When Lady Grange produced letters that she claimed were evidence of his treasonable plottings against the Hanoverian government in London, her husband had her kidnapped in 1732.

News of her plight eventually reached her home town of Edinburgh and an unsuccessful rescue attempt was undertaken by her lawyer, Thomas Hope of Rankeillor.

Furious with the result, John Chiesley shot Lockhart dead on the High Street of Edinburgh as he walked home from church on Easter Sunday, 31 March 1689.

[2] Rachel Chiesley was baptised on 4 February 1679 and would have been born not long before that date, making her about ten years old at the time of her father's execution.

[7][Note 2] These were politically troubled times; the Jacobite cause was still popular in many parts of Scotland, and the younger Earl was nicknamed "Bobbing John" for his varied manoeuverings.

[20] Her outbursts were evidently also capable of frightening her younger daughters and after Lady Grange's kidnapping, no action was ever taken on her behalf by any of her children, the eldest of whom would have been in their early twenties when she was abducted.

In January 1732 she booked a stagecoach to London and James Erskine and his friends, afraid her presence there would cause them further trouble, decided it was time to take decisive action.

[25] Lady Grange was abducted from her temporary home of lodgings on Niddrys Wynd off the Royal Mile on the night of 22 January 1732 by two Highland lairds, Roderick MacLeod of Berneray and Macdonald of Morar, and several of their men.

Going northwards they transferred out of the sedan chair near Multres Hill (now St Andrew Square) and then taken on horseback westward to the house of John Macleod, advocate at Muiravonside, west of Linlithgow for a night.

Upon the 22d of Jan 1732, I lodged in Margaret M'Lean house and a little before twelve at night Mrs M'Lean being on the plot opened the door and there rush'd in to my room some servants of Lovats and his Couson Roderick Macleod he is a writer to the Signet they threw me down upon the floor in a Barbarous manner I cri'd murther murther then they stopp'd my mouth I puled out the cloth and told Rod: Macleod I knew him their hard rude hands bleed and abassed my face all below my eyes they dung out some of my teeth and toere the cloth of my head and toere out some of my hair I wrestled and defend'd -my self with my hands then Rod: order'd to tye down my hands and cover my face most pity- fully there was no skin left on my face with a cloath and stopp'd my mouth again they had wrestl'd so long with me that it was al that I could breath, then they carry'd me down stairs as a corps.

At Balquhidder, according to MacGregor tradition, she was entertained in the great hall, provided with a meal of venison, and slept on a heather bed covered with deerskins.

[37][Note 7] Hirta is more remote than the Monach Isles, lying 66 kilometres (41 mi) west-northwest of Benbecula in the North Atlantic Ocean[41] and the predominant theme of life on St Kilda was isolation.

In all seasons, waves up to 12 metres (40 ft) high lash the beach of Village Bay, and even on calmer days landing on the slippery rocks can be hazardous.

[46] Whatever its route, the letter caused a sensation in Edinburgh although James Erskine's friends managed to block attempts by Hope to obtain a warrant to search St Kilda.

[Note 8] In the second letter, addressed to Dr Carlyle, minister of Inveresk, Lady Grange writes bitterly of the roles of Lord Lovat and Roderick MacLeod in her capture and bemoans being described by Sir Alexander MacDonald as "the cargo".

[51] After the Battle of Culloden in 1746, it was rumoured that Prince Charles Edward Stuart and some of his senior Jacobite aides had escaped to St Kilda.

[Note 11] Local folklore suggests she may have been kept for 18 months in a cave either at Idrigill on the Trotternish peninsula[55] or on the Duirinish coast near the stacks known as a "Macleod's Maidens".

[57] For reasons unknown a second funeral was held at nearby Duirinish some time thereafter, where a large crowd gathered to watch the burial of a coffin filled with turf and stones.

Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, a key figure in Lady Grange's abduction was himself executed for his part in the Jacobite Rising of 1745.

[65] No concrete evidence of Erskine's plotting against the crown or government has ever emerged, but any threat of such exposure, whether based in fact or fantasy would certainly have been taken very seriously by all concerned.

In addition to Simon Fraser and Alexander Macdonald of Sleat, the Sobieski Stuarts listed Norman MacLeod of Dunvegan[66]—who became known as "The Wicked Man"[67]—amongst the senior accomplices.

[70] This last quality would have been instrumental in any decision not to have his wife assassinated,[71] and he did not marry his long-term partner Fanny Lindsay until after he had heard of the first Lady Grange's death.

Whatever the call of morality and natural justice may have suggested, John Chiesley's daughter evidently did not command a sympathetic audience in her home town.

[78] Something of James Erskine's attitude to these matters may perhaps be gleaned from the fact that for his first speech in the House of Commons he chose to oppose the repeal of various laws relating to witchcraft.

[79] Writing in the mid-19th century the Sobieski Stuarts told the tale from the perspective of the descendants of the Highland aristocrats who had been responsible for Chiesley's kidnap and imprisonment.

They emphasise Lady Grange's personal shortcomings, although to modern sensibilities these hardly seem good reasons for a judge and Member of Parliament and his wealthy friends to organise an illegal kidnapping and life sentence.

In an attempt to end his relationship with Mrs Lindsay, (who owned a coffee house in Haymarket, Edinburgh), Rachel threatened to expose him as a Jacobite sympathiser.

Boswell wrote: "After dinner to-day, we talked of the extraordinary fact of Lady Grange's being sent to St Kilda, and confined there for several years, without any means of relief.