CAMPBELL, Hugh (c. 1673-1731)

Loudoun’s marriage in 1700 drew him firmly under the wing of his uncle and father-in-law, the earl of Stair, and through Stair into the orbit of James Douglas, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], whose close political ally he became. HMC Laing, ii. 114. He had already been brought into government in Queensberry’s administration in 1697-9, being appointed, inter alia, a privy councillor and an extraordinary lord of session, which would suggest that he had received some legal education. He was certainly reputed a good speaker in parliamentary debates, and after the Union distinguished himself particularly in contributions on Scottish appeal cases. Nicolson, London Diaries, 97. The Jacobite George Lockhart^‡ had more good to say of him than of anyone else in the ‘old party’ (as Queensberry’s faction was known): Loudon was

of all the persons concerned in the government, without doubt, among the best. He had nothing in his nature that was cruel or revengeful; was affable, courteous, and just ’twixt man and man: and tho’ he pursued his own maxims and designs, yet it was in a moderate gentlemanly way. Being descended of a family enemies to monarchy, and educated after that way, and his fortune in bad circumstances, he easily dropped into the court measures, was soon taken notice of, and ... behaved to all men’s satisfaction, studying to understand the laws and constitution of the kingdom … he was endowed with good natural parts, and had much improven them in his younger years by reading; and tho’ he did not much affect to show them in public, yet there were few exceeded him in contriving and carrying on a design, having a clear judgment and ready apprehension. Lockhart Pprs. i. 90.

Loudoun stuck close to Queensberry during the changes that occurred in Scottish politics following Queen Anne’s accession. Appointed as a treasury commissioner in 1702, he then went out with his chief in 1704, and was one of the Queensberryites who in the Scottish parliamentary session of that year supported for tactical reasons the motion on the succession made by James Hamilton, 4th duke of Hamilton [S]. HMC Laing, ii. 45-46, 69, 113. When the ‘new party’ experiment failed, Loudoun was immediately spoken of as a likely candidate for the Scottish secretaryship in a restored ‘old party’ government, and, eventually, after some tortuous negotiations, came in jointly with another of Queensberry’s cronies, John Erskine, 22nd earl of Mar [S], in September 1705. HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 233; Seafield Letters, 53, 89, 170; CSP Dom. 1704-5, p. 339.

One of the most important of the court party nominees to the union commission in 1706, Loudoun made an impressive contribution at the opening of the negotiations, according to his fellow commissioner John Clerk^‡, speaking ‘in a vigorous, manly style’ and displaying ‘no mean knowledge of his country’s laws and customs’. Clerk, Hist. Union ed. Duncan (Scot. Hist. Soc. ser. 5, vi), 86. Thereafter he was indefatigable in discharging his duties, missing only one of the joint meetings of the Scottish and English commissioners. APS, ix. app. 164-90. In recognition of his efforts he was invested in August 1706 with the Order of the Thistle. HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 272. In preparation for the session of the Scottish Parliament that would ratify the treaty, he was active in reassuring Presbyterian opinion, and trying to win over waverers with offers of patronage, including his kinsman John Campbell, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], and the cavalier, John Elphinstone, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], with whom he was on good terms despite their religious and political differences. HEHL, LO 7819; Carstares SP, 748; NLS, ms 9769/19/1/1; HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 303; A.I. Macinnes, Union and Empire, 292. He also played a part in managing local opinion, being involved in the successful suppression of an anti-union address from his county of Ayrshire. Lockhart Mems. 148. He went on to give his own vote for the Treaty, and was selected in the first cohort of representative peers in the united parliament. P.W.J. Riley, Union, 330. According to Mar, there was general agreement among the court party that Loudoun had to be chosen. He was also among the small band of Queensberry’s followers admitted to the British Privy Council in May 1707. HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 371, 393; Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 174. A rumour of advancement in the peerage came to nought, but he was permitted to surrender his titles to the crown and receive a new grant on more favourable terms. HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 389; Douglas, v. 508. More important to him was the continuance of crown emolument. He kept his place as joint secretary until May 1708, when he was made lord keeper of Scotland, with the same salary of £2,000 p.a. Riley, Eng. Ministers and Scot. 29; CTB xxii. 175, 238, 241, 369; xxiii. 258. The 1707 analysis of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], described him as ‘for Revolution but influenced by Queensberry or Argyll’.

Loudoun took his seat in the Lords on 23 Oct. 1707, and was present on 85 days of the session, 79 per cent of the total. He was named to 24 committees, including the drafting committee for a bill to establish a court of exchequer in North Britain (20 Dec.), and a committee to prepare an address of thanks to the queen for laying information before the House concerning the attempted Jacobite invasion (4 Mar. 1708). At the end of November 1707 the Commons began discussing the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council, a prospect that raised considerable alarm in Scotland, particularly among ministers of the established Church. On 16 Dec. William Carstares, principal of Edinburgh University, informed Loudoun ‘that many … ministers seem to think that the redressing of such grievances as the Church may have will be render’d the more difficult by the want of a council’. Before replying, Loudoun consulted Queensberry, Mar, and Argyll’s brother, Archibald Campbell, earl of Ilay [S], and was able to forward a considered opinion against interference by the commission of the general assembly, which was ‘a road so dangerous for the church judicatures that any probability that there may be of good consequences from an address … is not enough to answer the hazardous, if not pernicious, consequences that the meddling in things of that kind may in course of time have’. He was hopeful, however, that ‘the slow forms of passing bills here’ would allow time for serious reflection, so ‘that the council may be continued for one year, which will leave room for the next parliament to reconsider.’ In his view it was unclear ‘that anything can be substitute in its place which in the least can supply the loss of it; in short anything of that kind will in the present circumstances have all the bad effects that are objected to it and none of the good.’ Edinburgh UL, Laing mss, La. II. 577.1. As a result of his intervention the commission did not send up any objections. When the bill for rendering the Union more complete reached the upper House, Loudoun acted as a teller in the committee of the whole on 5 Feb. 1708 against retaining 1 Mar. as the date for the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council, being in favour of delaying it until October. Vernon-Shrewsbury Letters, iii. 341. After the third reading on 7 Feb. he signed the protest against the passage of the bill as a violation of the terms of the Union. He left the House the day before the prorogation on 1 April. On a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain dating from early May 1708, he was classed as a Whig.

Loudoun was active in the 1708 election in Ayrshire and other constituencies, and was accused by the Squadrone of indulging in ‘great threatening and other violent means’ to procure seats for court party candidates. HP Commons, 1690–1715, ii. 831–2; HMC Mar and Kellie, i. 448. He was naturally nominated as a court candidate for the peers’ election and was in Edinburgh beforehand, ‘very busy’ in organizing support for the court list. NLS, ms 1026, f. 23; Priv. Corr. D.M. ii. 272. As Hamilton put it to Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, on 27 May, Mar and Loudoun ‘are both here and very busy. They have great advantages for all the smiles and power is lodged with them’ together with James Ogilvy, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]). Add. 61628, f. 90. Loudoun was easily chosen, and after spending the summer on official business in Edinburgh, arrived in London in time for the opening of Parliament on 16 Nov., prepared to do battle against the Whig Junto and their Scottish allies, the Squadrone. NLS, ms 1026, f. 29; HEHL, LO 8659, LO 8864-5. Loudoun attended on 81 days of the session, 88 per cent of the total. On 18 Nov. a petition was presented on behalf of William Johnston, marquess of Annandale [S] and others against his return and that of other Queensberryites. Loudoun voted on 21 Jan.1709 to support Queensberry’s right to participate in the election even though he now held a British title (as duke of Dover). SHR, lviii. 173. The enquiry into the peers’ election came to an end with a report on 1 Feb. which showed that despite a reduction in the number of his votes Loudoun had retained his seat. On 18 Mar., in a committee of the whole on the bill ‘for improving the Union’ by extending the English treason laws to Scotland, he joined other Scots in unsuccessfully proposing an amendment to specify the laws in question. Haddington mss at Mellerstain, 3, Baillie to wife, 19 Mar. 1709. Eight days later he was again present in the committee where ‘all the Scots’ were against the bill, and on 28 Mar., at the third reading, he signed protests, against the bill in general, and against the particular provision denying a prisoner advance notice of the indictment and list of witnesses. Haddington mss, 3, Baillie to wife, 26 Mar. 1709. During the session he was named to 25 committees, including a conference on the bill to continue the acts against coining (21 Apr. 1709).

Loudoun attended on the opening day of the 1709-10 session, 25 Nov. 1709, and was present on 78 days of the session, 84 per cent of the total, and was named to 19 committees. On 20 Mar. 1710 he voted in favour of the impeachment against Dr Sacheverell, but on the following day opposed denying the doctor ecclesiastical preferment during the period in which he was to be banned from preaching. Thereafter he attended regularly until the prorogation on 5 Apr. and he also attended the prorogations of 18 Apr., 2, 16 May and 1 August. Interestingly, Mar on 6 June felt able to tell his brother, ‘Argyll, Ilay and I are more of a piece than ever and will be so if a new Parliament come especially. The duke of Queensberry and Loudoun are very well with us too’, suggesting that Loudoun had positioned himself astutely in case of ministerial changes. NAS, GD124/15/975/2. Charles Hay^† styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweedale [S]) may have correctly observed the source of Loudoun’s attractiveness to the new administration when he noted on 26 Aug. that Loudoun was likely to continue in employment to allay any apprehensions within the Kirk. NLS, ms 7021, f. 240.

In preparation for the new Parliament, Loudoun assisted Mar in settling, with Hamilton and Argyll, the court list for the peers’ election. Add. 61155, ff. 81-82; HMC Portland, x. 349; D. Szechi, Jacobitism and Tory Pols. 65. Included among the agreed candidates, he left London on 7 Oct. and attended the election on 10 Nov., being duly returned. NLS, ms 7021, f. 247; HMC Portland, x. 351; NLS, ms 1026, f. 62. His unusual political position was reflected in the classification given him by the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain, Richard Dongworth, as a ‘Presb[yterian] Court Tory’. Dongworth also estimated his income at about £2,000 p.a., but added that it was ‘encumbered’. SHR, xl. 62. The need to maintain an income from office explains why Loudoun joined Mar and other former colleagues in giving their allegiance to the Tory administration of Robert Harley, the future earl of Oxford. Scottish Cath. Archs. Blairs Coll. mss, BL 2/168/5 (1); Wodrow, Analecta, i. 319. He had already been allowed £1,000 as ‘royal bounty’ before the election, in response to a memorial to the treasury complaining of arrears of salary, and this additional grant was continued in subsequent years and eventually translated into a pension on the civil list. CTB, xxiv. 84, 414; xxvi. 107; CTP, 1708-14, p. 59; Pols. in Age of Anne 439; Jones, Party and Management, 165. In another analysis of the Scottish representative peers drawn up shortly after the election he was said to be ‘for the succession and the Union’.

On 27 Nov. 1710 Loudoun resumed his seat and was named to the Address committee. In all, he attended on 94 days of the session, 83 per cent of the total and was named to a further 23 committees, including a conference on the safety of the queen’s person (9 Mar. 1711) and a committee to draw up an address following the death of the Emperor (20 April). On 9 Jan. 1711, whilst the Lords were in committee of the whole on the conduct of the war in Spain, Loudoun was probably one of the Scots who ‘did the business’ in giving the ministry a majority of 59-45 in thwarting an attempt to resume the House rather than endorse the testimony of Charles Mordaunt, 3rd earl of Peterborough. Three days later he was probably present to vote in favour of a resolution which blamed the former Whig ministers for the military setbacks in 1707, as ‘all the Scots went one way’. Haddington mss, 3, Baillie to wife, 11, 13 Jan. 1710/11. Also on 5 Feb. he voted against the bill to repeal the General Naturalization Act. NLS, Advocates’ mss, Wodrow pprs. letters Quarto 5, f. 126. When the appeal of the Episcopalian minister James Greenshields was heard on 1 Mar. against a sentence passed against him by the magistrates of Edinburgh for using the liturgy of the Church of England, a number of Scottish peers absented themselves, and it was left to Loudoun alone to champion the magistrates, especially on the question of the regularity of the appeal, which was lost by 68-32, Loudoun being one of ‘only five of the Scots Lords for the delay’ in hearing counsel. Balmerinoch, his opponent on this occasion, observed that Loudoun, ‘to do him justice spoke very modestly, insisting chiefly that the council had so decided often (which was the thing complained of)’. Wodrow letters Quarto 5, ff. 144r, 148r, 153r-4r; Haddington mss, 4, Baillie to wife, 3 Mar. 1711; Scot. Hist. Soc. Misc. xii. 127; NAS, GD 124/15/1020/13. The appeal itself was upheld without a division. After the vote Loudoun wrote to Carstares to reassure him of the unlikelihood of any bills coming forward to advantage the Episcopalian cause. Carstares SP, 80–81. He clearly found it awkward to balance Presbyterian loyalties with allegiance to the ministry: as Defoe commented, when advising Harley on the appointment of a commissioner to the general assembly (for which Loudoun was putting himself forward), Loudoun had ‘a true view of her majesty’s interest’, which tempered his devotion to the Kirk, although he still retained the goodwill of the Presbyterian clergy. Wodrow, Analecta, i. 322; HMC Portland, iv. 661; x. 290. On 21 May Queensberry registered a proxy in Loudoun’s favour.

Loudoun attended the prorogation on 13 Nov. 1711. Later that month he told his kinsman Sir David Dalrymple, 1st bt.^‡ that ‘our first bat of the opening of the Parliament will in all probability be concerning the admission of the duke of Hamilton; folks here talk as if they’d oppose it resolutely.’ But Loudoun did not think Hamilton’s enemies would carry the day: ‘the king of France had never so little to say for the breach of any of his treaties as is to be said in this article concerning the queen’s power of giving and ours of receiving patents’. He admitted that ‘so many of these who are to oppose it have been engaged to procure patents for several Scots peers that they’re resolved, as I’m told, at this time only to insist that none of the sixteen is capable during his being so to be made a peer of Britain’. Loudoun was apprehensive, however, that ‘if once they can find a way to take away the queen’s prerogative, and privilege of the subject, by pretended innuendos and without any foundation in the articles of Union, the consequence of the whole, will but too probably be made to follow upon another occasion’. NLS, ms 16503, f. 36.

Loudoun was heavily involved in the management of Scottish proxies before the opening of the session opened on 7 Dec. 1711 and the expected Whig attack on the peace. On 3 Dec. Balmerinoch signed a proxy in his favour, as did David Carnegie, 4th earl of Northesk [S], on the 7th and William Keith, 8th Earl Marischal [S], on the 8th. Loudoun was present on the 7th, attending on 83 days of the session, 77 per cent of the total, and being named to 11 committees. On 19 Dec. Oxford forecast that Loudoun would support Hamilton’s pretensions to sit in the House as duke of Brandon, and on the 20th Loudoun opposed the resolution that ‘no patent of honour, granted to any peer of Great Britain, who was a peer of Scotland at the time of the Union, can entitle such peer to sit and vote in Parliament’. According to Balmerinoch, Loudoun and Ilay had waited until near the end of the debate when they ‘exerted themselves to the utmost and very handsomely both’. Scot. Hist. Soc. Misc. xii. 145. Loudoun then signed the protest against the resolution as a violation of the royal prerogative, interference in the rights of the subject, and an infringement of the Union. He wrote to Dalrymple that ‘till of late I never expected to have seen this happen, and much less that those who have been the principal managers of it against us would have had any hand in it. I wish they mayn’t have laid the foundation of many misfortunes to this island.’ NLS, ms 16503, ff. 41-42. This concern was taken up in a ‘representation of the peers of Scotland’ presented to the queen on New Year’s Day, to which Loudoun added his name. HMC Laing, ii. 167. He was present in the Lords two days later when ‘Harley’s dozen’ new peers were introduced and the House adjourned after a debate of more than two hours. The Squadrone Member George Baillie^‡ reported that ‘the Scots peers were with the majority but will be no more so unless redressed’. Haddington mss, 4, Baillie to wife, 3 Jan. 1711[-12].

A hardening of Scottish dissatisfaction was also evident in a proposal from Balmerinoch for a meeting of the Estates of Scotland, which would signal a wish to dissolve the Union. Balmerinoch noted on 17 Jan. 1712 that although Loudoun and other Scots peers ‘seem[ed] fond of the notion ... they apprehend it will neither do here nor in Scotland’. Loudoun was probably in attendance at a meeting at Hamilton’s on the 17th, wherein various responses were canvassed, but it was resolved to await the queen’s speech later in the day, which, as promised, mentioned her concern at her Scottish subjects’ dissatisfaction because of ‘the distinction such of them who were peers of Scotland before the Union must lie under, if the prerogative of the crown is strictly barred against them alone’. In response a committee of the whole was ordered for 18 Jan., which also sat on the 21st and 25th. On the morning of 25 Jan. he attended a meeting of Scottish peers at Hamilton’s house. Scot. Hist. Soc. Misc. xii, 140, 145-8. He then went to the Lords, where the committee of the whole produced a resolution, to which the House agreed, confirming that ‘the sitting of the peers of Great Britain, who were peers of Scotland before the Union, in this House, by election, is alterable by Parliament, at the request of the peers of Great Britain who were peers of Scotland before the Union, without any violation of the Union.’ This was a tame end to hopes of concerted ministerial action on their behalf, so after another sitting of the committee of the whole on 4 Feb. Loudoun and his compatriots began a boycott on 7 February. In Loudoun’s case the boycott lasted just two days, as he was present on 9 Feb., allegedly out of respect for the queen, who passed some bills that day, NAS, GD 248/561/47/3. and on 11, 13 and 15 Feb. when the Scottish toleration bill was under discussion (he was absent for the sitting of 14 Feb. when it was not under consideration). He missed five more days, before resuming regular attendance on 27 Feb., the bill having been sent back to the Commons on the 26th, on which day Greenshields confirmed his absence. Add. 22908, ff. 89-90. On 10 Apr. George Hamilton, earl of Orkney, registered a proxy in favour of Loudoun. This may have been related to a bill ‘to restore the patrons to their ancient rights of presenting ministers to the churches vacant in ... Scotland’, which was brought up from the Commons early in April. Loudoun delivered in a petition on this bill from the commission of the general assembly of the Church of Scotland, which was heard on 12 Apr. before the second reading. Wodrow letters Quarto 6, f. 160. A debate took place at the committal, as to whether the bill ‘was not contrary to the Kirk establishment by the Union’, a proposition which Loudoun ‘most manfully asserted’. BLJ, xix. 161. In the division he voted in the minority against committal, earning the thanks of the synod of Glasgow. Add. 22908, f. 92; Wodrow letters Quarto 6, ff. 160, 162. On 14 May he chaired the committee of the whole on the bill to prevent abuses in making linen cloth, and regulating the lengths and breadths, and equal sorting of yarn, for each piece made in Scotland, which he reported without amendment.

In April Loudoun had supported the bill to resume grants of land made by the crown since 1688. Haddington mss, 5, Baillie to Montrose 20 May 1712; Wodrow, Analecta, ii. 57. At the third reading on 20 May all the Scots lords were in favour except Argyll, Ilay, and Walter Stuart, 6th Lord Blantyre [S], and Loudoun cast Orkney’s proxy against the bill ‘though he [Loudoun] was for it himself.’ Haddington mss, 5, Baillie to Roxburghe, 22 May 1712. On 28 May he opposed a proposal for an address to the queen requesting an order for her forces to take offensive action against the French. He attended the Lords until the adjournment of 21 June, and the prorogations of 8 and 31 July. He then travelled to Edinburgh for the election on 14 Aug. of a peer to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Earl Marischal, being one of only four Scottish peers to make the journey. Wodrow letters Quarto 6, f. 203. He was also at Holyrood on 13 Jan. 1713 for a second by-election, this time caused by Hamilton’s death.

Loudoun had returned to London by 17 Feb. 1713, when he attended the prorogation, as he did also on 3, 10, 17 and 26 March. On a calculation of around this date, in the hand of Swift, but amended by Oxford, Loudoun was noted as likely to support the ministry. He was present when the session began on 9 April. By the end of April Scots in both Houses were becoming increasingly concerned at the introduction into the Commons of a bill to extend the malt tax to Scotland. Judging that this was yet another infringement of the Union, they decided on drastic action. Like other Scottish ministers, Loudoun found himself in a difficulty. He could not avoid attending meetings that were called by opponents of the tax, but to begin with acted cautiously and reserved his position. Lockhart Letters, 72-74, 79; Scot. Hist. Soc. Misc. xii. 114. When, on 1 June, the fourth earl of Findlater, as Seafield had become, moved for leave to bring in a bill to dissolve the Union, Loudoun ‘spoke well’ in support of the motion, but then argued for postponing a decision. NAS, GD 150/3461/9; Scot. Hist. Soc. Misc. xii. 155; Cobbett, Parl. Hist. vi. 1219. Given Whig reluctance to support the substantive proposal, this was the only way forward, but the ministry forced a vote with the result that Findlater’s original motion was defeated. The malt bill was then delivered to the Lords on 3 June. Two days later the Scots proposed unsuccessfully to delay consideration of a second reading, Loudoun voting with the minority. Although Loudoun signed a protest on 8 June against the bill, Balmerinoch was unimpressed by his contribution: in the debates on 5 and 8 June Loudoun did not ‘open his mouth (that I remember) yet was very cordial in the thing, but he said the subject was exhausted.’ Scot. Hist. Soc. Misc. xii. 161. Around 13 June, Oxford was thinking that Loudoun would support the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. Loudoun continued to attend until the prorogation on 16 July, having been present on 60 days of the session, 91 per cent of the total, and named to ten committees. In the summer he lost his place as lord keeper when the lord chancellorship of Scotland was revived for Findlater, but he was ‘made easy’ by payment of his arrears and the continuance of his pension on the civil list. Riley, Eng. Ministers and Scot. 247; HMC Portland, x. 302; CTB xxvii. 27, 255, 323, 382, 547.

At the election of the representative peers on 8 Oct. 1713 Loudoun voted in person for the court list, in which he had secured a place despite rumours that he would be displaced by more strongly Tory candidates. Wodrow, Analecta, ii. 237. The choice was unanimous, with Argyll and the Squadrone absenting themselves. Riley, Eng. Ministers and Scot. 250. On a list analysing the election returns sent to Hanover on 9 Feb. 1714, Loudoun was classed as a Hanoverian. He left Edinburgh before 9 Feb., but did not attend the first two days of the session on 16 and 18 February. NAS, GD. 248/561/50/26. He took his seat in the Lords on 23 Feb., but on 17 Mar. registered a proxy in favour of Orkney (being absent on 15, 17, 19 Mar., when the House adjourned for Easter). When the House resumed on 31 Mar., Loudoun was in attendance. He was present on 5 Apr. when the House considered the motion that the succession was not in danger, and a proposal to add the words ‘under her Majesty’s government’ was carried, with all the Scots present voting in favour. Wodrow letters Quarto 8, f. 82. Even though Loudoun was still seeking payment of arrears of salary, it was now being rumoured that he had ‘left the court’. CTP 1714-19, p. 59; Wodrow letters Quarto 8, f. 97. This comment may well have been prompted by Loudoun’s vote on 13 Apr. on the losing side along with other pro-Hanoverians such as Montagu Venables Bertie, 2nd earl of Abingdon, Arthur Annesley, 4th earl of Anglesey, and William Dawes, archbishop of York, against the insertion of the words ‘and industriously’ to the phrase about fears for the succession being spread throughout the kingdom. Add. 47087, f. 68; Haddington mss, 6, Baillie to wife, 13 Apr. 1714.

Forecast by Daniel Finch^* [877], 2nd earl of Nottingham, as likely to oppose the schism bill, Loudoun voted on 4 June in favour of an unsuccessful attempt to allow counsel for Protestant Dissenters to be heard against the bill. On 9 June he supported a proposed amendment to omit some words and thereby allow Dissenting academies to continue teaching Latin, but this was rejected. Wodrow letters Quarto 8, ff. 131, 133. According to Baillie, Loudoun supported two amendments in the committee of the whole, also on 9 June, ‘one allowing school mistresses without the qualification of the act and the other for allowing of appeals from the justices of the peace’, both of which were carried. Haddington mss, 6, Baillie to wife, 10 June 1714. Loudoun was present when the Parliament was prorogued on 9 July, having attended on 67 days of the session, 88 per cent of the total, and been named to seven committees.

Following the queen’s death on 1 Aug. 1714, Loudoun took the oaths promptly, and on 9 Aug. received a proxy from Mar. He was present on 13 Aug. when the lord justices’ speech was read, and in all attended on nine days of the short session, 60 per cent of the total. He also attended the prorogation of 21 October. A month later he presented a loyal address from the burgh of Ayr to George I. Carnegie Lib. Ayr, Ayr burgh recs. B6/36/2, bdle 1714, Provost [R. Moore] to Loudoun, 25 Sept. 1714. He was elected again in 1715 and henceforth attached himself to his clan chief, Argyll, with whom he served as a volunteer at the battle of Sheriffmuir and with whom he acted in the Lords. HEHL, LO 11180. His parliamentary and official career after 1715 will be examined in the second part of this work.

Loudon died on 20 Nov. 1731.