John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll
The Duke of Argyll was the chief of Clan Campbell, the Scottish commissioner who carried the Union through the last Scottish parliament in 1707, Marlborough's general at Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet and then his enemy, and the commander who held Stirling with three thousand men against the Earl of Mar's twelve thousand in the autumn of 1715 and fought him to a draw at Sheriffmuir, which was enough to end the rising. He was born in 1680, succeeded his father in 1703, and was sent to Edinburgh as the queen's commissioner in 1705 to get the treaty of Union voted, which he did by management and by making himself an English peer for the trouble. He fought under Marlborough in Flanders from 1706, led the assault at Oudenarde and the storming of the Malplaquet entrenchments, quarrelled with the captain-general over promotions and money, and went over to the Tories, who gave him Spain to command in 1711 with an army they did not pay. When Mar raised the standard in September 1715 Argyll was sent north to a command with almost no troops. He fortified Stirling, the only crossing of the Forth an army could use, and let Mar's indecision do the rest. On 13 November at Sheriffmuir his left was routed and his right routed Mar's, and at the end of the day he held the field with a smaller army and Mar went back to Perth. When the government sent Dutch reinforcements and a general to supervise him he took Perth in February 1716 and found the Jacobites had gone. The Whigs thought him lenient to the rebels and removed him. He spent the rest of his life in and out of office as the manager of Scotland's politics with his brother Islay, the patron of Edinburgh's building, and the general who was made field marshal in 1736 and resigned everything in 1740 over Walpole's Spanish war. He died in October 1743 and lies in Westminster Abbey under a monument by Roubiliac. Scott made him the honest great man of The Heart of Midlothian.
- Lived: 1680 CE – 1743 CE
- Nationality: Scottish
- Roles: general, politician
