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21st chief - William Fleming, 5th Earl of Wigtown and 10th Lord Fleming
(c1642 - 1681)
Basic information about this person: \click here\
William, 5th Earl of Wigtown, was a Privy Councillor, soldier and Sheriff of Dunbarton during the years when the government of Charles II was trying to stamp out the Covenanting conventicles. He is remembered as the earl who rebuilt Boghall Castle.
Younger son
William was born around 1642, a younger son of John Fleming, 3rd Earl of Wigtown, and Lady Jean Drummond. He studied at Glasgow and later at Edinburgh, where he graduated in 1666. He was already sitting in the Privy Council in 1663, and in July 1667 he was commissioned as an ensign in Captain Thomas Dalziel’s Company of Foot.
When his elder brother John, 4th Earl, died in 1668 without a son, William succeeded as 5th Earl, and in August 1668 he was served heir to his brother’s estates in seven counties.
The Builder
William invested in his estates. By 1670 he had completed the rebuilding of Boghall Castle at Biggar, and in 1672 he repaired the three-arched bridge over the Luggie Water at Kirkintilloch, for which he was allowed to charge a toll for five years. Around 1677 he was said to be involved in an attempt to salvage the Spanish Armada galleon sunk in Tobermory Bay. These projects earned him the nickname “the Builder”.
Soldier and sheriff
In 1671 William raised a troop of cavalry in Ayrshire, though he could find only thirty of the sixty men required, and he was given permission to move it from Lenzie to Calder and Monkland in search of better fodder. In 1673 he became captain of the garrison of Dumbarton Castle, the castle his ancestors had so often held, and Sheriff of Dunbarton.
The conventicles
Under Charles II, ministers and congregations who refused to accept bishops met in secret open-air services called conventicles, which the government tried to suppress. From 1674 William was a commissioner for suppressing conventicles in Stirlingshire, Perthshire, Lanarkshire, Dunbartonshire, Renfrewshire and Ayrshire. Yet in 1675 he also arranged bail for Edinburgh burgesses who had been imprisoned in Leith Tolbooth for attending a conventicle. In January 1676 he was one of the commissioners appointed to torture James Mitchell, the man who had tried to assassinate Archbishop Sharp.
Family and legacy
William married Henrietta Seton, eldest daughter of Charles, 2nd Earl of Dunfermline. Their children were John and Charles, the 6th and 7th Earls, and daughters Mary and Henrietta. William died on 8 April 1681 and was buried at Biggar the next day.