gallant
bridegroom's chances of promotion. The couple lived together "in a
private manner" for some months, and in November the bride returned
to her family, while the captain went to London to resume his
regimental duties. They corresponded regularly by letter. Cranstoun
wrote to his own and the lady's relatives, acknowledging that she
had been his wife since May, but insisting that the marriage should
still be kept secret; and on learning that he was likely to become a
father, he communicated this fact to my Lord, his brother. Lady
Cranstoun invited her daughter-in-law to Nether Crailing, the family
seat in Roxburghshire, there to await the interesting event, but the
young wife, fearing that Presbyterian influences would be brought to
bear upon her, unfortunately declined, which gave offence to Lady
Cranstoun and aroused some suspicion regarding the fact of the
marriage. At Edinburgh, on 19th February, 1745, Mrs. Cranstoun gave
birth to a daughter, who was baptised by a minister of the kirk in
Newbattle, according to one account, in presence of members of both
parents' families; and, by the father's request, one of his brothers
held her during the ceremony. In view of these facts it must have
required no common effrontery on the part of Cranstoun to disown his
wife and child, as he did in the following year. The country being
then in the throes of the last Jacobite rising, and his wife's
family having cast in their lot with Prince Charlie, our gallant
captain perceived in these circumstances a unique opportunity for
ridding himself of his marital ties. The lady was a niece of John
Murray of Broughton, the Prince's secretary who served the cause so
ill; her brother, the reigning baronet, was taken prisoner at
Culloden, tried at Carlisle, and sentenced to death, but owing to
his youth, was reprieved and transported instead; so Cranstoun
thought the course comparatively clear. His position was that Miss
Murray had been his mistress, and that although he had promised to
marry her if she would change her religion for his own purer
Presbyterian faith, and as the lady refused to do so, he was
entirely freed from his engagement. With cynical impudence he
explained his previous admission of the marriage as due to a desire
to "amuse" her relatives and save her honour. In October, 1746, his
wife, by the advice of her friends and in accordance with Scots
practice, raised in the Commissary Court at Edinburgh an action of
declarat