Keith, George

Related Category: British and Irish History: Biographies

1693?–1778, Scottish Jacobite, 10th earl marischal [marshal] of Scotland. He took part in the Jacobite uprising of 1715 and after its failure escaped to the Continent. A leader of the Spanish expedition to Scotland (1719) in behalf of the Old Pretender, he again escaped. Later he joined his brother James Francis Edward Keith in Prussia and rose high in the favor of Frederick the Great, who appointed him ambassador to Paris (1751), governor of Neuchâtel (1752), and ambassador to Spain (1758). Although pardoned by George II of Britain, he spent most of the remainder of his life in Prussia.