INTRODUCTION

In the annals of Scottish legal history, one interesting, but somewhat neglected, figure is Sir David Dalrymple, third Baronet of Hailes (1726–1792). Unusually for a Scots lawyer of his era, he was educated at Eton and was admitted to the Middle Temple on 8 August 1744. In 1745, he moved to study at the University of Utrecht, remaining there until 1747. After public defence, on 20 February 1748, of his theses on D 13.1‚ de condictione furtiva, he was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh on 24 February.

With excellent family connections, he had a steady career at the Bar (though allegedly more valued for his written pleadings than his forensic oratory). He was elevated to the Bench of the Court of Session in 1766, taking the judicial title of Lord Hailes. In 1776, he was also appointed one of the Commissioners of the Justiciary Court. Hailes is best remembered, however, for his work as an historian, particularly of the Middle Ages in Scotland.

The dates of Hailes’ life are significant. The contemporary of both David Hume (1711–1776) and Adam Smith (1723–1790) (in the small circle of Edinburgh and the Scottish literati he inevitably knew both), he lived through the main years of the Scottish Enlightenment. Historical writing was of major significance in eighteenth-century Scotland and it could plausibly be claimed to be central to much social thinking of the period. The reasons for this are complex and the subject of scholarly debate; but it is worth pointing out that, for example, Hume himself was best known in his own time as an historian, with his History of Great Britain (1754–1762) compared to the work of Voltaire. He famously declared in a letter to his publisher, the Scot William Strahan, in 1770: “I believe this is the historical Age and this the Historical Nation.”