WILLIAM Hague came back from leading the Conservatives to crushing defeat in the 2001 election to become one of the most effective members of David Cameron's team.
He was catapulted to national attention as a 16-year-old when he unleashed his now familiar Yorkshire oratory on the 1977 party conference - to the delight of Margaret Thatcher and the media.
Educated at Wath-on-Dearne Comprehensive and Magdalen College, Oxford, he was elected president of the Oxford Union - a traditional springboard into national politics.
With an MBA from the noted INSEAD business school in France, he held jobs at Shell and management consultants McKinsey but was always destined to make his career in Westminster.
He cut his election teeth with defeat at the 1987 general election in the Labour stronghold of Wentworth, near Rotherham - where he was born on March 26 1961 - but within two years was in Parliament, winning a by-election in Richmond, North Yorkshire.
Under John Major he quickly climbed the ministerial ranks, entering the Cabinet as Welsh secretary in 1995 - a posting where he met civil servant Ffion Jenkins, whom he married in 1997.
By the time of his wedding he had taken on the unenviable task of fighting Tony Blair, who had been swept to power on an overwhelming wave of public support after 18 years of Tory rule.
Verbal victories over Mr Blair in the Commons were not enough as a succession of public relations blunders - including a much derided baseball cap emblazoned with his surname - splits over Europe and leadership speculation fatally undermined his four-year tenure.
A widely-criticised 2001 campaign ended with the Tories gaining just one seat and Mr Hague standing down, setting an unwanted precedent as the first Conservative leader not to become prime minister.
But the rehabilitation was almost as swift as the demise, with demand as an after-dinner speaker and directorships soon helping him become the best-paid MP on around £1 million a year, earnings swelled by award-winning biographies of fellow prodigy Pitt the Younger and William Wilberforce.
He was eventually persuaded to return as shadow foreign secretary and "senior member of the shadow cabinet" in 2005, a role Mr Cameron confirmed made him deputy leader "in all but name".
When the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition assumed office, Mr Hague was confirmed in the plum heavyweight job of Foreign Secretary.
But less than four months later he issued an extraordinary personal statement to counter internet rumours about his relationship with his special adviser Christopher Myers, who quit his post.
Mr Hague denied having an "improper" relationship with Mr Myers, although they had "occasionally shared twin hotel rooms".
He also revealed that his wife had suffered a number of miscarriages as they tried to start a family.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article