Sir John Arnot

He was born in 1530 the son of William Arnot and his wife, Margaret Wallace. At the Reformation of 1560 the family converted to Protestantism.

In August 1574 he submitted a petition to the English ambassador Henry Killigrew who was returning to London. He wanted redress for a cargo of textiles from Flanders. He was tricked by English pirates off Great Yarmouth, led by William Hudson of Colchester, who pretended to be searching for pirates. They stole his own clothes as well as a stock of fabric including velvets, the most costly being a figured black velvet, gold and silver thread, silk thread, gold and silver passementerie, and various silk chamlets and Spanish taffetas. Arnot mentioned that he had talked with Killigrew at Glamis Castle, but was now ill with the Flanders sickness.^[2]

In 1587 he succeeded William Little as Provost of Edinburgh. When Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell murdered William Stewart of Monkton in July 1588, Arnot's men captured Lord Maxwell who had escaped from Robert Gourlay's house on the High Street.^[3]

Arnot and William Fairlie issued a pass for shipwrecked sailors from the Spanish Armada in October 1588. The 46 men had been crew or soldiers of the Ballanzara, (La Trinidad Valencera) wrecked in Ireland. They were to be allowed passage to Spain via Scottish merchant ships going to France.^[4]

He agreed as a burgh commissioner for Edinburgh with Alexander Oustean at the Convention of Royal Burghs to the raising a tax for the royal marriage.^[5] On 28 May 1589 Arnot and the baillies of Edinburgh and others came to Holyrood House and protested to the Chancellor, John Maitland of Thirlestane that the king should marry a Danish princess, despite delays and opposition from a pro-English faction.^[6]

James VI sailed to Norway to meet his bride, Anne of Denmark. On 19 February 1590 James VI wrote from Kronborg in Denmark to the kirk minister Robert Bruce and asked him to ensure the Provost prepared four ships for his return to Scotland, and provide craftsmen for William Schaw to finish repairs to Holyrood Palace.^[7] The town council organised a ceremony of welcome for his bride Anne of Denmark on 19 May.^[8]

Arnot personally contributed napery and £100 to a banquet given by the burgh to the Danish ambassador, which was held in the lodging of Thomas Acheson, master of the mint, at the foot of Todrig's Wynd on 24 May.^[9]

In July 1590 Arnot and Oustean as commissioners for the burgh of Edinburgh contracted to borrow from the Comptroller of Scotland, David Seton of Parbroath, the sum of £100,000 Scots and pay the king £4000 yearly. In April 1594 they were required to repay the remainder of the loan to the comptroller in order to pay the expenses of resisting the rebel Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell.^[10]

Arnot wrote to the former ambassador from England, William Ashby in April 1590, about the loss of a cargo to pirates some years previously. He wanted to revive his claim for redress and his son-in-law in London planned to make a claim to Queen Elizabeth, and Arnot hoped Ashby could help.^[11]

On 26 October 1591 Arnot was appointed to a commission to try, examine, and if required torture people suspected of witchcraft. The other appointees were Sir John Cockburn of Ormiston, David MacGill of Nesbit, Robert Bruce, John Duncanson, and William Litill, then Provost of Edinburgh.^[12]

On 29 May 1593 the Privy Council asked Edinburgh council to pay him £10,000 Scots in part repayment of money lent by him by the king, from the town's tax bill.^[13] Arnot received a further £4170 from the interest on Anne of Denmark's dowry.^[14] In 1594 Arnot supplied wine and beer to the ambassadors who had come for the baptism of Prince Henry, advanced money for the royal households, and lent money to the royal mint. James VI gave him a valuable gold cup in security for repayment, and the income from crown lands in Orkney and Shetland and from lands at Cockburnspath.^[15]

In April 1598 a group of actors or comedians came to Edinburgh to perform. Arnot made representations to an English diplomat George Nicholson, that the players scorned James VI and the Scottish people and ought to be stopped in the case the "worst sort", the Edinburgh mob, were stirred up to riot.^[16] James VI supported another group of actors, in November 1599, against the church and town authorities who tried to close them down, on religious and moral grounds. This group included Martin Slater and Lawrence Fletcher.^[17]