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 (from 15 January) jointly with James Ogilvy, 4th Earl of Findlater (from 5 February)

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 (died 1758)
 * 15 September – Sir Archibald Grant, 2nd Baronet, company speculator and Member of parliament for Aberdeenshire, 1722–1732 (died 1772)
 * date unknown –
 * William Duff, 1st Earl Fife, peer (died 1763)
 * Henry Home, Lord Kames, advocate, judge, philosopher, writer and agricultural improver (died 1782)
 * 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, (died 1756)

Deaths

 * 2 August – Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, a commanding officer at the Massacre of Glencoe (born 1630)
 * date unknown – Arthur Forbes, 1st Earl of Granard, soldier (born 1623)