Simon Fraser Lovat, 11th Baron

Simon Fraser Lovat, 11th Baron , 1675?-1747, Scottish nobleman and Jacobite conspirator. The nephew of the 9th baron, he and his father contested the passing of the title to his cousin Amelia. In an attempt to assert his claim he eloped with Amelia, but she returned to her mother. He then abducted her mother, widow of the 9th baron, and forced her to marry him, for which he was outlawed in 1701. He returned to Scotland in 1703 to join James Douglas, 2d duke of Queensberry , in plotting against John Murray , 2d marquess and later 1st duke of Atholl, brother of the aunt he had abducted. When the plot failed he fled abroad and was imprisoned by the exiled Jacobites for betraying them to the English in an attempt to regain his estates. Returning to Scotland in 1714, he again betrayed the Jacobites in the uprising of 1715 by siding with the Hanoverians at the last minute. He thus won a pardon. In 1730 he successfully contested his cousin's claim to the peerage and was decreed Baron Lovat. In the Jacobite rising of 1745, however, having posed as loyal to the crown, he sent his son and clan to fight for the Pretender. He was captured in hiding, tried by impeachment before the House of Lords, and convicted. He was the last British peer to be executed for high treason.