Dance The Countess of Lauderdale's Reel 1367

In Thirlestane Castle, the Berwickshire seat of the Maitland family, the Earls of Lauderdale, there hangs a portrait of Eleanor, Countess of Lauderdale, painted by George Romney. If in the flesh she was as charming as her translation onto canvas, it is not to be wondered that a dance was devised in her honour.

One of the most splendid castles in Scotland, Thirlestane rises majestically from the banks of Leader Water near the Royal Burgh of Lauder. Originally built by John, 2nd Baron Thirlestane and 1st Earl of Lauderdale, it was brought to its most grandiose state in 1675 by John, 2nd Earl and 1st (and last) Duke, who employed Sir William Bruce as his architect. it was this powerful and disliked Duke of Lauderdale, the intimate councillor of Charles II, who made himself, for a time at least, the “uncrowned king of Scotland”, ony one of such self-elected during various stages of Scottish history after the union of the crowns. Further alterations and embellishments were made to Thirlestane in 1841 by architect David Bryce.

The husband of Eleanor was James (1759–1839), the Scottish Whig peer, who served as a member of Parliament for eight years, until 1789, when he succeeded his father as 8th Earl. He was Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland and one of the founders of the social and economic reform movement in Scotland, The Society of the Friends of the People. In time he changed his political philosophy and as a Tory he voted against the Reform Act of 1832. Thus, it was as a Whig that he wrote An Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth (1804) and The Depreciation of the Paper Currency of Great Britain Proved (1812).