BRODIE, Alexander (1697-1754), of Brodie, Elgin.

Brodie succeeded his brother for Elginshire, which he represented without a contest for over twenty years. Politically attached to Lord Ilay, Walpole’s election manager for Scotland, he was appointed lord lyon king of arms, with a salary of £300 a year in 1727,HMC Polwarth, v. 7. voting consistently with the Government. ‘Giving himself the airs of being my Lord Ilay’s minister in the north’, he set out to gain control of Nairnshire, where he put up a candidate unsuccessfully at a by-election in 1735.Sir W. Fraser, Chiefs of Grant, i. 379; see under NAIRNSHIRE. In 1741 he had to surrender his Elginshire seat to Sir Ludovick Grant, but was brought in for Caithness-shire by his nephew, George Sinclair of Ulbster, its hereditary sheriff. After the Forty-five he reported to Newcastle that the Earl of Sutherland had been harbouring a prominent rebel, adding ‘if it is known that I am your Grace’s informer it will prove of fatal consequence to me’, in spite of which a copy of the document was sent to Duncan Forbes. He was also said to have helped to procure evidence against his old friend, Lord Lovat, observing that ‘it will be of the greatest service to the family of Lovat to have the old man beheaded, which would save the son’.Add. 32709, f. 389; More Culloden Pprs. v. 142, 171. Next year he reported to Newcastle the landing of a Jacobite agent by a French privateer on the west coast of the Highlands.Add. 32712, f. 332. In the 1747 Parliament, in which Caithness was not represented, he sat for Inverness Burghs under a scheme drawn up by Pelham to prevent contests between government supporters in Scotland.See under INVERNESS BURGHS. At the time of his death, 9 Mar. 1754, he was receiving a secret service pension of £300 a year.Add. 33038, f. 352.