| Francis, thenth and last Lord Oliphant, being the younger son of Captain Francis, youngest son of the sixth Lord, was left to his fate when his elder brother was taken up and educated. Consequently, though (as already stated) from the point of view of the Hanoverian Government he became Lord Oliphant in 1721, the family made no inquiries about him till 1725, when it appeared that he had been saved from acutal starvation by one 'deacon Lauthor'. but was going in rags about the Canongate and, though known to the neighbours as Lord Oliphant, would go on an errand for anybody for a 'bawbee'. He was afterwards taken care of and decuated by Mary, Countess of Marischal, a daughter of the fourth Earl of Perth. After his uncle's death, having been certified by Laurence Oliphant, younger of Gask, to be the nearest heir-male, he was on 6 March 1633 served heir-in-general of his cousin the eighth Lord. He voted at ten Peers' elections between 1733 and 1747; and obtained a Government pension which was his only means of subsistence. On 6 March 1745 he granted his landlady an assignation of 130 pounds out of the allowance due to him from the Government, in payment of what he owed her for 'bed, board, washing, pocket-money and other necessaries of life' for three years and three months to Martinmas 1744, all these having thus been provided for him at ten pounds a quarter. In 1747, after his marriage, he had a royal grant of a pension of 150 pounds, to run from midsummer 1747; the Privy Seal writ was dated 9 February 1747-48, and the only payment ever made was to his widow. He died at Islington, 18 April 1748, having married at London and had letters of administration as his widow, 1 Augus 1748. He leaving no issue, and there being no other heirs-male of the body of Patrick, sixth Lord, the Peerage became extinct. But the trems of the patent of 1633 being unknown (it had been with other documents carried off from Gask by Cumberland's soldiers in 1746, and was not recovered till 1786), the nearest known heir-male was believed to be the successor to the title. |
