William Keith, 2nd Earl of Kintore

William Keith, 2nd Earl of Kintore (1660 – 5 December 1718), was a Scottish nobleman.

Early life He was the only son born to John Keith, 1st Earl of Kintore and the former Lady Margaret Hamilton. His two sisters were Lady Jean Keith (the wife of Sir William Forbes, 4th Baronet of Monymusk) and Lady Margaret Keith (the wife of Maj. Gavin Hamilton of Raploch).

His paternal grandparents were William Keith, 6th Earl Marischal, and Lady Mary Erskine (the eldest daughter of John Erskine, 19th and de jure 2nd Earl of Mar and, his second wife, Marie Stewart, the daughter of Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox). His mother was the only child, born posthumously, of Thomas Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Haddington by his second wife Lady Jean Gordon (the third daughter of George Gordon, 2nd Marquess of Huntly and Lady Anne Campbell, herself a daughter of Archibald Campbell, 7th Earl of Argyll).

Career Beginning in 1714, he was a Knight Marischal of Scotland. Lord Kintore was a Tory and a Jacobite, and took part in the 1715 rising fighting at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. The rising, which is also known as Lord Mar's Revolt, which was the attempt by James Francis Edward Stuart to regain the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland for the exiled House of Stuart.

Upon his father's death in April 1715, he succeeded as the 2nd Earl of Kintore.

Descendants In 1761, on the death of his youngest son, the 4th Earl, the earldom should have passed under the terms of the 1694 regrant to his cousin George Keith, 10th and last Earl Marischal, as heir male of George Keith, 8th Earl Marischal, the elder brother of John Keith, 1st Earl of Kintore; however, he had been attainted for his part in the 1715 rising and so the earldom of Kintore remained suspended until the death of the 10th Earl Marischal on 28 May 1778, when it was inherited by the heir general of the 4th Earl of Kintore, Anthony Adrian Falconer, 7th Lord Falconer of Halkerton (a grandson of the 2nd Earl's daughter Lady Catherine), who became the 5th Earl of Kintore.