[6] The member, called "burgh commissioner", since 1689 had been John Boswell, but Captain James Oswald stood against him.
However Thomas Oswald, as procurator, produced a formal document protesting the exclusion of the four above and recording their votes.
[16] With the aid of the Earl of Rothes, hereditary sheriff of Fife,[17] Oswald was able to overturn Leven’s influence[18] and on 17 August, he was admitted to Parliament.
[11] The Privy Council on 15th Sept. 1703 cancelled their previous decision and the burgh officials (Oswald's allies) were reinstated.
[21] Shortly before Oswald was admitted to Parliament, it passed the Act of Security on 13 August 1703, which stipulated that the successor to Queen Anne must be a protestant, but not the same person who sat on the English throne, unless various trade and other conditions were met.
The Duke of Hamilton tabled a motion on 17 July 1704 proposing these conditions and refusing assent to government funding until this was enshrined in law.
[29] Oswald missed the final vote ratifying the treaty,[30] by which time Kirkcaldy burgh council called him home to save expense.
[7] As Provost in 1714, he concurred in the council’s unanimous decision, motivated by ‘true and just principles of loyalty’, to celebrate the coronation of George I.
for Dysart burghs was found not qualified and James Abercromby, the illegitimate half-brother of the Duke of Hamilton, was elected at a by-election.
[18] In Parliament, Oswald aligned with the Tories, who won the general election on a policy of pursuing peace with France.
When in May 1713 he notified Kirkcaldy of the Peace of Utrecht, which ended the War of Spanish Succession, a great celebration was held in the town.
[1] Following the death of the Duke of Hamilton, his half brother Abercromby had no hope of retaking Dysart Burghs and Oswald was re-elected on 22 Sept. 1713.
However, in 1791-93, his great grandson James Townsend Oswald arranged for a new mansion to be built in the northern part of the parish of Kirkcaldy, by Alexander Laing.
The family lived there until the last of the line, Colonel St Clair Oswald, C.R., died at Dunnikier House on 14th Dec 1938.