1721 in Scotland

Incumbents

• Monarch – George I
• Secretary of State for Scotland: John Ker, 1st Duke of Roxburghe

  Law officers

• Lord Advocate – Robert Dundas
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Walter Stewart; then John Sinclair and Charles Binning

  Judiciary

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

  Events

• Battle of Glen Affric: Men of the Jacobite Clan Mackenzie and Clan Macrae ambush men of the pro-Hanoverian Clan Ross led by William Ross, 6th of Easter Fearn when he attempts to collect rents on the Mackenzie estates.
• Battle of Coille Bhan: British Army troops of Colonel Kirk's Regiment under Captain McNeill drive off an attack from the Clan Mackenzie but again fail to collect rents on their estates.
• Ruthven Barracks completed.
• Chandos Chair of Medicine and Anatomy established at the University of St Andrews.
• Robert Wodrow publishes The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland.

  Births

• 21 January – James Murray, military officer and colonial administrator
• 5 March – John Adam, architect
• 19 March – Tobias Smollett, novelist
• 24 June – Francis Garden, Lord Gardenstone, judge
• 14 July – John Douglas, Anglican bishop of Salisbury and man of letters
• 19 September – William Robertson, historian and Principal of the University of Edinburgh
• 3 October – John Skinner, Episcopalian minister, historian, poet and songwriter
• 5 October – William Wilkie, Presbyterian minister, natural philosopher and poet
• 6 December – James Elphinston, philologist
• Earliest likely date – James Grainger, physician, poet and translator

  Deaths

• 14 January – William Johnstone, 1st Marquess of Annandale
• 13 December – Alexander Selkirk, sailor and castaway