a leading Scottish Royalist and defender of the Stuarts from the time of the English Civil Wars (1642–51) until after the accession of William (William III) and Mary (Mary II) (1689).

The son of the 1st earl of Atholl in the Murray line, Atholl was the chief supporter of the earl of Glencairn's rising in 1653 but was obliged to surrender a year later to George Monck, the Commonwealth commander in chief in Scotland. At the Restoration (1660), Atholl received many high offices in Scotland and was raised to a marquessate in 1676. Later, however, he joined in a remonstrance to the king against the severities inflicted on the Covenanters (Covenanter), and, though he was made vice admiral of Scotland in 1680 and president of Parliament in 1681, he was passed over for the chancellorship, which became vacant that year. Appointed lord lieutenant of Argyll in 1684, Atholl had by 1685 become master of that region and at Inchinnan in June captured the earl of Argyll, who was leading an invasion in favour of the duke of Monmouth.

In the Glorious Revolution (1688–89) Atholl acted indecisively, although he took part in the proclamation of William and Mary as king and queen at Edinburgh. During Dundee's Rising he retired to Bath to “take the waters” but became implicated in the Jacobite plot of Sir James Montgomery (1690) and subsequently in further similar intrigues. He received a pardon in June 1691 and acted later for the government in the pacification of the Highlands.

Atholl married Amelia, daughter of James Stanley, 7th earl of Derby, through whom the later dukes of Atholl acquired the sovereignty of the Isle of Man (1736).