ARCHIBALD, third Duke of Argyle, was born at Ham, in Surrey, in June 1682, and resided in England until he was about seventeen years of age, when he was sent to the University of Glasgow. From thence he went to Utrecht, and made considerable advancement in the study of civil law, intending to practise in that profession. Upon his father’s advancement to the Dukedom of Argyle on the 23d of June 1701, his son Archibald embraced a military life, and served under the Duke of Marlborough. In 1705 he was constituted Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, and in the Parliament of that year, in which his brother John, who had succeeded his father as Duke of Argyle two years previously, presided as Lord High Commissioner, he sat and voted as such upon the Queen’s letter; he was nominated one of the Commissioners for the Treaty of Union in 1706, and on the 19th of October of that year was created by patent, dated at Kensington, Earl and Viscount of Ilay, Lord Oransay, Dunoon, and Arrase. This nobleman was one of the sixteen representatives of the Scottish peerage, chosen by Parliament on the 13th of February 1707, and was re-chosen at every general election until his decease, with the single exception of the last Parliament of Queen Anne’s reign. The Earl of Ilay, upon his brother’s resignation, was, on the 1st of June 1708, sworn and admitted one of the extraordinary Lords of Session, being, says Fountainhall, “the best school of law for the nobility to learn that is in Europe.” On the 23d of March 1709 Her Majesty Queen Anne appointed the Earl of Ilay to be Colonel of the THIRTY-SIXTH regiment. The governorship of Dumbarton Castle was also conferred upon his Lordship. Finding that a statesman’s career was more congenial to his taste than the military profession, he quitted the army and resigned the colonelcy of the THIRTY-SIXTH regiment in 1710. With his accustomed assiduity his Lordship employed himself in the acquisition of political knowledge. In 1710 he was appointed Lord Justice General of Scotland, and was sworn a Privy Councillor in the following year. Upon the accession of George I. the Earl of Ilay was constituted Lord Clerk Register; and on the breaking out of the rebellion in 1715 he again betook himself to arms in defence of the reigning family. By his prudent conduct in the Western Highlands he prevented General Gordon at the head of three thousand men, from penetrating into the country and raising levies. He joined his brother the Duke of Argyle on the 13th of November 1715, half an hour before the battle of Sheriffmuir, where he was wounded.