![Malcolm Laing](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Malcolm_Laing.jpg)
Malcolm Laing (1762 – 6 November 1818) was a Scottish historian, advocate and politician.
Life
He was born to Robert Laing and Barbara Blaw at the paternal estate of Strynzia or Strenzie, on
Stronsay
Stronsay () is an island in Orkney, Scotland. It is known as Orkney's 'Island of Bays', owing to an irregular shape with miles of coastline, with three large bays separated by two isthmuses: St Catherine's Bay to the west, the Bay of Holland to the ...
,
Orkney
Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...
;
Samuel Laing and
Gilbert Laing Meason
Gilbert Laing Meason of Lindertis FRSE FSA (3 July 1769 – 14 August 1832) was a Scottish merchant and agricultural improver, best remembered as the originator of the term landscape architecture.
Life
He was born Gilbert Laing in Kirkwall, the s ...
were his brothers. He attended the
grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...
in
Kirkwall
Kirkwall ( sco, Kirkwaa, gd, Bàgh na h-Eaglaise, nrn, Kirkavå) is the largest town in Orkney, an archipelago to the north of mainland Scotland.
The name Kirkwall comes from the Norse name (''Church Bay''), which later changed to ''Kirkv ...
, and was a student at
Edinburgh University
The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 1582 ...
. He joined the
Speculative Society
The Speculative Society is a Scottish Enlightenment society dedicated to public speaking and literary composition, founded in 1764. It was mainly, but not exclusively, an Edinburgh University student organisation. The formal purpose of the Society ...
in 1782.
In 1785 Laing was admitted advocate, and from 1789 for five years was advocate for poor litigants. During 1790 he was working on the electoral roll in Orkney, in the Whig interest. In 1794, with
Adam Gillies, he defended
Joseph Gerrald
Joseph Gerrald (9 February 1763 – 16 March 1796) was a political reformer, one of the "Scottish Martyrs". He worked with the London Corresponding Society and the Society for Constitutional Information and also wrote an influential letter, ''A ...
in his sedition case.
Sir James Mackintosh
Sir James Mackintosh Royal Society of London, FRS FRSE (24 October 1765 – 30 May 1832) was a Scottish jurist, Whig (British political party), Whig politician and Whig history, Whig historian. His studies and sympathies embraced many interests. ...
, a friend, regarded Laing's delivery as far too fast, and an impediment to his legal career;
Henry Cockburn, Lord Cockburn
Henry Thomas Cockburn of Bonaly, Lord Cockburn ( ; Cockpen, Midlothian, 26 October 1779 – Bonaly, Midlothian, 26 April/18 July 1854) was a Scottish lawyer, judge and literary figure. He served as Solicitor General for Scotland between 1830 and ...
commented quite positively on his "hard, peremptory, Celtic manner and accent".
Laing signed the declaration of the
Society of Friends of the People in 1794, and joined the Whig Club.
A personal friend of
Charles James Fox
Charles James Fox (24 January 1749 – 13 September 1806), styled ''The Honourable'' from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned 38 years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was the arch-riv ...
, he was one of a group of advisers of Fox during the first years of the 19th century on his work of British history, with
William Belsham
William Belsham (1752–1827) was an English political writer and historian, noted as a supporter of the Whig Party and its principles. He justified the American Revolution in excusing Americans in their resistance to the demands of England, and ...
,
Samuel Heywood and
James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale
James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale (26 January 1759 – 10 September 1839) was Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland and a representative peer for Scotland in the House of Lords.
Early years
Born at Haltoun House near Ratho, the eldest s ...
. He was Member of Parliament for
Orkney and Shetland from 1807 to 1812, brought in by the
Ministry of All the Talents.
In 1808 Laing suffered a breakdown, and withdrew from public life.
He introduced
merino
The Merino is a breed or group of breeds of domestic sheep, characterised by very fine soft wool. It was established in Spain near the end of the Middle Ages, and was for several centuries kept as a strict Spanish monopoly; exports of the bree ...
sheep on the islands of
Eday
Eday (, sco, Aidee) is one of the islands of Orkney, which are located to the north of the Scottish mainland. One of the North Isles, Eday is about from the Orkney Mainland. With an area of , it is the ninth-largest island of the archipelago. ...
and
Sanday, purchasing a flock from
Tweeddale
Tweeddale (Scottish Gaelic: ''Srath Thuaidh/Tuaidhdail'') is a committee area and lieutenancy area in the Scottish Borders council area in south-eastern Scotland. It had also been a province in the Middle Ages. From 1975 to 1996 it was a local gov ...
that had belonged to
Sir James Montgomery, 1st Baronet
Sir James Montgomery, 1st Baronet Stanhope, FRSE (1721 – 2 April 1803) was a Scottish advocate, judge, country landowner, agriculturalist and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1766 to 1775. In 1783 he was a joint founder of the ...
. At the end of his life he tried to introduce the
brown hare.
Works
History
Laing finished
Robert Henry's ''History of Great Britain'' with a final volume in 1793, and wrote a ''History of Scotland from the Union of the Crowns to the Union of the Kingdoms'' (1800).
In a second edition of the ''History'' in 1804 half the work was devoted to a ''Dissertation on the participation of Mary Queen of Scots in the Murder of Darnley'' and the
Casket Letters
The Casket letters were eight letters and some sonnets said to have been written by Mary, Queen of Scots, to the Earl of Bothwell, between January and April 1567. They were produced as evidence against Queen Mary by the Scottish lords who opposed ...
, hostile to
Mary, Queen of Scots
Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567.
The only surviving legitimate child of James V of Scot ...
.
Like
George Brodie and
Ebenezer Marshal, Laing dwelled on negative feudal and other features of
early modern Scottish history. In 1804 also Laing edited ''The Historie and Life of King James the Sext''.
By modern standards, Laing erred by endorsing a "Scottish Gothic" theory of the
Picts
The Picts were a group of peoples who lived in what is now northern and eastern Scotland (north of the Firth of Forth) during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and what their culture was like can be inferred from ea ...
: that this founding group of the Kingdom of Scotland were not Celts, but had a
Teutonic origin. He endorsed the views of
John Pinkerton
John Pinkerton (17 February 1758 – 10 March 1826) was a Scottish antiquarian, cartographer, author, numismatist, historian, and early advocate of Germanic racial supremacy theory.
He was born in Edinburgh, as one of three sons to Ja ...
on the matter, as did
John Jamieson
John Jamieson (3 March 1759 – 12 July 1838) was a Scottish minister of religion, lexicographer, philologist and antiquary. His most important work is the ''Dictionary of the Scottish Language''.
Life
He was born in Glasgow in March 1759 the ...
and
James Sibbald
James Sibbald (–1647) was a Scottish Royalist divine, and theologian.
Life
James Sibbald was of an ancient family in the Mearns. His birth, about 1595, may be inferred from his being on ordination trials with the presbytery of Deer on 28 ...
.
Ossian critic
In 1805 Laing published in two volumes ''Poems of Ossian, containing the Poetical Works of James MacPherson in Prose and Verse, with Notes and Illustrations''.
It contained
juvenilia
Juvenilia are literary, musical or artistic works produced by authors during their youth. Written juvenilia, if published at all, usually appears as a retrospective publication, some time after the author has become well known for later works.
...
by
James Macpherson
James Macpherson (Gaelic: ''Seumas MacMhuirich'' or ''Seumas Mac a' Phearsain''; 27 October 1736 – 17 February 1796) was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of epic poem ...
, fabricator of the
Ossian
Ossian (; Irish Gaelic/Scottish Gaelic: ''Oisean'') is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson, originally as ''Fingal'' (1761) and ''Temora'' (1763), and later combined under t ...
poems, who had died in 1796. It also described how they might be dependent on modern sources that had been borrowed.
Laing's criticism was seminal for a theory that Macpherson had used
Robert Lowth
Robert Lowth ( ; 27 November 1710 – 3 November 1787) was a Bishop of the Church of England, Oxford Professor of Poetry and the author of one of the most influential
textbooks of English grammar.
Life
Lowth was born in Hampshire, England, G ...
's study of
Hebrew verse to construction his own alleged translations.
For Charles James Fox, as explained in a letter to Laing, Macpherson was in the ranks of politically mischievous historians, led by
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment philo ...
and his ''
A History of England
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...
''. Others there were
Sir John Dalrymple, 4th Baronet
Sir John Dalrymple of Cousland, 4th Baronet Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, FRSE FSA(Scot) (1726 – 26 February 1810) was a Scottish advocate, judge, chemist and author, best known for his ''Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland from th ...
and
Thomas Somerville. The underlying issue was Tory and Jacobite
revisionism of the Whig historical narrative.
The "Ossian debate", on the poems' authenticity to supposed ancient sources, was coming to a head that year. Via
Robert Anderson, Laing was in possession of a confession by Macpherson of the complete fabrication to another party, Sir John Elliott, who had mentioned it to
Thomas Percy. On the other hand, the ''Report of the Highland Society'' (1805) upheld the authenticity claims. Percy took the eirenic view that the blame game, at least, should cease.
Family
On 10 September 1805 Laing married Margaret Dempster Carnegie, daughter of Thomas Carnegie and Mary Gardyne.
References
* "Laing, Malcolm." ''British Authors of the Nineteenth Century'' H. W. Wilson Company, New York, 1936.
Notes
External links
*
;Attribution
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laing, Malcolm
1762 births
1818 deaths
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Orkney and Shetland
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Scottish constituencies
18th-century Scottish historians
Scottish literary critics
UK MPs 1807–1812
Writers from Orkney
Historians of Scotland
Scottish agronomists
19th-century Scottish historians