elizabeth Cumming Bruce, Family Records of the Bruces and the Cumyns (Edinburgh, 1870), p. 543. Mary Douglas, who married John Carruthers of Holmains in Annandale.Nicholas Carlisle, Collections for a History of the Ancient Family of Carlisle (London, 1822), p. 110.

References

External links Two Letters about Cheese: Marion Douglas, Lady Parkhead Scheduled Monument: Gold scours, cut into the hillside above the Shortcleuch Water, SM13677, Historic Environment Scotland History of Leadhills, Leadhills Estate. Robert William Cochran-Patrick, Early Records Relating to Mining in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1878)