• Secretary of State for Scotland: The Duke of Roxburghe, until August; office vacant thereafter

Law officers edit

• Lord Advocate – Robert Dundas, then Duncan Forbes
• Solicitor General for Scotland – John Sinclair, jointly with Charles Binning; then John Sinclair, jointly with Charles Erskine

Judiciary edit

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

• 12 May – the Black Watch is raised as a military company as part of the pacification of the Highlands under General George Wade.^[1]
• 22 June – malt riots in Glasgow against higher taxes on Scottish malt used in the production of distilled beverages.^[2] Wade's troops enter the city.
• August – John Ker, 1st Duke of Roxburghe, resigns as Secretary of State for Scotland; the post remains vacant until 1742.
• A second Disarming Act is passed as part of the pacification of the Highlands.
• Mining of minerals at Strontian begins.
• One of the earliest examples of a steam pump in Scotland is installed for draining coal mines at Edmonstone in Midlothian.^[3]
• Barony of Calton, including Calton Hill, purchased by the city of Edinburgh.
• James Anderson of Stobcross House feues out land near Glasgow for weavers cottages;^[4] the area is named Anderson Town in his honour, later becoming Anderston.

• 6 March – Henry Benedict Stuart, cardinal and Jacobite claimant to the British throne (born, and died 1807, in Italy)
• 17 March – Lachlan McIntosh, military and political leader in America (died 1806 in the United States)
• 10 November – John Hope, physician and botanist (died 1786)

• 8 October – Sir William Scott of Thirlestane, lawyer and neo-Latin poet (born 1645)
• Alexander Nisbet, heraldist (born 1657)

• Poet James Thomson moves to London.
• Allan Ramsay publishes The Gentle Shepherd: A Scots pastoral comedy.
• William Thomson compiles Orpheus Caledonius: or a Collection of the Best Scotch Songs.

• Timeline of Scottish history