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- The Second Duke of Argyll, a Field Marshal, was one of the two greatest soldiers in Britain and was renowned as a statesman who helped to unite the parliaments of Scotland and England in 1707.
2nd Duke of Argyll and Duke of Greenwich. John, a steady patriot and celebrated general, the eldest son of the preceding, was born October 10, 1678. Soon after the death of his father in 1703, he was sworn of the privy council, made captain of the Scots horse-guards, and appointed one of the extraordinary lords of session. He was soon after sent down as high commissioner to the Scots parliament, where, being of great service in promoting the projected Union, for which he became very unpopular in Scotland, he was, on his return to London, created a peer of England by the titles of Baron of Chatham, and Earl of Greenwich. In summer 1705 despatched to Edinburgh as the Queen's Commissioner to secure from the Scottish Parliament authority to open negotiations for a treaty of union. In 1706 he made a campaign in Flanders, under Marlborough he fought at Blenheim, Ramillies and Oudenaarde. Later he became General of the British forces in Spain and Ambassador Extraordinary to that country. On December 20, 1710, he was installed a knight of the Garter. On the accession of George I, he was made groom of the stole, and one of the nineteen members of the regency, nominated by his majesty. On the king's arrival in England, he was appointed general and commander-in-chief of the king's forces in Scotland.
At the breaking out of the Rebellion in 1715, as commander-in-chief in Scotland, he defeated the Earl of Mar's army at Sheriffmuir, and forced the Pretender to retire from the kingdom. In March 1716, after putting the army into winter quarters, he returned to London but was in a few months to the surprise of all, divested of all his employment's. In the beginning of 1718 he was again restored to favour, created Duke of Greenwich, and made lord steward of the household. In 1737, when the affair of Captain Porteous came before parliament, he exerted himself vigorously and eloquently in behalf of the city of Edinburgh. A bill having been brought in for punishing the Lord Provost of that city, for abolishing the city guard, and for depriving the corporation of several ancient privileges; and the Queen Regent having threatened, on that occasion, to convert Scotland into a hunting park, Argyll replied, that it was then time to go down and gather his beagles.
In April 1740, he was again deprived of all his offices. To these, however, on the resignation of Sir Robert Walpole, he was soon restored, but not approving of the measures of the new ministry, he gave up all his posts, and never afterwards engaged in affairs of state. This amiable and most accomplished nobleman has been immortalised by Pope in the lines...
"Argyle, the state's whole thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the senate and the field".
John's second wife Jane, daughter of Thomas Warburton of Winnington, in Cheshire, one of the maids of honour to Queen Anne, they had five daughters. As the duke died without male issue, his English titles of Duke and Earl of Greenwich, and Baron of Chatham, became extinct, while his Scottish titles and patrimonial estate devolved on his brother. He died October 4, 1743; and a beautiful marble monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.
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Electric Scotland writes:
He was born in October, 1678. On the very day on which his grandfather was executed, in 1685, the boy fell from a window in the upper flat of Lethington, the seat of his grandmother, the Duchess of Lauderdale, without receiving any injury
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1680 - 1743 (62 years)
