Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Keith, Robert (d.1774)
KEITH, ROBERT (d. 1774), ambassador, was only son of Colonel Keith of Craig, Kincardineshire, by Agnes, daughter of Robert Murray of Murrayshall, Stirlingshire. His father was seventh in descent from John Keith, fourth son of William, second earl Marischal. Robert was for some time secretary to the forces under the Earl of Stair. About August 1746 he was made secretary to John Montagu, fourth earl of Sandwich [q. v.], went with him to the Hague, and accompanied him to the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. In August 1748 he was appointed British minister at Vienna (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 32814, ff. 59, 93), in succession to Sir Thomas Robinson [q. v.], and conducted with credit, though without much success, the negotiations regarding the imperial election of 1752, and the alliances which preceded the seven years' war. He was throughout a firm friend to Newcastle. At the end of 1753 he was raised to the rank of minister plenipotentiary (ib. 15874, f. 237). In 1758 he was transferred to St. Petersburg, where he remained through the revolution of 1762. An intrigue among certain members of the diplomatic service failed in its object of fastening upon him a charge of improper conduct with the Czarina Catherine; but when Catherine II ascended the throne the Russian government requested that a nobleman should take his place, and he returned to England in July 1762. He was apparently granted a pension of 1,000l. a year, and obtained supporters to his arms 17 March 1769 (Cal. Home Office Papers, 1766–9, Nos. 1121, 1424). For the first ten years of his retirement he lived at the Hermitage, near Edinburgh, devoting himself to gardening. His large circle of friends included Hume and Robertson, with whom, as ‘Ambassador Keith,’ he was very popular. Shortly before his death he removed to a house in St. Andrews Square, and he died there 21 Sept. 1774. By his wife Margaret, second daughter of Sir William Cunningham of Caprington, Ayrshire, he had two sons, Sir Robert Murray Keith [q. v.], who is separately noticed, and Sir Basil Keith, who served in the navy, and died governor of Jamaica in Aug. 1777. His daughter, Anne Murray Keith (1736–1818), is introduced under the name of Mrs. Bethune Baliol into the ‘Introduction to the Chronicles of Canongate.’ Scott, writing of her death, said that ‘much tradition, and of the very best kind,’ had died with her; she was known in Edinburgh as ‘Sister Anne.’
A very large number of Keith's letters are preserved among the Addit. MSS. at the British Museum. They give a complete account of his negotiations, and are mostly addressed to the Duke of Newcastle. Some of his letters are printed in ‘Memoirs of Sir Robert Murray Keith,’ 1849, vol. i.
[Mrs. Gillespie Smyth's Memoirs, &c., of Sir Robert Murray Keith, vol. i.; Anderson's Scottish Nation, ii. 587; Grenville Corresp. i. 421; Carlyle's Collected Works, xxvi. 418, xxvii. 22, xxix. 275; Coxe's Memoirs of the Pelham Administration, i. 452, 465, ii. 118; Coxe's House of Austria, ii. 162, 387; Walpole's Letters, ii. 48, iv. 9, 13; Keith's Corresp.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.171
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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