Auchinleck Castle

The present mansion-house of Auchinleck is a handsome Grecian edifice, elaborately decorated, which was erected in 1780 by Alexander Boswell, Lord Auchinleck of Session. It occupies a pleasant site near the Lugar Water, and is approached by a long avenue partially shaded by trees. The place was in process of building when Dr Johnson visited the locality in company with his  friend and biographer, James Boswell, the eldest son and successor of Lord Auchinleck; though the romantic mind of the Doctor, by his own account, “was less delighted with the elegance of the modern mansion than with the sullen dignity of the old castle” of Auchinleck, whose ruins are in the vicinity. 

The original possessors of the estate now traceable were the Auchinlecks of that Ilk, who held the property from 1292 till the very close of the fifteenth century, when the Boswells became proprietors. The latter family had settled in Scotland whilst David I. occupied the throne (1124-1153), and their earliest location as landowners was at Balmuto, in Fifeshire, where the elder branch of the family is still represented. Sir John Boswell, or Boisivill, obtained the barony of Balmuto through his marriage with Mariota, daughter of Sir John Glen; and his grandson, David Boswell of Balmuto, was the father of the first of that name in Auchinleck. Thomas Boswell was a favourite  at the court of James IV., and when the lands of Auchinleck were forfeited to the Crown, they  were bestowed by the King upon this highly-valued companion. It was the misfortune of the latter to share the fate of his master at Flodden Field ; but the family became connected with some of the foremost of the nobility of Scotland through the marriage of his only son and successor, David Boswell of Auchinleck, with Lady Janet Hamilton, daughter of the first Earl of Arran, and great-grand-daughter of James II. 

The first lawyer of eminence in the family was James Boswell, who married the Lady Elizabeth Bruce, daughter of the Earl of Kincardine, in 1704. The issue of this marriage could claim descent from the two regal houses of Bruce and Stewart; and his eldest son, Alexander, worthily sustained the dignity to which he had been born, gaining an eminent position in legal circles, and holding a prominent place for a long period amongst the Lords of Session as Lord Auchinleck. To him, as has been stated, belongs the credit due to the builder of the present mansion of Auchinleck. As the intimate associate of Lord Hailes and Lord Kames, he still survives in the memoirs of his period; and many strange anecdotes circulate in the society even of our own time, illustrating his quaint and pawky humour. It was his place to sit in judgment upon some of the most involved causes celebres of his day — the Douglas Peerage amongst others— and his decisions were always marked with sound legal discretion. 

To his son, James Boswell, however, the honour was reserved for raising the family name to a unique position in literature, and of attaining by the simplest means an honourable place amongst the British Classics. As the biographer of Dr Johnson he has won imperishable fame ; and though his personal character was not estimable, nor his mental attainments great, his name will continue while English literature endures as “the prince of biographers.” He was married to his cousin, Margaret Montgomerie of Lainshaw, and was succeeded in 1795 by his eldest son, Sir Alexander, the first baronet of Auchinleck. 

Whilst the literary tastes of his father were reproduced increasingly in Sir Alexander, the petulance and acerbity which the latter showed was entirely awanting in the elder Boswell. He did much for literature by the establishment of the Auchinleck press, from which he issued reprints of rare documents; and his own poetical works — Clan-Aipins Vow, The East Neuk o’ Fife, and many well-known ballads — entitle him to an elevated position amongst the Scottish poets of his time. But it was his misfortune to have a caustic, satirical wit, which exasperated his enemies beyond endurance, and latterly proved the cause of his own untimely end. A bitterly personal squib which he published in an obscure paper called forth the remonstrance of the party attacked — Mr James Stuart of Dunearn — and as Sir Alexander refused to apologise, the duel in which he fell was the consequence. He died at Balmuto House, the seat of his friend and relative, Claud Boswell, Lord Balmuto of Session, on 26th March 1822. His body was brought to Auchinleck, followed by a train of sincere mourners, and laid in the family vault, hewn out of the solid stone, in which the ashes rest of his father, grandfather, and other kindred. He was succeeded by his only son. Sir James Boswell, second baronet, who was born in 1806, and died in 1857, having married his cousin, Jessie Jane, daughter of Sir James Montgomery Cuninghame, Bart., in 1830. By her death, in March 1884, the direct line of the Boswells of Auchinleck became extinct.