The Scot in America

66 and was bred a soldier. In 1690 he was made a Colonel and two years later was in command of the Royal Scots Regiment. His skill and bravery in the field, in Ireland and Flanders, commended him to King William, who awarded him the rank of Brigadier General, and in 1696 conferred on him the old Scotch title of Earl of Orkney. To complete his happiness, the King gave the wife of the new peer a grant of most of the private estates in Ireland of King James II. Queen Anne was profuse in her favors to the Earl of Orkney, who served with distinction in her wars, under Marl- borough, and helped very materially to win such victories as Blenheim, Ramillies, and Oudenarde. She commissioned him a Lieutenant General, made him a Privy Councillor, a Knight of the Thistle, and he was one of the peers of Scotland who were returned to Parliament after the Union. King George I. continued the series of royal favors which marked the career of this favorite of fortune. He appointed him a " Gentleman Extraordinary " of the Bedchamber, an honorary office which gave the Earl a position at Court; Governor of Edinburgh Castle, Lord Lieutenant of Lanarkshire, a Field Marshal, and he died at London in 1737, in possession of all his faculties and honors. Another of the honorary offices held by this much favored individual was that of Governor of Virginia. The Earl of Orkney never saw America and knew nothing i of Virginia except its name, and probably cared little : about it except for t... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.