Charles Douglas, 3rd Duke of Queensberry, 2nd Duke of Dover, (24 November 169822 October 1778[1]) was a Scottish nobleman, extensive landowner, Privy Counsellor and Vice Admiral of Scotland.
Charles was born in Queensberry House in Edinburgh on 24 November 1698,[2] the younger son of James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry, 1st Duke of Dover, and his wife Mary Boyle, daughter of Charles Boyle, 3rd Viscount Dungarvan,
On 17 June 1706, while still a child, Charles was created in his own right Lord Douglas of Lockerbie, Dalveen and Thornhill, Viscount of Tiberris and Earl of Solway. In 1711, he succeeded his father as Duke of Queensberry, superseding his mentally ill older brother James Douglas. This happened because, in view of James being insane, the crown had granted a novodamus which excluded him from the succession to the Dukedom, but left James the Scottish Marquessate of the same name (Queensberry).[3] In any case, the insane James died in 1715, at which point the Duke inherited the Marquessate as well, becoming 4th Marquess of Queensberry.
In 1728, Queensberry (as he was now known) took up the cause of John Gay, a friend of his wife,[4] after Gay was refused a license for his opera Polly. He quarreled with George II and resigned his appointments in the same year.
In 1746, the Duke of Queensberry invested in the British Linen Company as one of the original proprietors, hoping to aid the development of the Scottish economy through the manufacturing of linen to be sold to the American colonies and Caribbean plantations.[5] In 1762, after the death of Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll, Queensberry became the Governor of the company until 1776.[6] The period was one of turmoil and restructuring, as the directors of the company decided to stop manufacturing linen from factories owned in the Highlands and turn to financing independent manufacturers to continue their trade. It was an important moment in the history of Scottish finance and the future of the company.
He was a founding governor of London's Foundling Hospital, created in 1739. He was appointed Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland in 1761 and was Lord Justice General from 1763 until his death in 1778. Queensberry was one of many who had lost heavily from the failure of the Douglas Heron and Co Bank in 1776. As his sons predeceased him, leaving him without heirs, his English titles, including the dukedom of Dover, became extinct, but the Queensberry title passed to his cousin, William Douglas.[4]
On 10 March 1720 he married Lady Catherine Hyde, a daughter of Henry Hyde, 4th Earl of Clarendon. They had two sons, who both predeceased him:
. Edmund Lodge . The Genealogy of the Existing British Peerage: With Sketches of the Family Histories of the Nobility. 1842. Saunders. 399.