1696 in Scotland explained

Events from the year 1696 in the Kingdom of Scotland.

Incumbents

• Monarch – William II
• Secretary of State – James Johnston, until January or February; then John Murray, Earl of Tullibardine (from 15 January) jointly with James Ogilvy, 4th Earl of Findlater (from 5 February)

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

• February – the Bank of Scotland opens for business
• 8 September – Education Act passed by parliament to establish schools in every parish in the country.
• Perth Academy founded.
• Famine in the Borders leads to a new wave of Scottish Presbyterian migration from Scotland to Ulster.

Births

• 11 June – James Francis Edward Keith, soldier and Prussian field marshal (died 1758)
• 15 September – Sir Archibald Grant, 2nd Baronet, company speculator and Member of parliament for Aberdeenshire, 1722–1732 (died 1772)
• date unknown –
  • William Duff, 1st Earl Fife, peer (died 1763)
  • Henry Home, Lord Kames, advocate, judge, philosopher, writer and agricultural improver (died 1782)
  • John Lyon, 5th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, peer, died at the Battle of Sheriffmuir in 1715
  • Anne O'Brien, 2nd Countess of Orkney, noblewoman, (died 1756)

Deaths

• 2 August – Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, a commanding officer at the Massacre of Glencoe (born 1630)
• date unknown – Arthur Forbes, 1st Earl of Granard, soldier (born 1623)

See also

• Timeline of Scottish history