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Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe one is not able to resign a knighthood. -- Daniel C. Boyer 14:29, 16 June 2007 (UTC) reply

I don't see anything in his biography to justify the description of him as an American colonist; he seems to have spent his whole life in Europe. I know he was Governor of Virginia, but that really doesn't show anything; Virginia (and a few other colonies) had plenty of noble governors who were absentee, with their lieutenant governors governing in their place. Binabik80 ( talk) 18:43, 14 April 2011 (UTC) reply

(1) I'm genuinely struggling to understand the relevance of most of this content to a biography of Albemarle;

(2) It contains a large number of non-neutral POV statements;

(3) Is almost entirely unsourced; and

(4) Grammar.

If this is the first attempt by a new editor, I'm happy to help; let me know.

Robinvp11 ( talk) 15:35, 30 March 2019 (UTC) reply

In 1902, Charles Sanford Terry edited and published for the University of Aberdeen a two-volume work entitled The Albemarle Papers: being the correspondence of William Anne, Second Earl of Albemarle, Commander-in-Chief in Scotland...1746-1748. The documents reproduced in these two volumes 'have long been held by the National Archives in Kew (the former Public Record Office), but in the Keppel family archive at the Suffolk County Record Office, in Ipswich, there is a further collection of the second Earl of Albemarle's papers dating from 1746 and 1747; these were unknown until they were discovered in April 2018 by Charles Villiers, a great-grandson of the ninth Earl of Albemarle. The documents in Ipswich shed new light on the life and character of Albemarle and, in particular, on the role he played in the events leading up to Charles Edward Stuart's escape from Scotland and return to France in the autumn of 1746.

The Jacobite Rising of 1745, commonly known as the "Forty Five", was the last attempt by the Jacobites, as the supporters of the Royal House of Stuart were known, to regain the British throne. Lieutenant-General William Anne Keppel, second Earl of Albemarle, who was already (as mentioned above) a veteran of the Battles of Dettingen and Fontenoy in the War of the Austrian Succession, and his eldest son George, Viscount Bury, later third Earl of Albemarle (1724–72), both fought on 16 April 1746 at the Battle of Culloden, at which the largely Catholic Jacobite forces (No) led by the grandson of King James II (VII of Scotland), Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender ("Bonnie Prince Charlie"), were decisively defeated by the largely Protestant Hanoverian forces, bringing the Rising to an end. At this battle the Hanoverian forces were commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, the third and youngest son of King George II, who had also fought at Dettingen and Fontenoy, with Lord Albemarle commanding the first line of Cumberland's army, with the Duke being Commander-in-Chief of HM Forces in North Britain (i.e. Scotland). After Culloden, Albemarle succeeded Cumberland as Commander in Chief in North Britain and, thereby, became the effective military governor of Britain north of the Border.

Included in the booty awarded to the two fighting Keppels were a thousand guineas in gold and the silver-gilt travelling canteen of Bonnie Prince Charlie, decorated with the Prince of Wales's badge of three ostrich feathers and the collar and badge of the Order of the Thistle, which was sold by Derek, Lord Bury (the son of the ninth earl of Albemarle), in 1963, and is now on display in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

One of the documents in Ipswich is a Warrant & Authority dated 17 July 1746 empowering Albemarle "to hold or appoint Courts Martial" and "cause the sentences of the same to be executed". This document on thickly laid paper is as pristine as the day it was signed "William" by the Duke of Cumberland and carries a large seal of crimson wax impressed with the royal arms differenced with a mullet (five-pointed star), denoting him as a third son. This event took place at the erstwhile Government stronghold of Fort Augustus at the southwest end of Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands, that had been reoccupied by the Hanoverians after its capture and burning by the Jacobites just before Culloden. Also present was Sir Everard Fawkener (1694-1758), Cumberland's personal secretary, who drafted, made the fair copy and countersigned in his own handwriting the Warrant & Authority. Cumberland's choice of the well-travelled and urbane Sir Everard as his secretary suggests that "Butcher Cumberland", or "Butcher Billy" as he was sometimes known was not the uncultured brute he is frequently made out to have been.

Another Ipswich document drafted, copied and countersigned by Sir Everard is a second sealed Warrant & Authority addressed to one "Anthony Sawyer Esq'r, Deputy Pay Master General of His Majesty's Forces in North Britain" commanding him to accept any and all of Albemarle's "warrants for money on account". This was also issued in July 1746 in the dilapidated surroundings of Fort Augustus. On this document blood-red droplets of sealing wax have spilled across part of the page, and William's signature has needed blotting.

Within a month of taking over from Cumberland (an appointment Albemarle had initially resisted, complaining to the Duke of Newcastle that he would thereby be kept in "the worst country existing"), Albemarle had left Fort Augustus and relocated his headquarters in Edinburgh. Meanwhile, the Young Pretender had become a fugitive, with the enormous price of thirty thousand pounds on his head, payable "to any person who shall seize and secure the eldest son of the [Old] Pretender...in any of His Majesty's Dominions", and was forced to wander about the Highlands under various disguises. But although many people knew where he was, nobody was found to betray him. The best known of the people who offered Charles asylum was Flora Macdonald, with whom he sailed in a small boat to Skye rather inadequately and ridiculously disguised as her maid under the name of Betty Burke.

As a result of Albemarle's arrest and imprisonment of Flora Macdonald in October 1746, some Scots maintained that "what a German (Cumberland) began, a Dutchman (Albemarle) finished". Strictly speaking, this was not true since both Cumberland and Albemarle were born and bred in England, (is this really relevant?) but in any case the Ipswich documents give a picture of a much less abrasive character. For example, a letter dated 10 September 1746 sent to Albemarle in Edinburgh by a clergyman named A. Bannatyne, who was the minister of Dores, a parish on the south shore of Loch Ness, states that he has "had the Honour to be witness of several acts of Justice, Goodness, and Clemency done by your Lordship for the miserable Common People who had been dragg'd out with much violence and oppression to the wicked and unnatural Rebellion". Another letter to Albemarle, dated 15 November 1746, from the banker and Liveryman of the Goldsmiths' Company, Sir Richard Hoare, who was Lord Mayor of London in that year, concerns the charitable allocation of warm clothes to Scotland "for the use of the soldiers intended to reside there this Winter, giving the preference to the most infirm".

In the Ipswich archive are six contemporary handwritten copies of the intelligence reports that were sent to Albemarle in the weeks immediately preceding 20 September 1746 and were also at some point extracted from the main body of his State Papers pertaining to Scotland. They imply that Albemarle, in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief in North Britain, was directly involved in the hunt for the Young Pretender, whose escape to France took place on his watch. One of these six reports was sent to Albemarle by Kenneth Mackenzie, Lord Fortrose, Chief of Clan Mackenzie, one by Colin Mackenzie, described as a "Captain of an Independent Company", two by John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun, one by a Mr Campbell, Deputy Chamberlain to the Duke of Argyll (presumably the third Duke, Archibald Campbell), and one by an unnamed "Informer", writing from "the Hills". They reveal that the Government had been alerted to Charles's whereabouts in several places as early as 6 September 1746, two weeks before he escaped to France, and that it was known that two frigates from France had earlier arrived on the west coast of Scotland to take him and his followers away. This comprehensive intelligence was not acted upon while Albemarle was in charge of the hunt, so that Charles and several of his followers were able to escape from Loch nan Uamh on 20 September aboard one of the French frigates.

Robinvp11 ( talk) 14:40, 18 June 2019 (UTC) reply