styled 1633-35 Ld. Weston; suc. fa. 13 Mar. 1635 as 2nd earl of PORTLAND
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 18 May 1660; last sat 12 Mar. 1663
MP Lewes 1628
b. 16 Dec. 1605, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Richard Weston†, earl of Portland, being 1st s. with 2nd w. Frances, da. of Nicholas Waldegrave of Borley, Essex; bro. of Benjamin,‡ Nicholas‡ and Thomas Weston, 4th earl of Portland. educ. Trinity, Camb. 1623, MA 1626; M. Temple 1626; travelled abroad 1629; Padua Univ. 1632.1 m. 18 June 1632 (with £6,000), Frances (d.1694), yst. da. of Esmé Stuart, 3rd duke of Lennox [S], and Katherine, suo jure Baroness Clifton of Leighton Bromswald, 1s. 4da. d. 17 Mar. 1663; will 4 Nov. 1657–8 Oct. 1661, pr. 2 Sept. 1663.2
Commr. trade 1660, plantations 1660, loyal and indigent officers 1662; PC 3 Apr. 1662-d.3
Freeman, Newport, I.o.W. 1631, Yarmouth, I.o.W. 1634, Portsmouth 1635; gov. I.o.W. 1633–42, 1660–1;4 v.-adm. Hants. 1635, 1660; ld. lt. (jt.) Hants 1635–42; kpr. Richmond New Park 1637; ld. pres. Munster [I] 1644; steward, Berkhampstead manor 1660.5
Amb. extraordinary Savoy, Venice, Tuscany, Paris 1631-3.6
Asst. Royal Fishing Co. 1661.
Associated with: Roehampton House, Putney, Surr.
Weston was adopted as his father’s heir when his older half-brother, Richard Weston, who appears to have suffered from some variety of mental illness, ‘fell distracted’, and so it was his sons by his second marriage who were named in the 1st earl’s patent of creation as the heirs to the peerage. In the event, the special remainder proved to be unnecessary as Richard Weston died during his father’s lifetime. Originating in Essex, the Weston family experienced a swift rise under Charles I, as a result of which they were able to expand their estates into Surrey and East Anglia and their political interest into Hampshire. After the death of George Villiers†, duke of Buckingham, the 1st earl of Portland assumed many of the responsibilities of the king’s former favourite. This pre-eminence was reflected in Weston’s marriage to the king’s cousin Lady Frances Stuart, though the match also served to highlight the religious divisions within the family. Both Portland and Weston appear to have been solid Anglicans, but the countess and the new Lady Weston were both Catholic and they appear to have used their interest to ensure that the majority of their children were brought up in their faith.7 Four of Weston’s daughters and one of his sisters later became nuns and his brother Thomas ended his days as a boarder at a convent in Flanders.8
Prior to his succession to the earldom in 1635, Weston had been appointed to the governorship of the Isle of Wight, a command that he continued to hold until disabled by Parliament. Further family divisions were apparent on the outbreak of Civil War when, although Portland and two of his brothers (Thomas and Nicholas) remained loyal to the king, their youngest brother, Benjamin, supported Parliament. A prominent member of the ‘peace party’, Portland was imprisoned from 1642 until 1643, after which he joined the king at Oxford. On the king’s defeat he compounded for delinquency. He was fined £9,953, which was later reduced to £5,297.9 Portland’s brother Thomas opted for exile during the Interregnum and in 1648 three of Portland’s daughters were also granted passes to travel abroad.10
Portland seems not to have been involved in royalist plotting, though both he and his brother Benjamin were active in attempting to assist Catholics under threat of sequestration.11 His loyalties were in no doubt, however. Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, noted him among the lords ‘with the king’ and at the Restoration he was restored to the governorship of the Isle of Wight. He continued to enjoy a steady flow of grants over the remaining years of his life, including an annual pension of £1,000 as compensation for his loss of the presidency of Munster.12
Two days before resuming his place in the House in May 1660, Portland conveyed a message to the Lords requesting their assistance in his efforts to recover a bronze statue of the late king that had stood in his father’s park at Putney. Portland appears to have sold his interest in the house prior to the war.13 Although the statue had been ordered to be destroyed after Charles I’s execution it had been preserved. The Lords issued an order for it to remain undisturbed so that Portland could establish his claim to it. It was later bought by the king and relocated to Charing Cross.14
Portland took his seat in the House on 18 May 1660 and was thereafter present on 73 per cent of all sitting days of the session up until the September adjournment. Named to 22 committees, on 14 June he spoke in a session of the committee of privileges, arguing against moves to alter the oath of allegiance to make it more palatable to Catholics and urging that ‘the oath of fealty may be taken by us all’.15 On 24 July he reported from the committee for the excise bill and on 14 Aug. he was appointed to the committee to prepare material for the conference on poll money. On 10 Sept. he was one of four peers to be named reporters of the conference for the bill for restoring ministers. He returned to the House on 20 Nov. a fortnight after the House had resumed after the adjournment. Present on 69 per cent of all sitting days in the second part of the Convention, during which he was named to a further dozen committees, on 30 Nov. he reported from the committees for the bill for tanning leather and for Radcliffe’s bill. On 13 Dec. he registered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill vacating Sir Edward Powell’s fines. He reported from the committee for the bill for pricing wines on 28 December. The measure was considered fit to pass without alteration and was voted through the same day.
The elections for the new Parliament in the spring of 1661 found Portland enjoying only partial success in his efforts to employ his interest on the Isle of Wight. Although he was able to secure the return of William Glascock‡ at Newport, he failed to sway the voters to rally to Daniel O’Neill‡ at Newtown, leaving O’Neill with no option but to look elsewhere.16 Later that year, Portland resigned the governorship to Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper.17
Portland took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament, after which he was present on 96 per cent of all sitting days. Named to more than 60 committees in the course of the session, he proved to be one of the most assiduous committee chairmen, no doubt acting in close concert with his friend Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon. On 24 and 25 May he chaired sessions of the committee considering the bill for preserving the king’s person (reporting back from the committee on 27 May), and on 27 May he also chaired the committee for the bill for reversing the attainder of Thomas Wentworth†, earl of Strafford. Portland chaired the committee for Radcliffe’s bill on 5 June and reported the measure to the House later the same day, and on 27 June he chaired a session of the committee for the Hatfield level bill. On 1 July he chaired the committee considering the penal laws against Catholics and, following his report to the House the same day, it was resolved that the committee should meet again to consider whether anything further should be added. Portland continued to chair sessions of this committee on several occasions throughout the month, including one occasion on 3 July when he was also in the chair for committees considering the bill for confirming public acts, the masters in chancery bill and Francis Brudenell’s naturalization bill. He reported the findings of the committees considering these other three bills on 4 July and on 15 July he reported from the committee appointed to consider the restoration of the Council of the North. He recommended that a bill should be prepared to that effect to be introduced following the adjournment (though no minutes appear to have survived for the committee’s deliberations on this point). On 17 July he reported from the committee for the Westminster streets bill (again minutes are wanting for this committee) and, the same day, he registered his dissent once more at the resolution to pass the bill vacating Sir Edward Powell’s fines. Portland chaired the committee for the recommitted highways bill on 23 July, which was agreed to be reported back with amendments.18 He also reported from the committee for the corporations bill, communicating the substantial alterations to the measure which threatened to set the Lords and Commons at variance. The following day he presented the amended Westminster streets bill to the House, which was passed accordingly. Two days later (26 July) he was nominated a reporter of the conference held with the Commons to discuss the corporations bill.
Following the adjournment Portland resumed his seat in the House on 20 November. Between 5 and 7 Dec. 1661 he chaired three sessions of the committee for confirming private acts, reporting the committee’s findings to the House after the third session. On 7 Dec. he also chaired the committee for Dr Peyton’s bill, the effect of which he reported to the House on 12 December. In the meantime, he chaired the committee for the duchy of Cornwall bill on 9 Dec. (reporting to the House the same day) and on 10 Dec. a further session of the committee considering the corporations bill, which had been recommitted but was then adjourned.19 He was named one of the reporters of the conference for the bill for confirming private acts on 14 December. Three days later he was also nominated a manager of the conference for the corporations bill. He was again nominated to manage a further conference on the matter on 19 Dec., after which he reported the conference’s findings back to the House.
Portland was absent from the House over the Christmas recess between 20 Dec. and 7 Jan. 1662. On 11 Jan. he chaired the committee for the brokers’ bill and on 23 Jan. that considering the uniformity bill. On 4 Feb. he was named one of the managers of the conference concerning confirmation of three acts and the same day he chaired the committee for the Dudston and Kingsbarton bill. He chaired the committee again the following day, reporting the committee’s findings to the House on 8 February. In the meantime, on 6 Feb. he chaired the committee for the Admiralty bill.20 The same day he registered his protest at the passage of the bill enabling Charles Stanley, 8th earl of Derby, to recover various estates in Wales. Over the ensuing few days, Portland was engaged with chairing further sessions of the committees concerning the Admiralty bill and the bill for assurances. He reported from the latter on 20 Feb. and two days later he again chaired a session of the committee for the Admiralty bill. The same day (22 Feb.) he chaired the committee for the bill for curates’ allowances.21
Lady Portland was reported to have been disappointed not to have been appointed first lady of the bedchamber to Queen Catharine in February 1662, the honour going instead to the countess of Suffolk.22 His wife’s disappointment seems not to have troubled Portland overmuch and he continued to bustle about in the House, chairing the committee for the Norwich stuffs bill on 13 and 17 Mar., the committee for the Admiralty bill on 15 and 26 Mar. (which was adjourned without discussion) and that considering the bill for George Monck, duke of Albemarle, on 25 March. He chaired three further sessions of the committee for the Admiralty bill the following month, as well as managing sessions of the committees considering the highways and Wells port bills. On 7 Apr. he chaired the committee for the Killegrew naturalization bill, reporting the committee’s findings to the House later the same day.23
On 10 Apr. Portland was entrusted with the proxy of Henry Carey, earl of Dover, and just over a fortnight later with that of James Butler, duke of Ormond [I] (sitting as earl of Brecknock). Ormond had informed Clarendon that he had conveyed his proxy to Portland in a letter of 12 March.24 Between 6 and 7 May and again on 9 May Portland chaired further sessions of the committee for the highways bill.25 The following day he was nominated one of the reporters of the conference for settling the kingdom’s forces and two days later (12 May) he was nominated a reporter of a further conference concerning the bill for money for royalist officers.
In the midst of this activity, Portland managed to fit in a flying visit to Portsmouth between 12 and 13 May. Present on the attendance list in the House on both those days, he appears to have travelled to Portsmouth on the afternoon of 12 May, dispatched a quick message to Clarendon that evening reporting on the preparations for the reception of Queen Catharine, in which he apologized for the ‘imperfections’ of his account (having ‘not slept since I saw you’), and then returned to London in time to resume his place in the House the next day.26 The following day (14 May) he was named a reporter of the conference concerning the Norwich stuffs bill and the same day he was named with Warwick Mohun, 2nd Baron Mohun, to prepare a proviso to be attached to the bill for money for royalist officers. Nominated a manager of the conference concerning this business on 15 May, Portland was named a reporter of the conferences for the militia bill held over the ensuing two days. On 17 May he was also nominated a manager of the conference concerning five bills then in consideration and during the afternoon session that day was further nominated a reporter of the conference for the highways bill. He had returned to Portsmouth by the evening of 19 May and the following day he reported once more to Clarendon on the final preparations for the marriage between the king and Queen Catharine.27
Little is known of Portland’s activities following the prorogation, but in November 1662 he wrote to secretary Henry Bennet (later earl of Arlington) informing him that the Lords had declined meeting the commission for assessing the value of peers’ estates because only two – Portland himself and Arthur Capell, earl of Essex – had so far submitted any returns.28 Portland took his seat in the new session on 18 Feb. 1663 but sat on just 11 occasions before attending for the last time on 12 March. In advance of the session he had written to Sir Allen Broderick‡ assuring him that Clarendon remained ‘more in the good opinion of the Parliament than those who wish him ill’. He also reported news of an anticipated marriage between Lady Anne Digby, one of the daughters of Clarendon’s opponent George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, and Clarendon’s heir, which he hoped would ‘make up all friends’.29
Besides his concerns with the lord chancellor’s standing, Portland was engaged with his own affairs. Shortly before the House reassembled he had been involved in efforts to settle a long-standing dispute with Bulstrode Whitelocke‡. The dispute had originated with the death of Dr Thomas Winston in 1655, who had bequeathed to Portland one of his properties. Whitelocke, who had been involved in drawing up the will and whose family also stood to gain from Winston’s death, complained at the time of the ‘powerful and haughty adversary’ he had in Portland. In 1656 a resolution was arrived at through the mediation of Chaloner Chute‡, whereby Portland was paid £1,000 and an annuity of £200 was settled on his heir, Charles Weston, styled Lord Weston (later 3rd earl of Portland). The changed circumstances of the Restoration appear to have inspired Portland to improve on this settlement.30 His manoeuvrings resulted in the composition of a bill settling £300 per annum on Weston but matters were still unresolved when Portland died from an attack of apoplexy at his brother’s residence at Walton-on-Thames, ‘having struggled four days for life’.
In reporting Portland’s death to Ormond, Clarendon bemoaned the ‘great loss to the public’, lauding his former friend as ‘a man of great wisdom and integrity’. Doubtless Clarendon was also concerned by the loss of so close an ally at a time when pressure was mounting on him from Bennet, Bristol and other discontented forces at court and in Parliament. Portland may have been in receipt of Ormond’s proxy at the time of his demise, or anticipating receiving it. This appears to be the implication of a letter from Clarendon to Ormond recommending that he convey the proxy to John Egerton, 2nd earl of Bridgwater instead.31
At the time of his death Portland had managed to do little to restore the family’s fortunes. His widow was able to rely on a crown pension of £1,000 for her maintenance, but a few years after her husband’s death she was one of a number of notables to fall prey to highway robbery; she also had plate worth £300 stolen from her some years after that.32 In his will Portland nominated his youngest brother, Benjamin, as sole executor. He was succeeded in the peerage by his only son, Weston, as 3rd earl of Portland.
R.D.E.E.- 1 H.F. Brown, Inglesi e Scozzesi all’Università di Padova dall’anno 1618 sino al 1765, p. 147.
- 2 TNA, PROB 11/312.
- 3 CSP Dom. 1661–2, p. 331.
- 4 CSP Dom. 1660–1, p. 491; 1661–2, p. 46.
- 5 CSP Dom. 1660–1, p. 327.
- 6 TNA, SP 78/92.
- 7 Swatland, 165.
- 8 Chronicle of the English Augustinian Canonesses Regular of the Lateran ed. A. Hamilton, 150–1.
- 9 LJ, v. 545.
- 10 LJ, x. 110–12.
- 11 HP Commons, 1640–60, draft biography by Jason Peacey.
- 12 Bodl. Carte 81, f. 63; CSP Dom. 1661–2, pp. 270, 355.
- 13 D. Lysons, Environs of London, i. 430.
- 14 Survey of London, xvi. 263–5.
- 15 PA, HL/PO/DC/CP, i. 16.
- 16 I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/501, JER/BAR/3/9/42; HP Commons 1660–90, i. 251; Hutton, Restoration, 153.
- 17 CSP Dom. 1661–2, p. 46.
- 18 PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, pp. 8, 11, 13, 38, 44, 45, 47, 62, 63, 64, 69.
- 19 Ibid. pp. 79–80, 81, 82, 87.
- 20 Ibid. pp. 92, 108, 120, 123, 129.
- 21 Ibid. pp. 130, 134–5, 140, 142, 148.
- 22 H. Sydney, Letters and Memorials of State, ii. 724.
- 23 PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, pp. 187, 190, 196, 211, 214, 217, 221, 224, 226, 232, 236, 239.
- 24 Ibid. HL/PO/JO/10/1/29; CCSP, v. 303.
- 25 PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, pp. 283–4.
- 26 Bodl. Clarendon 76, f. 284.
- 27 CCSP, v. 220; Clarendon 76, f. 288.
- 28 CSP Dom. 1661–2, p. 571.
- 29 CSP Dom. 1663–4, p. 8.
- 30 Whitelocke Diary, 416–17, 419, 660–2.
- 31 Carte 47, ff. 39, 89.
- 32 Carte 240, f. 74; Verney ms mic. M636/21, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 30 July 1667; M636/42, R. Palmer to J. Verney, 29 Mar. 1688.