Ayrshire > Volume 2

230 HISTORY OF AYRSHIRE
laws and conditions of the Kingdom, and determine
accordingly." On the accession of Queen Anne he was
again sworn a member of the Scotch Privy Council, and
from 1702-4 served as one of the Commissioners of the
Scotch Treasury. In 1704 he was appointed Joint
Secretary of State with the Marquis of Annandale, and
later with the Earl of Mar. In March, 1706, he was
made one of the Commissioners for the Union, and on
August 10, 1707, was invested at Windsor with the
Order of the Thistle. He was also appointed Keeper of
the Great Seal of Scotland during the Queen's pleasure,
May 25, 1708, and the same year was sworn a member
of the English Privy Council. In addition to his salary
of £3000, the Queen granted him a pension of £2000 a
year. In 1713, disapproving of some of the measures
of the Tory Administration, he was deprived of the office
of Keeper of the Great Seal. The year following, on the
accession of George I., he was again sworn a Privy
Councillor, and in 1715 was appointed Lord-Lieutenant
of Ayrshire. He fought as a volunteer, and with great
gallantry, under the second Duke of Argyll, at the
battle of Sheriffmuir. In 1722, 1725, 1726, 1728, and
1731 he acted as Lord High Commissioner to the General
Assembly of the Church of Scotland. In 1727 he
received a pension of £2000 a year for life. At the
Union, and at ?ix following general elections, he was
chosen one of the sixteen Scotch Representative Peers.
He died November 20, 173 1. The third Earl married,
1700, Lady Margaret Dalrymple, daughter of John,
first Earl of Stair, by whom he had a son, who succeeded
him, and two daughters.
On the death of the Earl the Countess took up her
residence at Sorn Castle and set herself to the improving
and the beautifying of the estate with an ardour and a
success that gave her a high place among the agricultural
and aboricultural pioneers of Ayrshire. " Besides her
personal charms, which were considerable, she had,"
says the " Statistical Account," " acquired a large portion
of those mental and liberal accomplishments which so