Thread by @cocteautriplets

I generally try to keep things Edinburgh and Leith focussed, but have made a special exception to venture west for a remarkable lady. Worry ye not though, there is a Leith link in here which will become apparent. Anyway, allow me to introduce Anna (or Ann) Cunningham.

Lady Anna Cunningham was born around 1580, the 4th child and 1st daughter of James Cunningham, 7th Earl Glencairn and his wife Margaret Campbell of Glenurquy. James was a privy councillor for King James VI and the Glencairn earls were prominent protestant reformers

In 1603, Lady Anna marries James, 2nd Marquess of Hamilton (4th Earl of Arran, Lord of Aven, Lord of Aberbrothwick [Arbroath]), becoming henceforth the Marchioness of Hamilton, but we'll keep things simple with Lady Anna.

The Hamiltons have long been big, big wheels at the cracker factory of Scottish politics and nobility and the 2nd Marquess was no exception. He was tight with James VI and moved with him to England when he went to take the English crown as James I.

James (Hamilton) did well out of his loyalty to King James, he was made Earl of Cambridge and Baron of Innerdale and then Lord High Commissioner to the Scottish parliament; the King's man in Scotland.

Lady Anna had 5 children with James but stayed behind in Scotland while he was in London with the King. But she was not content to rattle around Hamilton Palace and concerned herself in the running of the estate and more importantly, in continuing her family's presbyterian zeal

King James was locked in an interminable struggle with the Scottish Kirk over church governance and power. As his man in Scotland therefore so was James Hamilton. Lady Anna however was on the side of the Kirk and much of Scotland, that the King should butt out

So on one side are the Jameses, who wanted absolute power, and therefore power over the Kirk. And on the other is Anna and much of Scotland, that all power goes direct from God to the Kirk and is held by the presbyteries, the various committees and courts of the Kirk.

King James summed up his position when he asserted
that the Monarchy and Presbytery agreed as well as God and the Devil. These are seeds being sowed by James that will come to haunt the Stuart kings in decades to come.

Anyway, by hook or by crook or by any of the means at his disposal, James waged a long campaign to try and control religion in Scotland. But no matter what he tried, he simply strengthened the resolve and the unity of the Presbyterians

Books upon books have been written about this all and I can't do it justice, but suffice to say it's important to the story of Lady Anna as she prominently aligned herself with the religious resistance to King James.

This would probably have driven a wedge between Anna and both the Jameses, but James Hamilton was away in London mostly and was cut off in his prime, dying suddenly of fever in Whitehall at the tender age of 36

So aged around 40, Anna finds herself a widow in Hamilton, with her eldest son James inheriting his father's title of Duke of Hamilton.

Lady Anna continues as she means to go on, devoting her energies to the maintenance and improvement of the Hamilton's vast estates and to the cause of Presbyterianism, which at this time was not yet a foregone conclusion.

Let us look at the business side of things first, which she undertook with "energy and decision". Her biography notes she "rode constantly round their lands", from Arran in the west to Kinneil in the east, and "oversaw all the expenditure".

She did not learn to write until adult life, probably not uncommon for a 16th century Scots woman, but learn she did and her signature and writing are all over the estate accounts. It's noted that her arithmetic was an "alarming mix" of Roman and Arabic numerals

She had improvements made to the family pile by the painter Valentine Jenkin, how was eminent enough to be given the gig to tart up the Chapel Royal at Stirling Castle for Charles I flickr.com/photos/dun_dea…

She had the deer parks at Kinneil House re-stocked and undertook reforestation. She had her cousin send her hundreds of fir saplings from Glenorchy, writing back "belive me, I think moir of them nor ye can imagin, for I love them moir nor I dou all the frout tris in the wordil".

And at Kinneil she made improvements to the working of coal and salt (as industries the two are inseparable in 16th and 17th century Scotland). Her will noted it had "cost her much money and her servants had reaped the rewards" but that "they would bring... substantial benefit"

So clearly, Lady Anna was a capable administrator and business woman, which marks her out for a woman her time. But it was also in spiritual matters that she stands out.

Lady Anna acted as a shield for Presbyterian ministers in a time of religious strife. When Robert Boyd of Trochrig was driven out of Paisley by a "mob" of "papists... who showered upon him stones and dirt", she arranged for him to be installed in Cambuslang under her sponsorship

She was present in June 1630 (and may have helped organise) a mass outdoors sermon at Kirk O' Shotts when a young preacher, John Livingstone, had such an effect on his flock that he "sewed a seed" of "discernible change" throughout Clydesdale for the Presbyterian cause

John Livingstone was known personally to Lady Anna, and he wrote that she used her influence at court in London "for the protection of the persecuted nonconformists" and she would provide letters to that effect for ministers in need

By this point, James VI was also dead and his son, Charles I, was continuing his fathers struggles with the Kirk in Scotland, but in an even more stubborn and uncompromising manner. And at his side one again is James Junior, Duke of Hamilton; Anna's son.

Things are coming to a head in Scotland as Charles tries to steamroller through is reforms. The response of the Presbyterians was the National Covenant, a remarkable declaration signed by much of the public in 1638, in which they bound themselves to maintain their religion

I'm trying to condense some of the most important parts of Scottish history into a few measly tweets, so apologies that I've left out basically everything. Needless to say, the Presbyterians skilfully take effective control of Scotland, the movement we know as the Covenanters.

Lady Anna "warmly espoused the cause of the Covenant. Possessed of a strong and masculine spirit, she displayed an undaunted heroism in the cause, which neither the
sight of personal danger nor the partiality of maternal affection could subdue"

What does that bit about "maternal affection" mean? Well as we've seen, her son James Duke of Hamilton was a King's man, a privy councillor in both England and Scotland, a Gentleman of the Bedchamber and Master of the Horse

Hamilton got some soldiering experience in the 30 years war on the side of the Swedes, like many a Scot at the time did. Having no real capabilities of his own, he was put under the wing of one Alexander Leslie. More on him later too.

King Charles puts James Hamilton in charge of trying to mediate with the Covenanters as his Commissioner for Scotland. Hamilton does not seem to be able to placate either side and although loyal to his King, is given the run around and achieves little

James Hamilton, leading the King's confrontation with the Kirk and his mother, a prominent Covenanter are therefore set at loggerheads with each other.

By November 1638, all James's efforts have failed and he totally loses control of matters when he tries to suspend the General Assembly of the Kirk in Glasgow and is told in no uncertain terms that the Assembly and only the Assembly will decide when it is ready to dissolve

As is usual with King Charles however, all his missions on which he sent Hamilton to try and negotiate were a front and he was buying time to try and resolve things by force, his problem there being trying to raise funds for an army to crush the Covenanters

By spring 1939, Charles is ready. He plans a 3-pronged attack on Scotland, 20,000 men to march across the border from England, 5,000 to land in the north where royalist sympathy was strongest and an army from Ireland to land in the west to get the discontented clans to rise

It all goes a bit disastrously wrong for Charles though. The Irish never materialise for a start. He has not the funds or the popular cause in England and manages to raise only about 15,000 poorly trained, equipped and motivated men.

Opposing him, the Covenanters are in quite the opposite situation, they have raised an army of 20,000 enthusiastic, motivated men, they are well financed and equipped and have called home the best of Generals and officers from the 30 years war. At its head is Alexander Leslie.

The northern pincer of Charles attack is to be led by James, Duke of Hamilton, but when the northern royalists rise up, they are quickly put down by another skilled Covenanter general, Montrose (who ironically would go on to become the thorn in the Covenanters' side)

With the north pacified by the Covenanters, James has nowhere to land, and so his ships pitch up in the Forth and anchor in Leith Roads (you see, I told you we'd work Leith into this)

And who should be there to greet him, but his dear mother!

Only this isn't a nice family reunion. James finds that his mother has raised a troop of cavalry from her estates and placed herself at its head, riding under a Covenanter banner emblazoned with the slogan "For God, the King, Religion and the Covenant" and a hand repelling a book

The book in question is of course the book of Common Prayer that Charles had tried and failed to impose on the Scottish Kirk. Lady Anna "rode at its head by day and by night, with her pistols and carbine at her side"

She let it be known that if her son tried to land in Leith, that she would personally shoot him with her pistol - popular legend holds that she threatened to do so with a silver bullet!

She appeared with her troops on Leith Links to join the thronging crowds observing James' ships lurking offshore, and had herself put on a boat to go out and parley with her wayward son. “The son of such a mother,” the crowd said, “will
do us no harm.”

The contents of their dialogue we can only guess at, but James was in an impossible position and we can be fairly certain his mother made sure that he knew it

He could not land as he had too few men and Leith was hostile and well defended. Charles's ragbag army had struggled as far north as Kelso and been seen off by Alexander Leslie.

Neither side really wanted to fight, but it was clear that the Covenanters meant business and were armed and organised in a manner that meant they had the upper hand. An awkward compromise was reached in the Treaty of Berwick, ending the "First Bishops War"

This contemporary cartoon mocks the situation

The good references I've found for Anna Hamilton both acknowledge that the trail of facts tail off there until we come to her will when she died in 1647

The bits on Wikipedia about her being a "warrior", leading a "mixed-sex troop of cavalry" and being at the "battle of Berwick" are safe to say a load of cobblers. That's not to detract upon her achievements, they just don't need embellished like that

The "Battle of Berwick" is not even a thing, the Treaty or Peace of Berwick refers to the negotiations at the Birks of Berwick, between the King and the Covenanters. It was a battle of only wills and opinions and we know which Covenanters were there as representatives

Thus concluded the First Bishops War, shortly afterwards Montrose defeated the last of the northern royalists at the Brig O' Dee and an uneasy peace was brought to matters (only to blow up again the following year in the Second Bishops War)

The Hamilton troop of horse was disbanded at Duns as part of the agreement of the Peace of Berwick, although contrary to the provisions, the Covenanters wisely kept much of their army intact under the skillful Leslie

Anyway, Lady Anna had better things to be doing than riding around with pistols threatening to shoot her son. She had her estates to manage and, perhaps oddly, her son's eldest daughter to raise, she being soon after sent north to Anna's care in Hamilton

So we can assume that Mother and Son could at least still tolerate and respect each other, a theory reinforced by James' return to Hamilton with another daughter in 1646.

Lady Anna died soon after in September, and was buried in accordance with her wishes in the Hamilton family vault in Hamilton collegiate kirk (the massive family mausoleum in the estate came later)

Thanks to @restalrig for pointing out that Kinneil House still has her coat of arms (based on the Cunningham shakefork) with "comedy rabbits" on the ceiling over her bed

@restalrig There's a better picture on Canmore's site here; canmore.org.uk/collection/120…. The rabbits are because Cunningham effectively means "rabbit village" from coney, from the Gaelic coineanach

@restalrig Re-threaded threadreaderapp.com/thread/1196531…