Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 1.djvu/257

 ARGYLL COMPLETE PEERAGE 207 appointed by the King. (") On 13 Nov. 17 15, he defeated the adherents of the exiled House of Stuart at SherifFmuir. Lord Lieut, of Surrey 17 1 5-1 6, and of cos. Argyll and Dunbarton 1715-43. On 27 Apr. 171 9, he was cr. DUKE OF GREENWICH [G.B.]. Lord Steward of the Household 1718/9-25 ; Master Gen. of the Ordnance 1725-30, and Feb. to Mar. 1742; Governor of Portsmouth 1730-37. C') He w., istly, (cont. dat. 30 Dec. 1701) Mary, da. of John Brown, afterwards Duncombe, of St. James's, Westm., Receiver Gen. of the Excise, by Ursula, da. of Anthony Duncombe, of Drayton, Bucks. She, who had been separated from her husband, d. s.p., after a long illness, 16, and was ^«r. 19 Jan. 171 6/7, in Westm. Abbey, aged 35. He m., 2ndly, 6 June 17 17, Jane Q (formerly maid of honour to Queen Anne, and to Caroline, Princess of Wales), da. of Thomas Warburton, of Winnington, co. Chester, by Anne, da. and coh. of Sir Robert Williams, Bart., of Penrhyn. He d. s.p.m., at Sudbrooke, in the parish ot Petersham, Surrey, 4, and was bur. 15 Oct. 1743, in Westm. Abbey, when the titles of Duke of Greenwich, Earl OF Greenwich and Baron of Chatham became extinct. (^) M.I. Will (") See for a list of these, note sub William, Duke of Devonshire [1707]. C") From 1733 he was a leading opponent of Walpole, voting steadily with the Tories and "Patriots" until the fall of that Minister in 1742. According to his M.I. he was " a General and Orator exceeded by none in the age he lived, " which " terminological inexactitude " is versified by Pope as " Argyle the State's whole thunder born to wield, And shake alike the Senate and the Field. " V.G. C^ " A goodnatured, plain, honest, ill-educated woman, to whom her husband was always devotedly attached. " " Though she was very ugly he [the Duke] thought her perfection. " (Lady Waterford.) V.G. (*) Bishop Burnet's character of him, with Dean Swift's remarks thereon in italics, is as follows : — " Few of his years have a better understanding, nor a more manly behaviour. He has seen most of the Courts of Europe ; is very handsome in his person ; fair complexioned ; about twenty-five years old. Ambitious, covetous, cunning Scot, has no principle but his own interest and greatness. " Swift also writes of " his unquiet spirit, never easy while there is any one above him." " This great Duke was in his political life but a petty intriguer, a greedy courtier, and a factious patriot." [Suffolk Correspondence, vol. ii, p. 119.) He "was graceful in his figure, ostentatious in his behaviour, impetuous in his passions; prompt to insult, even where he had wit to wound and eloquence to confound; and what is seldom seen, a miser as early as a hero He had a great thirst for books, a head admirably turned to mechanics ; was a patron of ingenious men, a promoter of discoveries, and one of the first great encouragers of planting in England But perhaps too much has been said on the subject of a man who had so little great either in himself or his views. . . that posterity will probably interest themselves very slightly in the history of his fortunes." (Horace Walpole, George II, vol. i, pp. 275-8.) An excellent Memoir of him, by Lady Louisa Stuart, was published in 1899. She describes him as very handsome, " warm hearted, frank, honourable, magnanimous, but rash, fiery tempered, ambitious, haughty, impatient of contradiction whose shining abilities, and loftiness of mind did not prevent his harbouring the most illiberal contempt of