suc. fa. 13 Nov. 1695 as 4th Bar. BYRON.
First sat 21 Jan. 1696; last sat 15 May 1735
b. 4 Jan. 1670, 4th but 1st surv. s. of William Byron, 3rd Bar. Byron, and 1st w. Elizabeth (or Penelope) Chaworth. educ. Cambs. DCL 1705.1 m. (1) Feb. 1703 (with £11,000),2 Mary (d. 11 Apr. 1703), da. of John Egerton, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, s.p; (2) 19 Dec. 1706 (with £10,000),3 Frances Wilhelmina (d. 31 Mar. 1712), da. of Hans Willem Bentinck, earl of Portland, 3s. (d.v.p.) 1da. (d.v.p);4 (3) 3 Dec. 1720 (with £6,000),5 Frances (d.1757), da. of William Berkeley, 4th Bar. Berkeley of Stratton, 5s. 1da.6 d. 8 Aug. 1736; will 17 Apr. 1725-4 Dec. 1735, pr. 19 Oct. 1736.7
Dep. lt. Notts. 1702-?8; ld. warden Sherwood Forest 1711-?14.9
Gent. of the bedchamber to Prince George, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland 1702-08.10
Associated with: Newstead Abbey, Notts. and Pall Mall, Westminster.11
As the fourth son of the previous holder of the peerage, Byron cannot have expected to inherit the barony. He appears to have been more interested in art and music than politics, acting as both pupil and patron of the Flemish artist Pieter Tillemans and as an amateur composer of some ability.12 While little is known of Byron prior to his succession to the Lords in November 1695, in 1689 he and other members of the family appear to have attempted to wrest control of the family estates from his father, whom they had intoxicated ‘with strong and other liquors’ to force him to sign an indenture conveying the property away from him. The case continued to be disputed until at least the summer of 1690.13 The reason for this action was presumably the 3rd Baron’s financial mismanagement. Heavily indebted at the time of his death an inventory of his goods recorded items worth just £15.14
Having succeeded to this depleted inheritance, Byron took his seat in the House on 21 Jan. 1696, after which he was present on almost 40 per cent of all sitting days in the session. Despite this promising beginning, he was nominated to no committees, and he was absent from the opening of the next (1696-7) session. On 30 Nov., anxious to secure maximum attendance for the Fenwick attainder, the House ordered that he and seven other peers should attend within a limited time or face arrest by the sergeant at arms. Byron duly returned to the House on the designated day, 7 Dec., after which he attended approximately 34 per cent of the whole session. On 18 Dec. he entered his dissent at the second reading of the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick‡ and on 23 Dec. he voted against the third reading and entered his dissent to its passage. Beyond this, Byron’s activities within the House appear to have been negligible. He was named to just four committees during the session, including that appointed to consider the state of trade on 10 Feb. 1697. Resuming his seat at the opening of the third session on 3 Dec. 1697, he was present for almost half of all sitting days and this time was named to six committees during the course of the session. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted against committing the bill to punish Charles Duncombe‡, and the following day he entered his dissent at the Lords’ resolution in favour of James Bertie‡ and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of George Willoughby, 7th Baron Willoughby of Parham, in their cause with Lucius Henry Cary, 6th Viscount Falkland [S], over the settlement of the Cary estate. Byron’s opposition to the Berties was presumably rather an expression of family support for his kinsman, Falkland, than of any political opposition to Bertie, with whom Byron concurred on a number of issues, notably the Fenwick attainder. Absent from the House after 10 June 1698, on 15 June he registered his proxy with Basil Feilding, 4th earl of Denbigh, which was vacated by the dissolution.
Byron was again absent at the opening of the new Parliament in August 1698, not taking his seat until the end of November. Present for just 30 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to four committees in March 1699 and was then abroad in Flanders during the summer.15 In the late summer of 1699 he was daily expected in Paris.16 He remained there until at least 18 Nov. when he participated in the public entrance by Charles Montagu, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, as ambassador to France.17 He returned to England in time to take his seat in the House on 29 Nov. shortly after the opening of the 1699-1700 session. He was again present for just under a third of all sitting days and was named to just one committee during the session. In February 1700 he was forecast as being in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation, and on 6 Apr. he acted as teller for those opposing the resolution that a clause in the land tax bill should stand apart. In May he found himself in dispute over his family’s traditional rights to fell timber in Sherwood Forest and was forced to argue his case before the forest court.18
Byron resumed his seat four days after the opening of the 1701 Parliament on 10 February. He continued to attend until 24 June, being present on almost half of all sitting days. On 20 Feb. he was named to the committee appointed to consider the state of the fleet and to three further committees during the session. On 17 June, although no friend of the Junto, he supported the acquittal of John Somers, Baron Somers. He returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701. Named to 14 committees in the course of the session, he was present on 48 per cent of all sitting days until May 1702. The accession of Queen Anne improved Byron’s prospects for preferment, and in September he was appointed a deputy lieutenant of Nottinghamshire.19
Byron returned to the House two weeks into the new Parliament in November 1702 and was again present for a little under half of all sitting days. Estimated a supporter of the occasional conformity bill in or about January 1703, on 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. His marriage to Lady Mary Egerton shortly after forged an alliance that promised to improve his financial position and perhaps influenced his appointment as a gentleman of the bedchamber to Prince George of Denmark in March, but the marriage proved short-lived as Lady Byron died of smallpox six weeks later.
Byron returned to the House for the opening of the new session on 9 November. He was named to the sub-committee for the Journal, but curiously he was overlooked for the sessional committee for privileges. Present for half of all sitting days over the ensuing two months he was again estimated as a supporter of the occasional conformity bill. Byron may have been one of those thought likely to support the Tack in November 1704 (though the mark on the list on which his name appears may refer to John Vaughan, Baron Vaughan, better known as 3rd earl of Carbery [I]).20 He resumed his seat in the new session on 6 Dec. 1704, after which he sat for approximately a third of all sitting days. In spring 1705 he was listed as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. He took his seat for the 1705-6 session on 23 Nov. and was again present for about a third of all sitting days. In 1706 he married Lady Frances Wilhelmina Bentinck, daughter of his Whig Nottinghamshire neighbour, Portland. He resumed his seat in the House two days after the wedding, maintaining his regular attendance for the remainder of the session. He attended just one day of the third (1706-7) session.
Byron returned to the House at the opening of the first Parliament of Great Britain in October 1707, after which he was present on almost 56 per cent of all sitting days. In an analysis of the peerage of 1708, he was listed, unsurprisingly, as a Tory. He was present at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708 and attended 65 per cent of all sitting days in the session. In January 1709 he voted in favour of permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the elections of Scottish representative peers. Despite his Tory allegiances, on 15 Mar. he was one of a number of court peers to dine with the Whig, Charles Bennet, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville).21 He resumed his seat again at the opening of the 1709-10 session, after which he was present for about 54 per cent of all sitting days. In February 1710 his wife’s older sister, the recently widowed Lady Essex, approached Byron to use his interest with the Junto Whig, William Cowper, Baron (later earl) Cowper, to secure the lieutenancy of Hertfordshire for her barely teenage son, William Capel, 3rd earl of Essex.22 The following month Byron voted with the Whigs to find Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.
In October 1710 Byron was listed by Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford, as a doubtful supporter of the new ministry. Byron resumed his seat in the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Nov., after which he was present for 45 per cent of all sitting days in the 1710-11. On 3 Feb. 1711 he acted as teller in a division concerning the state of the war in Spain in a committee of the whole. He retired from the session on 16 Apr., some two months before its prorogation, but the following day registered his proxy with his Whig brother-in-law, William Henry Bentinck, 2nd earl (later duke) of Portland. He resumed his seat for the second session on 7 Dec. 1711. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as being in favour of permitting James Hamilton, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon and voted accordingly the following day. On 2 Jan. 1712, Byron acted as one of the supporters of Samuel Masham, Baron Masham, (one of Oxford’s ‘dozen’) at his introduction to the House.
Byron suffered the loss of his second wife in April 1712; according to contemporary gossip she died as the result of a distemper he had given her.23 He was absent from the House for the next two years but registered his proxy with Portland again on 5 May 1712. On 29 May he wrote to Oxford complaining of his unwillingness to compensate the loss of his place as lord warden (presumably of Sherwood Forest) with a pension. Stressing his past loyalty, Byron urged his case warning that,
I have never been troublesome to the Queen or your lordship before. I have always been ready to serve you. I think I’ve done nothing to disoblige you and I hope you will not let me have just reason to say hereafter you have not been a friend to him.24
Byron’s pleading clearly worked as during the year he was awarded a government pension of £300.25 Yet his loyalty remained suspect. He may have resented Oxford’s efforts to establish a rival interest in Nottinghamshire when, following the death of John Holles, duke of Newcastle, he married his son, Edward, styled Lord Harley, later 2nd earl of Oxford, to the Holles heiress.26 Whatever the reason, Oxford viewed Byron’s support as doubtful and in February 1713 listed him as one of those to be contacted in advance of the session. Unwilling to support the government, on 13 June Byron was estimated as opposed to the bill for confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty.
Byron resumed his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he attended 30 per cent of all sitting days in the ensuing session. He registered his proxy with Masham on 17 Apr., which was vacated by his return to the House on 1 May. He then sat for a further three days before quitting the House for the remainder of the session. On 25 May he registered his proxy with Masham once more, and on 27 May he was listed by Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as a supporter of the schism bill.27 He attended just one day of the brief second session in August 1714.
The accession of George I appears to have caused little change to Byron’s pattern of attendance. He continued to sit in the House sporadically for the remainder of his life, registering his proxy with Portland and his Nottinghamshire neighbour Evelyn Pierrepont, duke of Kingston, to cover his absences. The death of his heir in July 1720 forced Byron to think of marriage once again, and in December 1720 he married for the third time. Lord Berkeley viewed Byron’s marriage to his daughter, Frances, sanguinely as ‘a disproportionable match as to their ages, but marriages not offering every day, I would not miss an opportunity, though attended with never so many inconveniences’.28 As a supporter of the Hanoverian regime, Byron was rewarded with an annual pension of £1,000 in 1729, and the following year George II stood as godfather to his youngest son, George Byron.29
Towards the close of 1735 Byron was noted as having set out for Bath in the hopes of recovering his health; by February of the following year he was dangerously ill.30 He died six months later on 8 Aug. 1736 and was succeeded by his eldest son, William Byron, as 5th Baron Byron. In his will he left £200 to his widow in addition to her jointure. Lady Byron, Kingston, and his father-in-law, Berkeley of Stratton, were named guardians to his young children.31
R.D.E.E.- 1 London Gazette, 19 Apr. 1705.
- 2 UNL, PI E12/3/1/13/1-2.
- 3 Ibid. PI E12/3/1/17/1-2.
- 4 V. W. Walker, House of Byron, p. 117.
- 5 UNL, PI E12/3/1/18.
- 6 London Evening Post, 10 Aug. 1736.
- 7 UNL, PI E12/3/1/19; PROB 11/679.
- 8 CSP Dom. 1702-3, p. 395.
- 9 Add. 70214, Byron to Oxford, 29 May 1714.
- 10 Luttrell, Brief Relation, v. 274; London Gazette, 25 Apr. 1706.
- 11 Add. 22267, ff. 164-71.
- 12 Walker, 120.
- 13 TNA, C5/66/3; E219/717.
- 14 TNA, PROB 5/644.
- 15 HMC Cowper, ii. 391.
- 16 Chatsworth muns. 73. 28.
- 17 Flying Post or the Post Master, 18 Nov. 1699.
- 18 Walker, 116.
- 19 CSP Dom. 1702-3, p. 395.
- 20 Eg. 3359, ff. 45-46.
- 21 TNA, C104/113, pt. 2.
- 22 Herts. ALS, DE/P/F54, countess of Essex to Cowper, 21 Feb. 1710.
- 23 Wentworth Pprs. 284.
- 24 Add. 70214, Byron to Oxford, 29 May 1714.
- 25 Party and Management ed. C. Jones, 164.
- 26 HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 459.
- 27 Leics. RO, Finch mss DG7 box 4960 P.P. 161.
- 28 Wentworth Pprs. 449-50.
- 29 Walker, 118-19.
- 30 Daily Journal, 6 Dec. 1735; Daily Gazetteer, 7 Feb. 1736.
- 31 UNL, PI E12/3/1/19.