1717 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George I
• Secretary of State for Scotland: The Duke of Roxburghe

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Sir David Dalrymple, 1st Baronet
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Sir James Stewart, Bt

  Judiciary

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord North Berwick
• Lord Justice General – Lord Ilay
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Grange

  Events

• 1 January – Count Carl Gyllenborg, the Swedish ambassador to Great Britain, is arrested in London over a plot to assist the Pretender James Francis Edward Stuart.
• February – as part of the Triple Alliance treaty between Britain and France, James Stuart leaves France and seeks refuge with the Pope.
• July – Indemnity Act frees most Jacobites from imprisonment. The Clan Gregor are specifically excluded.
• Horse post introduced between Glasgow, Edinburgh and points north.
• Drummonds Bank is founded in London by Scottish goldsmith Andrew Drummond.
• Approximate date – the seminary at Scalan begins to train Roman Catholic priests.

  Births

• 28 February – Alexander Colville, 7th Lord Colville of Culross, British Royal Navy admiral
• 28 June – Matthew Stewart, mathematician
• 29 June – James Robertson, British Army officer, governor of New York
• July – William Duncan, natural philosopher and classicist
• 10 October – Sir Archibald Edmonstone, 1st Baronet, politician
• 3 November – Thomas Miller, Lord Glenlee, judge and politician

  Deaths

• 19 March – John Campbell, 1st Earl of Breadalbane and Holland, royalist
• August – William Cochrane, Member of the Parliament of Great Britain
• November – John Slezer, military engineer and topographical artist
• William Boyd, 3rd Earl of Kilmarnock, nobleman