Sir Walter Riddell, who was knighted, like one of his younger brothers, in his father’s lifetime. He married a very pious woman, Janet Rigg, the daughter of a worthy and godly man, William Rigg of Aithernie, Fife, by whom he had five sons and two daughters. Janet Rigg, Lady Riddell, was not only pious but accomplished, and her father was a man of high principle and character, and moreover, extremely wealthy. Mr. Rigg was fined £50,000 Scots for opposing the introduction of the five articles at Perth, by James VI., and also suffered imprisonment in Blackness Castle. His sister, the aunt of Lady Riddell, Miss Catherine Rigg, who married Douglas of Cavers, was the celebrated Covenanter, and the ladies were descendants of Dr. John Row of Perth, John Knox’s coadjutor.
Two of Sir Walter’s younger sons were ancestors of the Riddells of Glenriddell and Granton severally, respecting whom I shall have a good deal to say – especially about the latter – afterwards.
His daughters married respectively a brother of Sir William Scott of Mertoun, and son of Auld Wat, the Freebooter of Harden, and the Rev. Gabriel Semple of Jedburgh, a zealous Covenanter and field preacher at one time. His eldest son, JOHN RIDDELL, succeeded as third Baronet. He is called in the family Sir John Bluebeard, because he had four wives, not of course at once . . .
