1697 in Scotland

Events from the year 1697 in the Kingdom of Scotland.

Incumbents

• Monarch – William II
• Secretary of State – John Murray, Earl of Tullibardine, jointly with James Ogilvy, 4th Earl of Findlater

Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Sir James Stewart
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Sir Patrick Hume

Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session – vacant??
• Lord Justice General – Lord Lothian
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Ormiston

Events

• 8 January – student Thomas Aikenhead becomes the last person in Great Britain to be executed for blasphemy when he is hanged outside Edinburgh.
• 10 June – the last mass execution for witchcraft in western Europe when five Paisley witches are hanged and then burned.
• Famine in the Borders leads to continued Scottish Presbyterian migration from Scotland to Ulster.
• Icelandic-Norwegian historian and professor Th. Torfæus (Þormóður Torfason), publishes his work on the Orkney Islands, Orknøerne.

Births

• 23 January – James Fisher, a founder of the Secession church (died 1775)
• 5 February – William Smellie, obstetrician (died 1763)
• 19 September – Alexander Monro, physician and founder of Edinburgh Medical School (died 1767)
• 23 September – Andrew Plummer, physician and chemist (died 1756)
• 2 November – James Douglas, 3rd Marquess of Queensberry, nobleman, described as 'violently insane'; slaughters, roasts and eats a scullion when just ten years old (died 1715)
• date unknown – Charles Hamilton, Lord Binning, nobleman, politician and poet (died 1732)

Deaths

• 8 January – Thomas Aikenhead, student and last person in Great Britain executed for blasphemy (born 1676)
• 11 August – John Hay, 1st Marquess of Tweeddale, Lord Chancellor of Scotland (1692–96) (born 1625)
• date unknown – Alexander Gordon, Royalist and pioneer in British North America (born 1635)

The arts

• A Collection of several Poems and Verses composed upon various occasions by William Cleland is published posthumously.

See also

• Timeline of Scottish history

References