1696 in Scotland
Events from the year 1696 in the Kingdom of Scotland.Incumbents
- Monarch – William II
- Secretary of State – James Johnston, until January or February; then John Murray, Earl of Tullibardine jointly with James Ogilvy, 4th Earl of Findlater
Law officers
- Lord Advocate – Sir James Stewart
- Solicitor General for Scotland – Sir Patrick Hume
Judiciary
- Lord President of the Court of Session – vacant??
- Lord Justice General – Lord Lothian
- Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Ormiston
Events
- February – the Bank of Scotland opens for business
- 8 September – Education Act passed by parliament to establish schools in every parish in the country.
- Perth Academy founded.
- Famine in the Borders leads to a new wave of Scottish Presbyterian migration from Scotland to Ulster.
Births
- 11 June – James Francis Edward Keith, soldier and Prussian field marshal
- 15 September – Sir Archibald Grant, 2nd Baronet, company speculator and Member of parliament for Aberdeenshire, 1722–1732
- date unknown –
- * William Duff, 1st Earl Fife, peer
- * Henry Home, Lord Kames, advocate, judge, philosopher, writer and agricultural improver
- * John Lyon, 5th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, peer, died at the Battle of Sheriffmuir in 1715
- * Anne O'Brien, 2nd Countess of Orkney, noblewoman,
Deaths
- 2 August – Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, a commanding officer at the Massacre of Glencoe
- date unknown – Arthur Forbes, 1st Earl of Granard, soldier
