Marischal, George Keith, 9th Earl
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- Marischal, George Keith, 9th Earl
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(1693 - 1778), e. s. of 8th E. Marischal; suc. fa. 1712 as 9th E. [CP]; Jacobite officer, out in 1715, attainted 1716; in Spain 1719 - c.1746, Vienna c.1746, and Prussia c.1747; Prussian amb. Paris 1751 - 4, and Spain 1758 - 60; pardoned by George II, returned to Scotland 1760 inheriting his estates; returned to Prussia 1764, where he d. unm.
1720 Genoa (20 Jan.), Leghorn, Pisa, Florence, Siena, Rome (6 weeks), Leghorn, Genoa (6 weeks) [Spain]
1730 Rome ( - Oct. 1730)
1731 - 3 Rome (summer - Nov. 1731), Leghorn (Jan. 1732), Rome (by 6 May - Oct. 1732 - ), Venice (Mar. 1733), Milan
1736 Rome (Jan.)
1746 - 7 Venice (Jan. 1746), Treviso ( - Nov. 1747 - )
1759 Genoa
[1776 Florence (4 May), Venice (14 May)]
[1778 Mantua (by 5 Feb.)]
After the failure of the 1715 rebellion, the 9th and last Earl Marischal, a staunch Jacobite, retired to the Continent. He spent most of the remainder of his life abroad, in Spain and then in Prussia where he became a favourite of Frederick the Great. He made several short visits to Italy, initially to the Jacobite court in Rome while he was based in Spain. The first was immediately after the failure of the Jacobite expedition to Scotland which he had commanded. With his younger brother, James Keith, he arrived by sea at Genoa in January 1720; they sailed on to Leghorn, stopping at Portofino to visit Cardinal Alberoni. Passing through Pisa, Florence and Siena they came to Rome and lodged near the Piazza di Spagna ('Sigr Keich' and 'Milord Mareschal').1 After six weeks the brothers returned to Leghorn and thence again to Genoa. After a further six weeks they sailed back to Spain.2
Keith was again in Rome in 1730, but was reported as leaving in October, 'in high disgust of [James] Murray's administration'.3 Then in May 1731 he set out from Seville to return to Rome where he spent the summer at the Jacobite court. On 1 August he wrote to his brother that he would 'much rather live among the Calmucks, encamping with them, than lead this life',4 but he appears to have stayed on, apparently in some sort of official capacity. There is a letter from him while acting secretary to the Pretender, dated Rome, 22 August 1731, and Stosch referred to the 'Earl Marshal' in Rome in November.5 Early in January 1732 he was reported to have left Leghorn for Rome,6 where he remained until at least October, probably, as Elizeus Burges suggested, because 'he don't know where else to go'.7 There are letters from him written in Rome on 6 May and 30 October 1732,8 and one of his portraits, attributed to Placido Costanzi in or before 1733, was probably painted in Rome (NPG).
In March 1733 he came to Venice from Rome en route for Milan and perhaps Paris and Spain.9 In January 1736 Stosch reported that the Earl Marischal was again expected in Rome, where he would stay in the Pretender's palace; he had commissioned Costanzi to paint a battle scene between an old Scottish King and the English10 (The Battle of Bannockburn).
In January 1746 he arrived in Venice 'from Muscovy. He calls himself Baron Keith [and has] taken a house in a remote part of the town, where, he says, he hopes to be allowed to pass the remainder of his days in quiet, being tired of the world'.(11) He bought a summer house at Treviso and found a sympathetic companion in Lord Elcho. He was still in Treviso in November 1747, but left soon after to join his brother at the Prussian Court in Berlin. In 1751 Cosmo Alexander in Rome was buying Costanzi's prints and drawings for him, and completing the Bannockburn picture.
In 1759 he visited Genoa as he travelled from Neufch?tel to London.(12)
The following references may also refer to George Keith: 'Barone di Keith, prussiano' was in Florence on 4 May 1776,13 and a 'Miledo Eith e figlia' arrived in Venice on 14 May, though it is not known that he ever had a daughter.14 Lord Keith wrote in French from Mantua on 5 February 1778 to deny having been involved in a fracas with another officer, as reported in the Gazzetta Toscana (though he was then eighty-two years old and d. on 28 May that year).15
1. AVR sa, S.Lorenzo in Lucina. 2. See E.E. Cuthell, Scottish Friend of Frederic the Great, 1:129 - 33. Also Tayler 1941, 73 - 96. 3. SP 98/34 (Skinner, 18 Oct. 1730). 4. Cuthell (at n1), 152 - 8. 5. Tayler 1941, 79. SP 98/32, f.307 (1 Dec. 1731). 6. SP 98/36 (Skinner, 2 Jan. 1732). 7. SP 99/63, f.212 (Burges, 26 Sep. 1732). 8. Cuthell (at n1), 161, 167. 9. SP 99/63, f.222 (Burges, 13 Mar. 1733). 10. SP 98/37, f.315 (Walton, 28 Jan. 1736). 11. Cuthell (at n1), 224 - 5 (Gray, 6 Jan. 1746), and see 225 - 31. Elcho, Short Account, 111, 117, 119. 12. D'Alembert, Oeuvres, [1805], 5:437. 13. Gazz.Tosc. 14. ASV is 760. 15. Genoa cons.corr.mss.