Note 252 — Chapter XIII
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William Keith, Earl Marichal, engaged in the rebellion of 1715. When he came out of the King’s closet, and was asked what the King had said, he replied in the words of the old ballad,
“The King looked over his left shoulder, And a grim look looked he, And cried ‘Earl Marshal, but for my oath, Or hanged thou should’st be.’”
Lord Marichal was afterwards in the service of the King of Prussia, and Governor of Neufchatel. He was pardoned by King George the Third. He is one of the few persons whom Frederick appears to have really loved. He was a philosopher after the fashion of that monarch, but a more practical and amiable one; for he bore the loss of rank and wealth, and the various discomforts of a long and almost hopeless exile, with unostentatious cheerfulness, conducting himself all the while so prudently, that amidst his many political opponents he had not a single personal enemy. The general esteem that followed him through life afterwards attached to his memory; and his name is rarely to be found mentioned in the works of his contemporaries without some expressions showing an earnest desire to represent him in the fairest colours. D’Alembert wrote an éloge in his honour. His brother, Marshal Keith, was a man of far superior ability, and his exile was a serious loss to the British army. Lord Marichal died at Potsdam in 1778, in his eighty-sixth year.—Wood’s Peerage of Scotland.—E.