Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/309

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Montgomerie
303
Montgomerie

gomerie was appointed lieutenant-colonel commandant 4 Jan. 1757. He took the regiment out to America, where it formed the advance in the second expedition to Fort Duquesne, under Brigadier-general Forbes, in 1758, and afterwards went through much adventurous service in the remote wilds of the neighbouring country. Montgomerie was sent with twelve hundred men against the Cherokees; he destroyed Estatoe and other Indian villages, and defeated the Indians in a pitched battle at Etchocy in 1760, and again at War-Woman's Creek in 1761. He was put on half-pay when his regiment was disbanded in 1764. In 1769 he was appointed colonel 51st foot, and succeeded his elder brother, Alexander, tenth earl [q. v.], in the earldom the same year. He became a major-general in 1772, lieutenant-general in 1777, and governor of Edinburgh Castle in 1782. He died a full general and colonel of the Scots greys 30 Oct. 1796. Eglinton married, first, in 1772, Lady Jean Lindsay, eldest daughter of George, eighteenth earl of Crawford, who died childless; secondly, in 1783, Frances, only daughter of Sir William Twysden, bart., of Roydon Hall, Kent, by whom he had two daughters. The elder, Mary, married Archibald, lord Montgomerie, eldest son of Hugh, twelfth earl [q. v.], a kinsman who succeeded to the title, while most of the family estates passed to Lady Mary. The eleventh earl's widow remarried Francis, brother of General Sir John Moore [q. v.]

[Foster's Peerage, under 'Eglinton' and 'Winton;' Army Lists; Stewart's Scottish Highlanders, ii. 59 et seq.; Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, ii. 158, and Conspiracy of Pontiac, vol. ii.]

H. M. C.

MONTGOMERIE, ARCHIBALD WILLIAM, thirteenth Earl of Eglinton, and first Earl of Winton in the peerage of the United Kingdom (1812–1861), born at Palermo in Sicily on 29 Sept. 1812, was the elder son of Major-general the Hon. Archibald Montgomerie, lord Montgomerie, by his wife, Lady Mary Montgomerie, the elder daughter of Archibald, eleventh earl of Eglinton [q. v.] His father died at Alicante on 4 Jan. 1814, and on 30 Jan. 1815 his mother became the wife of Sir Charles Montolieu Lamb, bart. He was educated at Eton, and succeeded to the peerage on the death of his grandfather, Hugh, twelfth earl of Eglinton [q. v.], in December 1819. Eglinton took his seat in the House of Lords as Baron Ardrossan on 1 May 1834 (Journals of the House of Lords, lxvi. 193), and in December 1840 was served heir male general of George, fourth earl of Winton, the fifth earl, who was attainted in 1716, having left no issue. Eglinton was appointed lord-lieutenant and sheriff principal of Ayrshire on 17 Aug. 1842, and at the opening of parliament in February 1843 he seconded the address in the House of Lords (Parl. Debates, 3rd ser. lxvi. 15-19). He was chosen one of the whips of the protection party in the House of Lords in 1846, and spoke against the second reading of the Corn Importation Bill on 28 May in that year (ib. lxxxvi. 1355–9). In April 1847 he obtained the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the regulations relating to the elections of the Scottish representative peers (ib. xcii. 201–3), and in the same session carried through the house a bill for the correction of the abuses which prevailed at those elections (10 & 11 Vict. cap. 52). In May 1848 he opposed the second reading of the Jewish Disabilities Bill (ib. xcviii. 1384–6). Upon the formation of Lord Derby's first administration [see Stanley, Edward Geoffrey, fourteenth Earl of Derby] Eglinton was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and was sworn a member of the privy council (27 Feb. 1852). His open-handed hospitality made him an exceedingly popular viceroy among the upper classes in Ireland, and upon his retirement from office in December 1852 it was asserted that no lord-lieutenant since the Duke of Northumberland in 1829–30 [see Percy Hugh, third Duke of Northumberland] had kept up the viceregal court in such a princely style. He was invested with the order of the Thistle at Buckingham Palace on 18 June 1853. In February 1854 a select committee was appointed by the House of Lords at Eglinton's instance to inquire into the practical working of the system of national education in Ireland (ib. cxxx. 783–790). On Lord Derby's return to power Eglinton was again appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland (26 Feb. 1858). He resigned office with the rest of his colleagues in June 1859, and was created Earl of Winton in the peerage of the United Kingdom on the 25th of the same month. Eglinton spoke for the last time in the House of Lords on 11 July 1861 (ib. clxiv. 690). He died of apoplexy at Mount Melville House, near St. Andrews, the residence of J. Whyte Melville, on 4 Oct. 1861, aged 49, and was buried in the family vault at Kilwinning, Ayrshire, on the llth of the same month.

Eglinton was a high-minded nobleman and a thorough sportsman, with frank and genial manners, and no particular ability. In August 1839 he held the famous tournament at Eglinton Castle, described by Disraeli in 'Endymion' (vol. ii. chap, xxiii.), and presided over by Lady Seymour (after-