Hugh Campbell, 3rd Earl of Loudoun, KT, PC ( – 20 November 1731) was a Scottish landowner, peer, and statesman. With the

Earl of Mar There are currently two earldoms of Mar in the Peerage of Scotland, and the title has been created seven times. The first creation of the earldom is currently held by Margaret of Mar, 31st Countess of Mar, who is also clan chief of Clan Mar. Th ...

, Loudoun was the last Secretary of State of the

Kingdom of Scotland The Kingdom of Scotland was a sovereign state in northwest Europe, traditionally said to have been founded in 843. Its territories expanded and shrank, but it came to occupy the northern third of the island of Great Britain, sharing a Anglo-Sc ...

. He supported the Union with England of 1707 and was Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland between 1708 and 1713.

Early life and family

Campbell was the oldest son of James Campbell, 2nd Earl of Loudoun, by his marriage to Lady Margaret Montgomerie, a daughter of Hugh Montgomerie, 7th Earl of Eglinton.''

Burke's Peerage Burke's Peerage Limited is a British genealogical publisher, considered an authority on the order of precedence of noble families and information on the lesser nobility of the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1826, when the Anglo-Irish genea ...

'', vol. 2 (2003), p. 2406 In 1684, he succeeded his father as

Earl of Loudoun Earl of Loudoun (pronounced "loud-on" ), named after Loudoun in Ayrshire, is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1633 for John Campbell, 1st Earl of Loudoun, John Campbell, 2nd Lord Campbell of Loudoun, along with the subsidiary ...

, Lord Campbell of Loudoun, and Lord Tarrinzean and Mauchline, which gave him a seat in the unicameral

Parliament of Scotland In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

as soon as he came of age. While his year of birth is unknown, it can be estimated from the fact that he took his seat on 8 September 1696 and would normally have done so at the age of twenty-one. Loudoun’s brother, Colonel John Campbell, was a Whig Member of Parliament for

Ayrshire Ayrshire (, ) is a Counties of Scotland, historic county and registration county, in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. The lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area of Ayrshire and Arran covers the entirety ...

before the Union of 1707, as was another brother, Sir James Campbell, after it. Sir James married Lady Jane Boyle, a daughter of

David Boyle, 1st Earl of Glasgow David Boyle, 1st Earl of Glasgow (c. 1666 – 31 October 1733) was a Scottish politician and peer. He was the last Treasurer-depute before the Union with England. Early life David Boyle was born circa 1666 at Kelburn Castle, Fairlie, in No ...

, was Colonel of the

Scots Greys The Royal Scots Greys was a cavalry regiment of the Army of Scotland that became a regiment of the British Army in 1707 upon the Union of Scotland and England, continuing until 1971 when they amalgamated with the 3rd Carabiniers (Prince of ...

and a Knight of the

Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by King George I of Great Britain, George I on 18 May 1725. Recipients of the Order are usually senior British Armed Forces, military officers or senior Civil Service ...

, and was killed at the

Battle of Fontenoy The Battle of Fontenoy took place on 11 May 1745 during the War of the Austrian Succession, near Tournai, then in the Austrian Netherlands, now Belgium. A French army of 50,000 under Maurice, comte de Saxe, Marshal Saxe defeated a Pragmatic Ar ...

(1745). His brother James's son James Mure-Campbell eventually became the 5th Earl of Loudoun.

Career

In April 1697, Loudoun was appointed a Privy Councillor for Scotland. From February 1699 until his death, he was also an Extraordinary

Lord of Session The senators of the College of Justice in Scotland are judges of the College of Justice, a set of legal institutions involved in the administration of justice in Scotland. There are three types of senator: Lords of Session (judges of the Court ...

, having been appointed at an unusually early age.George Fisher Russell Barker
"Campbell, Hugh, third Earl of Loudoun"
in ''

Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

'', vol. 8, online at

Wikisource Wikisource is an online wiki-based digital library of free-content source text, textual sources operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole; it is also the name for each instance of that project, one f ...

In recommending Loudoun for the

Court of Session The Court of Session is the highest national court of Scotland in relation to Civil law (common law), civil cases. The court was established in 1532 to take on the judicial functions of the royal council. Its jurisdiction overlapped with othe ...

, the

Earl of Argyll Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. In modern Britain, an earl is a member of the peerage, ranking below a marquess and above a viscount. A feminine form of ''earl'' never developed; instead, ''countess'' is used. The titl ...

wrote to

William Carstares William Carstares (also Carstaires; 11 February 164928 December 1715) was a Scottish minister who was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1705, 1708, 1711 and 1715. He was active in Whig politics and was Principal ...

From 1703 to 1705 Loudoun was a

Commissioner of the Treasury In the United Kingdom there are at least six Lords (or Ladies) Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, serving as a commission for the ancient office of Treasurer of the Exchequer. The board consists of the First Lord of the Treasury, the Second L ...

, then from 1705 to 1707 Secretary of State of the

, holding the office jointly with John Erskine, Earl of Mar, the two men becoming the last holders of that office before the

Acts of Union 1707 The Acts of Union refer to two acts of Parliament, one by the Parliament of Scotland in March 1707, followed shortly thereafter by an equivalent act of the Parliament of England. They put into effect the international Treaty of Union agree ...

combined England and Scotland into a single

Kingdom of Great Britain Great Britain, also known as the Kingdom of Great Britain, was a sovereign state in Western Europe from 1707 to the end of 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of Union 1707, which united the Kingd ...

. In 1706, he was appointed a Knight of the

Order of the Thistle The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is an order of chivalry associated with Scotland. The current version of the order was founded in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland, who asserted that he was reviving an earlier order. The ...

. On 26 October of that year he wrote to Sidney Godolphin, Earl of Godolphin, that "manie of the common people are so much impos'd on us to be against the union in manie places of the Countrie," but he believed that the benefits it would bring would ultimately pacify the dissenting voices. From 1707 he was a

Scottish representative peer This is a list of representative peers elected from the Peerage of Scotland to sit in the House of Lords after the Acts of Union 1707 abolished the unicameral Parliament of Scotland, where all Scottish Peers had been entit ...

, with a seat in the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

at Westminster. Loudoun was Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland between 1708 and 1713. In 1715, he fought at the

Battle of Sheriffmuir The Battle of Sheriffmuir (, ) was an engagement in 1715 at the height of the Jacobite rising of 1715, Jacobite rising in Scotland. The battlefield has been included in the Inventory of Historic Battlefields in Scotland and protected by Histor ...

, taking the side of King George I against the Jacobites.

Personal life

On 6 April 1700, Loudoun married his cousin, Lady Margaret Dalrymple (c. 1677–1777), a daughter of

John Dalrymple, 1st Earl of Stair John Dalrymple, 1st Earl of Stair PC (10 November 1648 – 8 January 1707) was a Scottish politician and lawyer. As Joint Secretary of State in Scotland 1691–1695, he played a key role in suppressing the Jacobite rising of 1689 and was force ...

and Elizabeth Dundas, daughter and heiress of Sir John Dundas of Newliston. They had a daughter and a son: * Lady Margaret Campbell,H. Pirie-Gordon, ed., ''Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry'' (London: Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1937), p. 340 who on 4 August 1728 married John Campbell of

Shawfield Shawfield is an industrial/commercial area of the Royal Burgh of Rutherglen in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, located to the north of the town centre. It is bordered to the east by the River Clyde, to the north by the Glasgow neighbourhood of Oat ...

, son and heir of Daniel Campbell, but died childless on 7 October 1733. *

John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun General John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun (5 May 1705 – 27 April 1782) was a British Army officer who served as Commander-in-Chief, North America from 1756 to 1757. Early life and career Born in Scotland two years before the creation of Gre ...

(1705–1782). On 7 February 1707, Loudoun's peerages were regranted by

the Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...

, with new remainders to the

heirs general In English law, heirs of the body is the principle that certain types of property pass to a descendant of the original holder, recipient or grantee according to a fixed order of kinship. Upon the death of the grantee, a designated inheritance su ...

of the first Earl of his own nomination, and in default of that to the heirs male. He died on 20 November 1731 and was succeeded by his son John. On a visit to Scotland,

Dr Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The ''Oxford Di ...

met Loudoun's widow in old age and says of her "I was introduced to two ladies of high quality, one of whom (Lady Loudoun) in her ninety-fourth year presided at her table with the full exercise of all her powers..."

James Boswell James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 ( N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of the English writer Samuel Johnson, '' Life of Samuel ...

, ''Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Their Tour to the Hebrides'' (John Murray, 1876
p. 394
(footnote)

Coat of arms

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loudoun, Hugh Campbell, 3 Earl 1670s births 1731 deaths 18th-century British Army personnel

Hugh Hugh is the English-language variant of the masculine given name , itself the Old French variant of '' Hugo (name)">Hugo'', a short form of Continental Germanic Germanic name">given names beginning in the element "mind, spirit" (Old English ). ...

Earls of Loudoun Knights of the Thistle Members of the Privy Council of Scotland Secretaries for Scotland Scottish representative peers People of the Jacobite rising of 1715

Early life and family

Career

Personal life

Coat of arms

Further reading

Notes