styled 1684-87 Ld. Windsor; suc. grandfa. 3 Nov. 1687 (a minor) as 2nd earl of PLYMOUTH
First sat 10 Feb. 1701; last sat 27 Feb. 1721
b. 27 Aug. 1679, o. s. of Other Windsor, later styled Ld. Windsor (d.1684) and Elizabeth (d.1688), da. of Thomas Turvey of Walcot and Wadborough, Worcs. educ. Christ Church, Oxf. 1694–7, DCL 1706; travelled abroad (France) 1700.1 m. 27 Apr. 1705, Elizabeth (d.1711), da. of Thomas Whitley‡ (d.1696) of Peel Hall, Cheshire, 2s. suc. fa. 1684. d. 26 Dec. 1725; will 11 May 1722–5 March 1725, pr. 15 June 1726.2
Freeman, Worcester 1710; custos rot. Worcs. 1710–15; ld. lt. Cheshire and N. Wales 1713–14; recorder, Worcester 1720–d.
Associated with: Hewell Grange, Tardebigg, Worcs.3
Described by Macky as ‘a handsome well made man, of a fair complexion’, who ‘loves his bottle and play’ and ‘has good sense when he pleases to shew it’, Windsor succeeded to the earldom of Plymouth at the age of eight. He owed his curious Christian name to his family’s conviction that they were descended from a Viking adventurer at the court of King Alfred.4 His father had died three years previously and a year after his succession to the peerage the young earl also lost his mother. During his minority, administration of his lands (worth at least £3,000 per annum) and his guardianship were entrusted to George Savile, marquess of Halifax, Thomas Thynne, Viscount Weymouth, Sir William Coventry and Sir Willoughby Hickman‡.5 Plymouth succeeded to a considerable estate in Worcestershire and Warwickshire, as well as to an interest in the scheme to render the rivers Stour and Salwarpe navigable.6 The prospect of a long minority appears to have encouraged disputes among Plymouth’s trustees and in July 1690 a suit was launched by one of his guardians, Thomas Medhurst, against Halifax, Weymouth and Ursula, dowager countess of Plymouth, over the manor of Bromsgrove.7
According to some sources Plymouth matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in October 1694, though there is no mention of this in Alumni Oxonienses. The college’s own records suggest that he attended from October 1694 to March 1697 but did not matriculate formally. He appears to have been a reluctant student. A letter from William Savile, 2nd marquess of Halifax, in December 1696 expressed the hope that the earl had returned to Oxford and warned him to be ‘a little sensible of your present condition’.8 Plymouth travelled to Paris in 1700 but he had returned to England by January 1701, when he offered his support to Sir John Pakington‡ and Sir Thomas Rous at the election in Worcestershire.9
Plymouth took his seat in the House on 10 Feb. 1701, four days into the new Parliament. He sat for a mere three days in February, one in March and was then absent throughout April, but he demonstrated renewed interest in the latter stages of the session and sat on 28 days from 5 May until the dissolution on 24 June (30 per cent of all sitting days). On 22 May he entered his dissent at the resolution to pass the bill for further limiting the crown and securing the rights of the subject and on 17 June he voted against acquitting John Somers, Baron Somers. He then subscribed the two protests at the resolution to acquit the former lord keeper.
Missing at a call of the House on 5 Jan. 1702, Plymouth took his seat once more on 19 Jan., after which he was present on some 44 per cent of sittings during the session. On 20 Feb. he subscribed the protest against the resolution to attaint Queen Mary Beatrice of high treason and four days later he protested again at the resolution to pass the bill for the further security of the king’s person. On 16 May he registered his proxy with Francis North, 2nd Baron Guildford, which was vacated by the close of the session.
Following Queen Anne’s succession, Plymouth was one of only four peers to delay swearing the abjuration oath, a stand that may reflect the influence of his guardian Weymouth.10 He returned to the House at the beginning of the new Parliament on 6 Nov., and was thereafter present on 55 occasions until 26 Feb. 1703 (64 per cent of the whole). In January 1703 he was estimated to be in favour of the prevention of occasional conformity and on 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause.
The summer of 1703 found Plymouth grappling with his financial problems. In June he entered a complaint in chancery against William Asplin, who had been appointed steward of his Worcestershire estates by Halifax during his minority. The earl accused Asplin of causing ‘great damage’ to his lands, for which he sought restitution.11 Plymouth was again estimated among those likely to support the occasional conformity bill in a forecast of November 1703. He took his seat in the second session on 8 Dec. and on the 14th voted in favour of passing the bill. His name was included in a list of members of both Houses drawn up by Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, in 1704 which may indicate support for him over the ‘Scotch Plot’. He sat on 34 occasions until 27 Mar. 1704 (just over a third of the whole), after which he was absent from the House until February 1705. His absence may have been connected with rumours of a marriage in train with ‘Lady Sebright’ (possibly Anne, Lady Sebright, widow of Sir Edward Sebright, who later married another Worcestershire neighbour, Charles Littleton), but if there was any substance to the speculation the marriage failed to materialize.12 Whatever the true reason for his failure to attend, Plymouth remained secluded in the country during the late summer of 1704.13 Missing from the opening of the new session that October, the following month he was marked among those thought likely to support the Tack. He finally took his seat once more on 8 Feb. 1705, after which he was present on 11 sitting days (approximately 11 per cent of the whole).
Although an analysis of the peerage of April 1705 noted Plymouth as a Jacobite, the same month he married Elizabeth Whitley of Peel Hall in Cheshire, daughter of one of the most influential Whig figures in Flintshire.14 This marriage brought Plymouth estates in the county and also connected him to the whiggish Mainwarings and to Sir Michael Biddulph‡ of Elmshurst in Staffordshire.15 Plymouth was absent, presumably on his honeymoon, for the election of May 1705 but he combined his interest with his cousin Gilbert Coventry, later 4th earl of Coventry, at Worcestershire in support of Sir John Pakington‡.16 Excused at a call of the House on 12 Nov. on the 24th Plymouth appears to have been at The Hague.17 He had returned to England by the following month and took his seat on 10 Dec. sitting for a further 19 days before the close of the session in March 1706 (a fifth of the whole). On 9 Mar. he entered his dissent at the resolution to agree with the Commons that Sir Rowland Gwynne’s‡ letter was a scandalous, false and malicious libel.
Plymouth failed to attend the second session of 1706–7. He was missing at a call of the House on 29 Jan. 1707 and on 4 Feb. he registered his proxy in favour of Charles Finch, 4th earl of Winchilsea, which was vacated by the close of the session on 24 April. His absence may have been due to his efforts to set up his local interest in opposition to Sir John Talbot and Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury, who were both active promoters of the Droitwich bill, which threatened to reduce Plymouth’s revenues by enabling the corporation of Droitwich to convey their brine to the Severn in pipes, rather than by river up the Salwarpe. Although Plymouth was vocal in his opposition, Shrewsbury was dismissive of the influence he would be able to wield.18
Plymouth took his seat during the following session on 10 Mar. 1708 and on 31 Mar. he entered his dissent at the resolution not to amend the decision of the committee for privileges that the committing of Marmaduke Langdale, 3rd Baron Langdale, as a suspected papist was not a breach of privilege. During the same session, with Pakington, Robert Steynor and Martin Sandys, Plymouth opposed moves by the corporation of Droitwich. He does not seem to have inherited his grandfather’s obsession with navigation schemes but he was clearly unwilling to permit the corporation to deprive him of valuable tolls and the bill was eventually permitted to die quietly in committee.19
Noted as a Tory in a list of party affiliations produced in May 1708, the same month Plymouth was involved in a further legal case, when he was defendant in an action brought by Philip Stanhope, 2nd earl of Chesterfield. Chesterfield complained that Plymouth had been remiss in keeping up with payment of interest on a mortgage of his lands at Tardebigge, which had originally been entered into by Plymouth’s father and grandfather in 1681. Chesterfield rapidly lost patience with Plymouth’s prevarications and in June he obtained an order to sequester the profits of both his real and personal estate. The order propelled Plymouth into answering the original complaint but once more he asked for more time to make good the debt.20
Plymouth returned to the House at the beginning of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708 (after which he was present on 47 per cent of all sitting days). In December he was named in a suit brought by Sir Francis Dashwood‡ against Lady Plymouth and her mother, concerning the inheritance of Lady Plymouth’s cousin Thomas Lewes of Stamford. Dashwood claimed that mother and daughter had appropriated part of the estate, and that he was prevented from pursuing the matter by Plymouth’s privilege as a peer.21 Dashwood later became Plymouth’s uncle by marriage when in 1720 he married Lady Elizabeth Windsor, as his fourth wife.22
On 21 Jan. 1709 Plymouth voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles from voting in the elections for Scots representative peers. He also continued to be troubled by his own financial problems and in February he presented a bill for vesting some of his estates in trustees to be sold to enable him to pay his debts, presumably in response to the earlier suit by Chesterfield. In March 1709 the bill was committed, and recommended to be passed with some minor amendments.23 Edward Conway, Nathaniel Pigott and Pakington were named as the trustees.24 In April he was named one of the reporters of a conference for the bill for the continuation of acts to prevent coining.
Plymouth next took his seat on 9 Jan. 1710, after which he was present on 34 per cent of all sitting days. On 16 Feb. he entered his dissent at the resolution not to adjourn. The same month he entered a further dissent at the resolution not to require James Greenshields to attend the House and at the resolution to request the queen to order John Churchill, duke of Marlborough, to Holland. The move to impeach Dr Sacheverell found Plymouth firmly in support of the embattled cleric and throughout March he entered a series of protests on the subject. Plymouth subscribed to a protest at the resolution that it was not necessary to include the particular words deemed criminal in an impeachment and the same month he dissented once more from the resolution not to adjourn. The campaign culminated in his finding Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours, following which he entered a further dissent against the censure passed against him.
Plymouth was listed among those thought likely to support the new ministry in October 1710. During the week before the election held at Worcester on 17 Oct. he was greeted on his entry into the town by 1,000 horse and admitted a freeman amid ‘great entertainments’.25 The following month he replaced the recently deceased Thomas Coventry, 2nd earl of Coventry, as custos rotulorum of Worcester.26 He took his seat on 25 Nov. (after which he was present on just over 40 per cent of all sitting days) and in December he petitioned the House to allow him to bring in a bill to vest the manor of Wadborough in trustees to pay off his remaining debts. The bill was committed on 9 Feb. 1711 and on 17 Mar. received the royal assent. Conway, Pigott and Pakington were again named as trustees.27 On 17 May Plymouth registered his proxy in favour of William Keith, 8th Earl Marischal [S], which was vacated by the close of the session on 12 June. On 10 June Lady Plymouth died in childbirth at Bath, which was presumably the reason for Plymouth’s absence during the final month of the session.
Plymouth was listed among the ‘Tory patriots’ of the previous session in June 1711. In advance of the new session, Francis Seymour Conway, 2nd Baron Conway, undertook to ‘endeavour to bring my Lord Plymouth with me’ when he returned to London for the opening of Parliament and in December Plymouth was listed by Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, among those on whom he hoped to be able to rely.28 Plymouth took his seat on the first day of the new session on 7 Dec. and he was thereafter present on 60 per cent of all sitting days in the session. The following day he entered his protest at the resolution to present the address to the queen. That month he featured on another memorandum drawn up by Oxford, possibly indicating that he was one of those being considered for appointment to the Privy Council or to the council of trade. On 10 Dec. he was listed among those who had held firm to the ministry on the question of ‘No Peace without Spain’. Five days later, Price Devereux, 9th Viscount Hereford, registered his proxy in Plymouth’s favour. Four days after that Plymouth was noted among those thought to be in favour of allowing James Hamilton, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon but on 20 Dec. he voted in favour of barring Scots peers holding post-Union British titles from sitting.
The extent of Plymouth’s financial problems was confirmed in January 1712 with his inclusion in a list of the ‘poor lords’. In his case it was considered that a pension of £1,000 would secure his allegiance to the Hanoverian succession but it is perhaps an indication of his relative lack of influence that he was one of nine peers on the list not to be granted a pension.29 On 12 Mar. Plymouth’s cousin Coventry registered his proxy in his favour, which was vacated by the close of the session. Towards the end of May Plymouth divided with the supporters of the ministry in voting against the opposition-inspired motion to address the queen to overturn the orders restraining James Butler, 2nd duke of Ormond, from mounting an offensive campaign against the French.30
Oxford listed Plymouth among those whom he wished to contact in advance of the new session in February 1713. The following month Plymouth was included by Jonathan Swift among the likely supporters of the ministry. He took his seat at the opening of the new session on 9 Apr., after which he was present on approximately 55 per cent of all sitting days. In June he was believed to be in favour of adopting the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. His support for the regime finally looked set to be rewarded with his appointment to local office, though the following month he urged Oxford to complete the business, insisting that remaining in London was ‘very injurious’ to his health.31 In September he was accordingly appointed to the lieutenancies of Cheshire and North Wales but there appears to be little evidence of his exercising much interest in either area during his brief tenure of the posts.
Plymouth attended two prorogation days on 10 Dec. 1713 and 12 Jan. 1714. The following month, on 9 Feb. he petitioned for a lease on the manor of Great Sanghall in Cheshire and two days later his petition was referred to the surveyor general of crown lands.32 He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament a few days later on 16 Feb. but his level of attendance declined to just under a third of all sitting days. On 17 Mar. he registered his proxy with Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke, which was vacated by his return to the House on 30 April. In May Plymouth was considered to be in favour of preventing the growth of schism and on 3 June he was entrusted with the proxy of his uncle Viscount Windsor [I] (sitting as Baron Mountjoy). Plymouth was also absent from the House briefly during July but he ensured that his proxy was registered on 3 July in favour of Nicholas Leke, 4th earl of Scarsdale. The proxy was vacated by Plymouth’s return to the House for a single day on 8 July. He attended just two days of the brief session that met following the death of Queen Anne in August. On 6 Aug. he registered his proxy with Shrewsbury, which was vacated by his resumption of his place on 21 October. The same month he was removed as lord lieutenant of Cheshire, one of a number of Tories to be put out by the new regime.
Plymouth’s attendance of the House declined markedly after the Hanoverian succession. He was missing for the first three months of the new Parliament of March 1715, not taking his seat until 7 July. The same month he entered his dissent at the resolution not to delay consideration of the articles of impeachment against Oxford and at the resolution not to refer the question of whether the charges against Oxford amounted to treason to the judges for their consideration. Plymouth then entered a further dissent at the resolution to commit Oxford to Black Rod. On 27 Feb. 1716 he registered his proxy in favour of his uncle Windsor, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 24 May. During the remainder of his life Plymouth’s attendance became increasingly sporadic, with his absences covered by a series of proxies held by Windsor. Full details of the latter part of his career will be treated in the next section of this work.
In spite of his removal from the majority of his places of trust, Plymouth was elected recorder of Worcester in 1720. He attended the House for the last time on 27 Feb. 1721. In his will of 11 May 1722 he assigned the guardianship of his heir to his uncle Windsor and made bequests amounting to more than £1,000 to retainers, as well as £1,400 to his younger son, Henry Windsor. He died on 26 Dec. 1725 and was succeeded in the peerage by his elder son, another Other Windsor†, as 3rd earl of Plymouth.
R.D.E.E.- 1 HMC Buccleuch, ii. 747; TNA, C115/109, no. 8935.
- 2 TNA, PROB 11/609.
- 3 TNA, C9/395/32; VCH Worcs. iii. 225.
- 4 W.P. Williams, A Monograph of the Windsor Family, 10–13.
- 5 C9/395/32; PROB 11/390, ff. 291–6.
- 6 HMC Lords, iv. 389; HMC Portland, viii. 94; The earl of Plymouth’s case, BL, 515.m17/26.
- 7 NLW, Plymouth mss 1374.
- 8 Add. 28569, f. 78.
- 9 HMC Buccleuch, ii. 747; Badminton, Coventry pprs. FMT/A3/3.
- 10 Pols. in Age of Anne, 87; Add. 70073–4, newsletter, 19 Mar. 1702.
- 11 C9/395/32.
- 12 Bath mss at Longleat, Thynne pprs. 46, f. 95; Luttrell, Brief Relation, v. 421.
- 13 TNA, C115/109/8916.
- 14 HP Commons, 1660–90, iii. 709–11; 1690–1715, ii. 802–3, v. 859–60.
- 15 HP Commons, 1690–1715, iii. 212–14.
- 16 Cornw. RO, Antony mss, CVC/Y/2/20, CVC/Y/4/2.
- 17 HMC Buccleuch, ii. 795.
- 18 Northants. RO, Montagu (Boughton) mss 77, no. 72; Add. 40776, ff. 40–41.
- 19 HP Commons, 1690–1715, ii. 711.
- 20 TNA, C6/352/67; C33/309, f. 379.
- 21 C9/469/54.
- 22 HP Commons, 1690–1715, iii. 843.
- 23 PA, HL/PO/PB/1/1708/7An41.
- 24 HMC Lords, n.s. viii. 278; PA, HL/PO/CO/1/7, pp. 352–3.
- 25 Bath mss at Longleat, Thynne pprs. 47, f. 60; HP Commons, 1690–1715, ii. 716.
- 26 HP Commons, 1690–1715, ii. 705.
- 27 HMC Lords, n.s. ix. 86.
- 28 Add. 70282, Conway to Oxford, 3 Dec. 1711; Add. 70294, F. Gwyn to Oxford, 4 Dec. 1711.
- 29 Jones, Party and Management, 129, 147.
- 30 PH, xxvi. 177–81.
- 31 Add. 70263, Plymouth to Oxford, 27 July 1713.
- 32 CTB, 1714, pp. 12, 142.