HAMILTON, George (1666-1737)

Lord George Hamilton was destined for a life as a soldier from a very young age, being nominally appointed when still only five years old a captain of a troop in the regiment commanded by his uncle George Douglas, earl of Dumbarton [S], shortly to be known as the Royal Scots. With this education on the battlefield he was by all accounts a brave soldier, though apparently no strategist, and was best suited to a subordinate role in battle. Dalton, Geo. I’s Army, i. 38. He gave distinguished military service to William III after the Revolution. In Ireland, as colonel of the Inniskilling Regiment of Foot, he fought at the Boyne, at Aughrim (where he was wounded), and at the siege of Limerick. On the continent, where he served as colonel of the Royal Scots, he saw action at Steenkirk, Landen, and at the siege of Namur in 1695, when he was wounded again. In that same year he was promoted to brigadier-general for his services. Even Swift found little to condemn in him, annotating the character sketch of him drawn by Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, with the comment, 'An honest, good-natured gentleman that hath much distinguished himself as a soldier'. Macky Mems. 162.

It was, however, his marriage in November 1695 to the king’s former mistress which brought him the greatest material rewards. Not only was ‘Betty’ Villiers a fortune in her own right, her connections at court, such as her brother Jersey, were of inestimable value. Within a year of their marriage Hamilton had been able to purchase the Villiers estate at Cliveden in Buckinghamshire, formerly owned by George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, which he set about improving until Cliveden could be described by John Macky in 1714 as ‘a noble building, à la moderne’. Macky, Journey through Eng. (1714), p. 31. In 1696 he was created earl of Orkney, officially as a reward for his ‘fidelity and zeal’ and the many proofs he had given of his courage, but presumably as much to gratify his wife. CSP Dom. 1696, p. 17; Bodl. Carte 130, f. 404. In 1697 he received the sinecure of governor of Virginia, a colony he never visited, entrusting the government to a series of deputies. His political preferences at this time were with the Whig ministry. Certainly he could not be expected to sympathize with an opposition party in England which after the Treaty of Ryswick was pressing for the disbandment of the Army, and which was also pursuing a determined campaign to resume the grants of forfeitures in Ireland, including his wife’s extensive holdings in co. Cork. His correspondence from London to his brother, Hamilton, during the political crisis of 1700-1 shows a pronounced aversion to the Tories. NAS, GD 406/6507–9, 6521, 6585; Blair Atholl, Atholl mss, 45/II/2. He was unhappy at Hamilton’s alliance with the Scottish cavalier interest, asking him pointedly whether he could really be ‘a Tory in England, and a Whig in Scotland’. NAS, GD406/1/7441; NLS, ms 1032, ff. 1-4.

Nonetheless, Orkney’s military career continued to flourish after 1702, thanks to his own qualities in the field and to the fact that Lady Orkney possessed the ear of John Churchill, duke of Marlborough. He fought in all of Marlborough’s great victories as colonel of the Royal Scots. Although Marlborough considered him unadventurous, Orkney turned down the chance to become commander-in-chief in Scotland in 1705 (as he also seems to have done in 1696), preferring to remain at the heart of the continental campaign, where the risks, and the potential rewards, were greater. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 86; Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. i. 500, 554. But it was not long before he began to make demands for the further preferment that he considered his due. In 1704 he asked to be allowed to reside as governor of Virginia, and thus enjoy all the perquisites of the office. Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. i. 297. By late March 1705 it was rumoured that he was on the verge of taking up this assignment, but instead he received the promotion to lieutenant-general that had been rumoured for some time. Luttrell, Brief Relation, v. 268, 412, 535. By 1708 his tone had become querulous. He received a share of the Equivalent, following the Union, but spent it on the house and gardens at Cliveden. Money owing him from the Virginia governorship had not been paid, and he now declared himself to be weary of the war. Inwardly he was resentful at what he saw as the ministry’s tendency to take him for granted. Marlborough was at a loss to understand his attitude and was anxious to help, although his duchess was scathing: Orkney, she stated, was ‘the most covetous wretch in nature’. S. S. Webb, Marlborough’s America, 166–7.

It was at this point that Orkney made his entrée into politics. He may have been held back previously by a diffidence in public speaking–‘by reason of a hesitation in his speech [he] wants expression’. Macky Mems. 162. In the spring of 1708 Marlborough and Sidney Godolphin, earl of Godolphin, had agreed, apparently with reluctance, to acquiesce to Orkney's request, made in part through his wife, to stand as one of the 16 representative peers in the elections for the forthcoming Parliament. The duchess of Marlborough appears to have disapproved, but her husband explained that it was far safer to keep Orkney on-side, considering him among those who ‘may be had by those that think it worth their while to buy them’. Besides, Orkney had ‘already told me that he will do whatever I shall think for the service’. Godolphin too was wary of inflaming Orkney’s 'ill humour', although he was sure that Orkney would not be chosen. Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. ii. 967, 976, 1035. In a letter of 31 May 1708 Marlborough recommended Orkney's candidacy to John Erskine, 22nd earl of Mar [S], who was managing the peers’ elections for the Scottish court party headed by James Douglas, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S]. HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 442.

Unbeknownst to these members of the court party, Orkney was deeply involved in the secret negotiations carried on by Hamilton with the Whig Junto and their Scottish allies, the Squadrone, to oppose Queensberry at the election. It was indeed Orkney himself, on behalf of his eldest brother, who made the first approach to the Squadrone through John Ker, duke of Roxburghe. NAS, GD220/5/172/1. In Edinburgh by early June 1708, Orkney assisted in efforts to persuade ‘cavalier’ peers to follow his brother’s line in the election. He spread the idea that his candidacy had the queen’s personal approval and further made use of her name to secure votes for the Squadrone candidates, further claiming that Queensberry and the Scottish court had been responsible for the arrest and transportation of the 'cavalier' peers suspected of complicity in the projected Jacobite uprising of March 1708. HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 445-6; HMC Laing, ii. 147. He petitioned the government to release his brother-in-law, John Murray, duke of Atholl [S], under house arrest since the abortive invasion, and the other peers who were being transported to London for questioning about their suspected involvement. In a letter to the Whig secretary of state, Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, who, against the queen's wishes, was supporting the Squadrone in this election, he made the point that these prisoners ‘could have served us much in both the elections of peers and commons’. Priv. Corr. D.M. ii. 263–5; NAS, GD 112/39/216/26. As the election drew closer, Hamilton sent Orkney and their brother Selkirk to visit both Atholl and John Campbell, earl of Breadalbane [S], to persuade them to look to the Squadrone and the Whigs for their release and future favour. NAS, GD 112/39/217/17, GD 124/15/802/4–5; HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 476.

This embassy initially seemed successful, for at the election of 17 June 1708 Orkney presented himself and revealed that he had been entrusted with Atholl’s proxy as well as that of Lucius Henry Cary, 6th Viscount Falkland [S]. He used these, as well as his own vote, to select the Squadrone list of candidates. NLS, ms 1026, ff. 7, 24, 28–35; 39-40; Add. 28055, ff. 406–9; NAS, GD158/1174/1–3. Later events suggest that Orkney and Atholl had differing views on how this proxy was to be used. During his later campaign to reverse some of the results of the election, Hamilton protested against Orkney's use of Atholl’s proxy, arguing that it was invalid because the proxy was ‘not sealed’. NLS, ms 1026, ff. 7, 56. Orkney partly explained this strange turn of events to Sunderland: Atholl had ‘not done so much as I expected or wished’ in his selection of candidates and the Hamilton brothers may therefore have wished to have had his proxy cancelled. Orkney added, however, in his own defence that ‘I am sure … he [Atholl] had been entire against us’ if he and Selkirk had not paid their visit to extract the proxy from him. Add. 61628, ff. 176–7. Hamilton’s protest against the proxy prompted some to think that Orkney ‘stands on his own feet’, independent of his brother. The Queensberryite David Melville, 5th earl of Leven [S], however, noted that Orkney had made use of the proxy contrary to Atholl’s directions in voting for the Squadrone candidates. NAS, GD 112/39/217/32/2; GD 112/39/217/33. On 24 June Atholl revealed to Breadalbane that he had ‘now got from the earl of Orkney the reasons of his altering my list … he says he only altered three of his party but did not change any of the other’. NAS, GD 112/39/217/36.

Orkney had brought himself close to the Whigs on his own account as well as on his brother’s. In the general election he had used his interest in the Buckinghamshire constituency of Great Marlow to promote his brother Lord Archibald Hamilton as a candidate against two Tories. NLS, ms 1033, f. 41; HP Commons, 1690–1715, ii. 40. On 22 June 1708, five days after his own election as a representative peer he wrote to inform Sunderland of his imminent departure to join the army in Flanders, and to ask how he ‘would have me talk in the army’. Add. 61628, ff. 176–7. He was present at Oudenarde in July, after which he found himself at odds with Marlborough. Orkney had pressed for an immediate invasion of France, and although deferring to Marlborough’s decision to besiege Lille instead, remained disappointed and discontented. At the end of the campaign he returned to London, arriving on 3 Jan. 1709. His brother-in-law, Charles Hay^†, styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), reported that Orkney looked ‘very well’ but was ‘no favourite’. NLS, ms 7021, f. 146.

Orkney took his seat in the Lords on 10 Jan. 1709, a good two months into the proceedings of the new Parliament, but was still able to attend 63 per cent of the sitting days of its first session of 1708-9. At the time of the election the Scottish lord chancellor James Ogilvy, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), opined that Orkney and John Lindsay, 19th earl of Crawford [S], both of them returned from the Squadrone's list, 'will certainly do well' by supporting the court in the Parliament. HMC Laing, ii. 147. Orkney's actions in his first session did not bear out Seafield's confidence, however. On his first day in the House Orkney was named to the committee to examine the papers relating to the petitions against the representative peers’ election, including the inventory of proxies. On 17 Jan. 1709 Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun, delivered the committee’s report, which outlined the objections made against Orkney’s use of the proxies of Atholl, which, it was pointed out, had been ‘signed, but not sealed’, and Falkland, which had been left undated. Four days later Orkney joined with Hamilton, the Squadrone and the English Whigs in voting in favour of the motion that Queensberry could not participate in the election of the representative peers because of the British title he had recently been granted, as duke of Dover. After counsel was heard on 29 Jan., the House resolved that the proxies held by Orkney at the election were still valid despite their irregularities.

During February and early March Orkney continued to attend the House regularly. On 11 Mar. 1709 he was present at the first reading of the bill ‘for improving the Union of the two kingdoms’ and on 18 Mar. was one of the Scottish peers who voted unsuccessfully against the amendment extending to Scotland the English treason laws. Haddington mss, Mellerstain Letters. 3, George Baillie to his wife, 19 Mar. 1709. When the bill received its third reading on 28 Mar. he subscribed two protests, first against the refusal to allow the addition of a rider safeguarding a defendant’s right to receive a copy of the indictment and list of witnesses before his trial, and second against the bill’s passage. He was present at the House’s consideration of the Commons’ amendments on 14 Apr. and when Charles Montagu, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, proposed that these alterations should not take effect until the Pretender’s death, ‘all the Scots’ in the House were in the minority against the motion. NLS, ms 7021, f. 171.

Once Parliament was prorogued on 21 Apr. 1709 Orkney joined the army in Flanders and on 11 Sept. fought at Malplaquet, where he again distinguished himself. Ibid. f. 188. He sent his brother a long account of the battle, in which he revealed a profound disillusionment with the course of the war: he hoped ‘in God it will be the last battle I may ever see. A very few of such would make both parties end the war very soon ... none alive ever saw such a battle. God send us a good peace’. EHR, lxxiii. 320-1. Orkney attributed much of the responsibility for the slaughter to Marlborough; the tension between the two men, possibly exacerbated by Orkney’s dislike of Marlborough’s favourite William Cadogan^† later earl of Cadogan, was evident when they returned to England in November. HMC Portland, iv. 573. Orkney now seemed poised to change his political allegiance. NAS, GD 406/1/5572. He failed to wait on Marlborough before the latter went up to London on 10 November. Lady Orkney wrote to the duchess of Marlborough on 14 Nov. to explain that her husband had not wished to be troublesome and that ‘he was going this day to town for no other end’. The duchess was unimpressed by this explanation. Having already been advised by Arthur Maynwaring^‡ of Lady Orkney’s ‘awkward squinting schemes’, she believed that Lady Orkney was ‘working in all things in their power’ to serve Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford, and with good reason, for Lady Orkney had been in close, and conspirational, contact with Harley since at least July. Add. 61474, f. 187; Add. 61460, ff. 3–6; HMC Portland, iv. 549.

Orkney resumed his seat in the Lords on 21 Nov. 1709 and attended the session of 1709-10 for more than two-thirds of the sittings. Despite his personal misgivings about Marlborough he did not waver in his support for the Whig ministry in the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell. He was one of those named on 18 Feb. 1710 to the select committee to allocate tickets for the trial, and when it came to the division on 20 Mar. Orkney voted Sacheverell guilty. At the same time, his half-brother and aide-de-camp Sir James Abercromby^‡, bt., who had recently been returned at a by-election for Dysart Burghs, was listed as supporting the impeachment in the Commons. HP Commons, 1690–1715, ii. 908, iii. 5. Orkney continued to attend until the end of the session on 5 Apr. 1710, before returning to military duties at the siege of Douai.

It soon became clear that Orkney was a pawn in the Whig ministry’s attempts to prevent the military advancement of his fellow Scot John Campbell, 2nd duke of Argyll [S]. Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. iii. 1431–2. Sunderland expressed the hope that Orkney rather than Argyll would be made a general of foot, in the belief that disappointment would force Argyll to ‘shoot himself through the head’. Although Sunderland considered Orkney ‘a very weak man’, he argued that it was undeniable that he ‘had behaved himself well in the impeachment’. Add. 61461, ff. 50-51. Marlborough also favoured Orkney’s advancement as a means of mortifying Argyll, pressing Godolphin to enable him to assure Orkney that ‘when any of his countrymen are made peers he shall be made an English baron’, a promotion on which Orkney had set his heart. Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. iii. 1487, 1497, 1517, 1519, 1556. But the duchess was implacably opposed: ‘though it is hard for one in Marlborough’s station to know who are his true friends’, she wrote, ‘he ought never to forgive so false and apparent an enemy’. It was exceedingly unpleasant for Marlborough to have to ‘gratify a fool to mortify a knave’. For his part, the duke insisted that he had only recommended Orkney because ‘I promised his lady’. Priv. Corr. D.M. i. 281–2, 314, 321–2. However, Argyll was promoted instead in August 1710, while a furious Orkney had to wait until the following May. NLS, ms 7021, ff. 235–6; Add. 61162, f. 113; Add. 61461, ff. 120-1.

In the summer of 1710 it was still thought that Orkney and Hamilton would support the Whigs and oppose the dissolution of Parliament. Haddington mss, Mellerstain Letters, 4, Roxburghe to Baillie, 19 Sept. 1709. By the end of the summer Orkney’s thoughts had turned to the prospect of the approaching election. On 28 Aug. 1710 he wrote to Breadalbane that the

great talk of a new Parliament and the uncertainty of my being able to attend the elections of peers, having the honour to command the British foot, obliges me to give your lordship this trouble, not only to beg the favour of your vote, but that you will use your interest with your friends for me. NAS, GD 112/39/243/37.

Charles Boyle, 4th earl of Orrery [I] (later Baron Boyle), advised Harley, then in negotiations with the unsettled Hamilton, that he should be wary of Orkney’s loyalty:

When the agreement is made with Duke Hamilton I hope he will be made to engage for his brother's behaviour as well as his own; my Lord Orkney’s conduct in the last Parliament is a sufficient pretence to require security for him in the next, and there is the more reason to insist upon this because he has expressed more regard this year than he used to do to my lord Marlborough. HMC Portland, iv. 604.

Orkney, however, continued to make overtures to Harley, who backed his return as a representative peer. During September 1710 Orkney returned from Flanders to London, where he failed in his attempts to see Harley. Scots Courant, 20–22 Sept. 1710. He then made his way to Edinburgh, from where he reassured Harley that he was ‘extremely obliged for the favour you have done me in procuring me a vote from my Lord Stirling [Henry Alexander, 5th earl of Stirling [S]]. I am sorry I had not the happiness to see you at your own house to assure you how much I am your humble servant.’ Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 633; Add. 70230, Orkney to Harley, 9 Nov. 1710. On 10 Nov. he attended the peers’election where he was safely re-elected on the list agreed upon by Harley with Hamilton, Argyll, and Mar. NLS, ms 1026, f. 62. He was afterwards listed by the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain, Richard Dongworth, as a ‘court Tory’. SHR, lx. 62. In another analysis of the Scottish representative peers shortly after the election he was said to be ‘well intentioned’ in relation to the succession and the Union.

Orkney returned to London immediately and on 25 Nov. resumed his seat in the House. On 2 Jan. 1711, the day he was sworn to the Privy Council, he wrote to tell Selkirk about the queen’s message to the House informing them of the defeat suffered by the Allies at Brihuega and the assistance she intended to offer, with the help of Parliament, to the Austrian claimant ‘King Charles’. He further informed Selkirk that a committee had been appointed to draw up ‘an humble address to thank her majesty which will be reported tomorrow, and likely there may be some debate upon the wording of it, since some say they will be the beginning of our looking into the mismanagements of Spain’. Add. 61162, f. 111; NLS, ms 1033, f. 81. As Orkney predicted, the next day the House ordered an inquiry into the war in Spain. On 9 Jan., when the House was in committee of the whole on this subject, Orkney voted against the Whig attempt to adjourn the committee, after which it was resolved that Charles Mordaunt, 3rd earl of Peterborough, had given an honourable and just account of the council of war in Valencia before the allied defeat at Almanza in April 1707. Three days later Orkney’s vote also helped to secure the acceptance by the House of two further resolutions, one blaming the previous ministry for the defeat at Almanza and the failure of the expedition against Toulon, and the other stating that, had advice given by Peterborough been followed, the setbacks in Spain would have been avoided. Haddington mss, Mellerstain Letters, 4, Baillie to his wife, 13 Jan. 1710/11. Orkney was then named to two select committees on the Spanish campaign.

On 1 Mar. 1711 Orkney was one of the Scots peers who voted in favour of the immediate consideration of the appeal submitted to the House by the Episcopalian minister James Greenshields which sought to reverse a sentence passed against him by the Edinburgh magistrates for using the Church of England liturgy. Ibid. Baillie to his wife, 3 Mar. 1710/11. On 9 Mar. he was named as one of the conference managers on an address to the queen about the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Harley. Ill-health prevented his regular attendance during much of May and he donated his proxy on 2 May to Henry Bentinck, 2nd earl of Portland, (vacated on 9 May) and on 14 May to his brother Hamilton. That was his last sitting in the House for the session, and in June he left to rejoin the army in Flanders, having been in early May made a general of foot. London Gazette, 12-15 May 1711. Lady Orkney was now wholly integrated into the network of the earl of Oxford, as Harley had become in May 1711. With some spite the duchess of Marlborough thought her ‘one of the greatest politicians of our times’. Add. 70028, ff. 189, 190–1; Add. 70278, Lady Orkney to Oxford, 2, 5 July 1711; Add. 70230, Lady Orkney to Oxford, 5, 26, 27 Aug. 1711; Stowe 751, ff. 71–72. Orkney himself sought to capitalize on his recent military promotion by renewing his request for a British peerage, having been ‘made to hope’ for this some years before, ‘by some who pretended to be my friends’. HMC Portland, v. 5.

Orkney resumed his seat in the Lords on 7 Dec. 1711, the first day of the session of 1711-12, and on that day was named to the committee to draw up the loyal address. On 20 Dec. he voted, with the other Scots peers present, in the minority in favour of Hamilton’s right to sit in the House of Lords as duke of Brandon; he subsequently subscribed the protest against the House’s resolution excluding Hamilton. He also signed a representation of Scottish peers to the queen appealing to her to redress the injury done thereby to her Scottish subjects. HMC Laing, ii. 167. He continued to attend the House intermittently in January 1712 but as it became clear that Scottish grievances would not be redressed, his attendance declined to the point that he was present at only 13 sittings after 29 January. In total he came to only just over a quarter (27 per cent) of the sittings and last sat in the House for the session on 8 Apr. 1712. Two days later his proxy was registered with Hugh Campbell, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], for the three months remaining of the session. Back with his regiment in the summer, he once more reminded Oxford of his pretensions, declaring with some exaggeration that he had ‘now served both wars without bettering my fortune in any manner’. HMC Portland, v. 182.

Orkney was in the House for four of the prorogations of the spring of 1713 by which the eagerly anticipated session to discuss the Peace of Utrecht was continually postponed, and he was in the House again on 9 Apr. 1713 when the terms were finally ready for presentation. He attended a full three-quarters of the sittings of this session, concerned as he was both by the peace and the possibility that the malt tax would now be extended to Scotland consequent, as the Treaty of Union stipulated, to the ending of the war. Although Orkney had been forecast by Jonathan Swift in the spring of 1713 as likely to support the ministry, he had already complained to Oxford in January of the lord treasurer’s ‘coolness’ in failing to secure him the promotion to which his ‘rank in the army and continued service without intermission entitles me’. Add. 70279, Orkney to Oxford, 11 Jan. 1713. On 26 May Orkney was ‘out of town’ when the general meeting was held of Scottish parliamentarians which agreed unanimously to address the queen to bring in a bill to dissolve the Union in the face of the attempts to extend the malt tax to the northern kingdom. His absence was regarded as surprising, if not suspicious. Lennoxlove, Hamilton mss, C3/1324; HMC Laing, ii. 171. He had, though, returned to the House by 1 June when the 4th earl of Findlater (as Seafield had become), ‘at the head of all the Scotch lords brought in a proposal, praying that leave might be given to bring in a bill for dissolving the Union betwixt the two kingdoms’. Presumably he joined the alliance of Scots and Whigs who voted, unsuccessfully, to adjourn debate on the motion in order to muster more support for it. The ministry was able to defeat that motion for adjournment and then the motion to bring in such a bill. Orkney also attended on 5 June for the second reading of the malt tax bill when the ‘Whigs and the Scots joined against it’, but their combined votes were not sufficient to defeat it at the third reading on 8 June. Orkney signed the protest against the passage of the bill, as a violation of the Treaty of Union. BLJ, xix. 167-8. Nevertheless, Oxford predicted that Orkney would side with the ministry in favour of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French Commercial Treaty, which, however, was defeated in the Commons before it could even appear before the House. For the remainder of the session there is little evidence of his activity in the House beyond the bare record of his attendance, which he maintained intermittently until the prorogation on 16 July 1713.

At the election of representative peers in October 1713 Orkney was re-elected after soliciting Oxford’s support, ‘since I believe nobody has more zeal for her Majesty's service, or is more attached to your interest than I’. NLS, Advocates’ mss, Wodrow pprs. letters Quarto, 7, f. 182; Add. 70279, Orkney to Oxford, 23 July 1713. His sister-in-law Elizabeth, dowager duchess of Hamilton, nevertheless claimed that Orkney’s politics were turning away from those of the ministry. Add. 70223, Elizabeth, dowager duchess of Hamilton, to Oxford, 21 Sept. 1713. Orkney resumed his seat on 16 Feb. 1714, the first day of the new Parliament, and diligently attended 82 per cent of the meetings of its first session in spring 1714. Perhaps because Orkney was now attending more regularly than previously he received Loudoun’s proxy on 17 Mar., which was eventually vacated by Loudoun’s attendance on 31 March. Orkney was now being actively courted by Oxford and at the end of March was made governor of Edinburgh Castle in place of Argyll. HMC Portland, v. 406; British Mercury, 31 Mar.-7 Apr. 1714. He was present in the House on 4 Apr. for a debate on ‘the state of the nation’, at which a ‘question was moved that the Protestant succession in the house of Hanover is in danger’. It was then suggested to add the words ‘under her Majesty’s government’; this was carried with all the Scottish peers present voting in favour. NLS, Wodrow letters Quarto, 8, f. 82. After the Whigs had moved an address to the queen on this motion, Orkney was named to the drafting committee. Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, also considered Orkney a likely supporter of the schism bill in June 1714. However when a petition was presented to the House by Thomas Wharton, earl (later marquess) of Wharton, asking that Dissenters’ representatives be heard against the bill, Orkney left the chamber before the vote, together with his fellow representative peer and army general David Colyear, earl of Portmore [S]. Ibid. f. 131. George Baillie^‡ singled Orkney out as one of three representative peers who on 9 June supported amendments to the bill which would allow schoolmistresses to continue teaching even if they did not meet the qualifications in the bill and which would permit appeals to justices of the peace. He also voted for a motion to omit from the bill the words ‘and other literature’ so that the Dissenters could teach Latin and other subjects. Haddington mss, Mellerstain Letters, 6, Baillie to his wife, 10 June 1714; NLS, Wodrow letters Quarto, 8, f. 133. Thereafter Orkney continued to attend the House until Parliament was prorogued on 9 July. He sat in only five of the meetings of the House during the brief session of August following the death of Anne, which sought to ensure the smooth succession of the Hanoverian monarch George I.

Orkney was elected a representative peer again in 1715 and continued to sit well into the reign of George II. His parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in detail in the subsequent volumes of this work. In January 1736 he and Argyll were appointed the first ever field marshals of the British army. Orkney, though, died at his house in Albemarle Street a little over a year later, on 29 Jan. 1737, and was buried at Taplow near his house of Cliveden. The title passed to his eldest daughter Anne, suo jure countess of Orkney, who married William O'Brien^‡, 4th earl of Inchiquin [I].