suc. grandfa. 26 Mar. 1625 (a minor) as 4th Bar. WHARTON
First sat 13 Apr. 1660; first sat after 1660, 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 19 Mar. 1695
b. 8 Apr. 1613, 1st s. of Sir Thomas Wharton of Aske (d.1622), and Philadelphia, da. of Robert Carey,† earl of Monmouth; bro. of Thomas Wharton‡. educ. Eton 1624-5; Exeter Coll. Oxf. matric. 3 Mar. 1626; travelled abroad 1629-32; adm. L. Inn 18 Jan. 1638. m. (1) Sept. 1632 Elizabeth (1613-35), da. of Sir Rowland Wandesford of Pickhill, Yorks., 1da.; (2) Sept. 1637 Jane (1614-58), da. of Arthur Goodwin‡ of Winchendon, Bucks., 6s. (3 d.v.p.), 5da. (?4 d.v.p.); (3) 24 Aug. 1661 Anne (1615-92), da. of William Kerr, wid. of Edward Popham, 1s. (d.v.p.). d. 4 or 5 Feb.1696; will 1 Feb., pr. 21 Feb. 1696.1
PC 13 Feb. 1689-d.2
Ld. lt., (Parl.) Lancs., Bucks. 1642, Westmld. 1644.3
Col. regt. ft. (Parl.) 1642.
Associated with: Healaugh, Yorks.; Wooburn, Bucks.; and Winchendon, Bucks.4
Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir A. van Dyck, 1632, National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA, 1937.1.50; (with 2nd wife) oil on canvas, by unknown artist, c.1656, Wycombe Museum; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1685, Tate Britain, T12029.
At the time of his succession to the peerage, Wharton’s family held extensive estates principally in Westmorland and Yorkshire. The latter included significant lead mines in Swaledale.5 Wharton’s family had reputedly been prominent members of the local gentry in Westmorland since before the Norman Conquest, though it was under the Tudors that they emerged from the ranks of the greater gentry as prominent marcher barons. Wharton was related to numerous other northern magnates including the Clifford earls of Cumberland and the Musgraves. Over the course of his long life Wharton developed his family’s estates successfully both by judicious marriage alliances and careful management of his lands in England and Ireland. His first marriage added to his Yorkshire holdings significantly, while by his second marriage to Jane Goodwin, he shifted the family’s territorial focus southwards, enabling him to become associated with the parliamentary opposition to Charles I concentrated in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.6 As a result of the Goodwin alliance Wharton’s own principal seat moved from Healaugh to Upper Winchendon and thence, after the death of Jane, Lady Wharton in 1658, to Wooburn.
At least one of Wharton’s post-Reformation forebears had been Catholic (Thomas Wharton†, 2nd Baron Wharton), but the family thereafter reverted to Protestantism and the 4th Baron came to be regarded as one of the foremost Independents in Parliament. While close association with John Hampden‡, William Lenthall‡ and William Fiennes, Viscount Saye and Sele, brought Wharton into the very centre of the parliamentary cause, his relation to prominent royalists such as his brother, Sir Thomas Wharton‡, and his Musgrave cousins provided him with a foot in both camps. Although a central figure in parliamentary politics after the Restoration and until his death mid-way through the reign of William III, Wharton’s significance as a parliamentary leader remains difficult to determine precisely. His exhaustive lists of presumed friends and his detailed recording of the minutiae of numerous matters that came before Parliament could be said to have influenced some historians into according him a standing that is not entirely deserved. But, while there are undoubtedly difficulties with some of the lists he created, Wharton clearly perceived himself to be central to certain topics that came before Parliament (particularly those concerning indulgence towards Dissenters) and that he was perceived similarly by others of undoubted influence. It is also significant that, despite his frequent opposition to three Stuart kings, he inspired affection from them all and a degree of toleration denied to many more influential figures.
Before the Restoration, 1634-1660
Wharton succeeded his grandfather in the barony when just 12 years old and, on his coming of age in 1634, he gained control of estates worth an estimated £8,000 p.a.7 His second marriage in 1637 appears to have been of particular significance for his future political activities and it is noticeable that the following year he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn on Lenthall’s interest. Wharton took his seat in the House on 13 Apr. 1640 and was soon a prominent member of the opposition to the king’s policies. Following the dissolution of the Short Parliament, he was active in campaigning for a new Parliament to be summoned and in September, despite his relative inexperience, he was one of those appointed to negotiate with the Scots at Ripon.8 Local rivalry with his Yorkshire neighbour, Thomas Wentworth†, earl of Strafford, may in part explain their personal animosity and when Wharton was accused of sedition for his role in urging negotiations with the Scots, Strafford was said to have proposed that he (Wharton) be shot at the head of the army. Wharton had his revenge not long after when he was prominent in working for Strafford’s impeachment and execution.9 He was also to the fore in bringing about the execution of William Laud†, archbishop of Canterbury.10
Wharton was appointed lord lieutenant of Lancashire in February 1642 and in June Parliament added the lieutenancy of Buckinghamshire to his responsibilities. He was also appointed as colonel-general of the ‘adventurer’s army’, which was to be raised to quell the Irish rebellion, but which was never, in the end, assembled. One of the most active peers in the House, on 30 July he was appointed colonel of a regiment of foot within the army commanded by Robert Devereux†, 3rd earl of Essex (though he was also notable for contributing the fewest horses of any peer on the parliamentary side and just £300). The conduct of Wharton’s regiment at the battle of Edgehill was far from exemplary, while he was also the subject of mocking rumours that he had hidden in a saw-pit during the affray (giving rise to his sobriquet ‘Saw-Pit Wharton’). Despite this, Wharton was one of those sent from the army to report on the battle to Parliament where his behaviour was praised.11 He remained a central figure in Parliament throughout the Civil War, particularly active in the field of religious settlement, and, although he did not take to the field again, he continued to serve in the parliamentarian army until disqualified by the self-denying ordinance.12 In 1644 he was appointed to the Lords committee for drawing up instructions for the commissioners meeting with the Scots and was then appointed one of the commissioners.13 The same year he was awarded the wardship of Sir George Savile, 4th bt., later marquess of Halifax.14
Although Wharton’s activity in Parliament declined after 1646, his close association with Oliver Cromwell‡ meant that he retained considerable influence and his activities following the king’s defeat continued to dog him long after the Restoration. Most insidious was his ambiguous behaviour over an apparent plot to assassinate the king. Wharton had nominated one of Charles I’s attendants in his captivity at Carisbrooke Castle, Richard Osborne, who soon after became involved in one of the king’s numerous escape attempts. When the plan was discovered, Osborne fled to London and informed Wharton of a conspiracy to murder the king led by the governor of the Isle of Wight, Colonel Hammond, and Edmund Rolph.15 Wharton’s failure to disclose this information compelled Osborne to write to Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester (the Speaker of the House of Lords) and to the Speaker of the Commons pointing out Wharton’s omission. Wharton was forced to make his excuses in the House on 19 June 1648, in which he claimed, bizarrely, to have passed the information on at once to Hammond. Although the House accepted his explanation, Wharton’s apparent quiescence in a plot to assassinate Charles I invited swift condemnation in the press.16
His suspicious behaviour in the summer of 1648 notwithstanding, Wharton appears genuinely to have parted company with the army by the time of Pride’s Purge. He sat for the last time on 7 Dec. and on 28 Dec., in response to an order to attend, pleaded ‘urgent occasions’ for his failure to comply. He refused to participate in the king’s subsequent trial and, in spite of the earnest attempts made by Cromwell to bring him into the administration between 1649 and 1651 he remained in effective retirement for the remainder of the Interregnum. He also rebuffed an effort made by Cromwell to ally their families with the marriage of his son, Henry Cromwell‡, to Wharton’s daughter, Elizabeth. He was later persuaded by Saye and Sele to reject Cromwell’s offer of a place in the Other House.17
Head of the Presbyterian Cabal?
Although by the time of the Restoration Wharton had been removed from direct involvement in public affairs for more than a decade, he was early on identified as a prominent figure among those seeking a solution to the country’s difficulties. Sir Edward Hyde, later earl of Clarendon, directed one of his agents, Colonel Hollis, to ‘comply with L.W.’ (possibly meaning Wharton) ‘in all things’ as early as August 1659.18 The marriage of Elizabeth Wharton to the royalist Robert Bertie, styled Lord Willoughby de Eresby (later 3rd earl of Lindsey) in that year perhaps indicates the direction in which Wharton had decided to proceed, though it may also be regarded as a further example of his ability to forge alliances with people of all persuasions in spite of his reputation as a staunch and unyielding puritan.19
Wharton returned to London in February 1660, according to his own account (penned after the Restoration), ‘with full resolution to endeavour a happy settlement’.20 He soon emerged as one of the foremost figures within the ‘Presbyterian junto,’ seeking to achieve a restoration along the lines of the treaty of Newport. Meetings of this group were divided between Wharton’s London residence and that of Algernon Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland. Quite as important for Wharton as the quest for a satisfactory political settlement was his own need to achieve security from any future actions against those involved in the cause against the late king. By March this appears to have become his overriding consideration and on 23 Mar. Lady Mordaunt wrote to Hyde requesting him to send ‘by the first opportunity Lord Wharton’s pardon.’21 The following month her husband, John Mordaunt, Viscount Mordaunt, commented in a letter to Edward Hyde how Wharton ‘will almost believe himself in heaven when he receives his pardon.’ Mordaunt’s letter also cast doubt on Wharton’s commanding role within the ‘cabal’ as it was clear that he was not always present among the group seeking, it was believed, to thwart the designs of George Monck (later duke of Albemarle).22
While Mordaunt’s information may have questioned it, the perception that Wharton was the ‘head of the junto’ has been reinforced by his composition of a list of the newly returned members of the House of Commons. Of the entire list of 526 names, more than half (276) were annotated with a variety of symbols, indicating their relative trustworthiness on a range of issues, while 121 were assigned to 23 ‘managers’ (including Wharton himself), over whom he, presumably, expected to be able to exert his influence to a greater or lesser degree in the Convention.23 Undoubtedly, Wharton had friends and retainers in the House of Commons. The elections had seen the return of his brother, Sir Thomas Wharton, his steward, William Briscoe‡, and a close political ally, Sir Richard Onslow‡, the first and last of whom were listed among his principal managers in the Commons. The question of the reliability of this list and of a subsequent one compiled for the Cavalier Parliament as an indication of political loyalty lies at the heart of understanding the extent of Wharton’s interest in Parliament. The vast majority of those whom Wharton considered friends do appear to have been Presbyterian or to have been sympathetic to Presbyterianism but a number of those included are surprising. Sir Walter Acton‡ of Bridgnorth has been described as a ‘high cavalier’; Roger Boyle‡, Baron Broghill [I] (later earl of Orrery [I]) ‘a Royalist and an Anglican at heart’; and Henry Carey‡, 4th Viscount Falkland [S], would also not appear to have been in obvious sympathy with Wharton. As far as the last is concerned, his management (and that of two others) was assigned to his Oxfordshire neighbour and Wharton’s kinsman, Thomas Wenman‡, 2nd Viscount Wenman [I] (also a surprising addition to the list), which may explain his inclusion. As a man who had fought a duel maintaining the king’s honour in the 1640s and who had been involved in providing arms for the royalist movement, Samuel Enys’s‡ inclusion as one of Wharton’s ‘friends’ makes little obvious sense. Equally unexpected is Sir Thomas Meres‡, who has been described as a ‘dedicated Anglican’.24 Others such as Andrew Marvell‡, Thomas Fairfax‡, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron [S], and Sir Francis Drake‡ (Pym’s son-in-law) are easier to comprehend. However, Wharton numbered among his friends and relations a broad cross-section of political society including royalists from the Musgrave and Bertie families as well as more obviously parliamentarian figures. Topography also appears to have been a significant determining factor in inclusion. Wharton’s ‘friends’ predominantly held seats in Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Oxfordshire, Yorkshire and East Anglia.
It is certainly unwise to dismiss Wharton’s list as little more than an inaccurate wish list. There was clearly purpose in the compilation, for while Thomas Crew‡, returned for Brackley, was included, his father, John Crew, later Baron Crew, also a staunch Presbyterian who sat for the same borough, was not. Although George Pitt‡ was a cavalier, he appears to have had Presbyterian and Independent sympathies, which presumably explains his inclusion. The list also illustrates the fluid situation of the spring of 1660.25 One of Wharton’s supposed friends, Edward King‡, who had a reputation for being ‘factious and fanatical enough’ and a rigid Presbyterian, must have been thought a reliable addition, but after his conversion to the court only days before Parliament met, it was soon reported that ‘none act more vigorously for the king … than William Prynne and King.’26 While it would be unreasonable, then, to infer from this list that Wharton expected that those included would behave as a coherent group, it is possible that he hoped for each to exhibit some sympathy towards his views or (perhaps more importantly) towards himself.
For the Lords, Wharton compiled a separate list, noting down the previous allegiances of each peer. As with the Commons list, this record presents some difficulties, particularly among those peers who Wharton evidently did not know well. George Berkeley, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, was listed as ‘Lord Bartlett’, while William Sandys, 6th Baron Sandys, who had inherited the peerage from his grandmother, was inaccurately listed as a peer whose father had sat. The same error was made in the case of Thomas Windsor, 7th Baron Windsor (later earl of Plymouth), though he was marked with a query. Wharton noted himself as one of those peers ‘who sat’.27
The Convention Parliament 1660-1
Wharton took his seat in the House at the opening of the Convention on 25 Apr. 1660. As an indication of how raw memories of the 1640s remained for men of his stamp, when Wharton passed the bench formerly occupied by Laud, it was said his ‘blood did rise to see where that accursed man did sit.’28 Wharton attended almost three-quarters of all sitting days in the first part of the Convention, during which he was named to 25 committees.29 Named to two committees on the first day, the same day he reported from that considering which lords should be sent letters requiring their attendance. As a result it was recommended that letters should be sent to six more peers (Charles Howard, 3rd earl of Nottingham, Dudley North, 3rd Baron North, Edward Montagu, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton, Charles West, 5th Baron De la Warr, Thomas Bruce, earl of Elgin [S] who sat as Baron Bruce, and John Manners, 8th earl of Rutland).30 Wharton was named to a further three committees on 27 Apr., but on 1 May he was granted leave of absence for, ‘as often as he finds occasion in respect of his indisposition of health and lameness.’
In spite of his apparent poor health, which may well have been used as a ploy, Wharton remained an active participant in the House’s business. The same day that he was granted leave for his health, he acted as the manager of a conference considering ‘ways and means to make up the breaches and distractions of the kingdom’. He was present again the following day (2 May) when he was named to the committee for settling the militia and on 9 May, when he was named to the committee concerning the commissioners to be sent to the king. The following day (10 May) he was named with Saye and Sele, Theophilus Clinton, 4th earl of Lincoln, and Basil Feilding, 2nd earl of Denbigh, to make some amendments to the commissioners’ instructions in reference to the arms of the Commonwealth. He reported the proposed amendments the same day, which were agreed to by the House. Added to the committee for petitions on 16 May, on 22 May he was absent from the attendance list but named to the committee considering an answer to be returned to the Commons concerning a free conference over the fate of Charles I’s judges. He was also restored to the office of custos rotulorum for Buckinghamshire and Westmorland.
Despite his sober, puritan upbringing, Wharton was more than ready to indulge in fine clothes and to enjoy the pleasures of dancing and court masques.31 He was also a connoisseur of the arts and a patron of the portraitist, Peter Lely. This side of his character was reflected in his appearance at the king’s reception on 29 May, where he was noted as dressed in mourning (for his recently deceased wife) but embellished with diamonds and riding a horse equipped with furniture said to have cost £8,000.32
Wharton’s apparent pleasure at the restoration of the monarchy failed to curb rumours that continued to circulate over the following two months that moves were afoot to have him excepted out of the bill of indemnity.33 Wharton’s apparent peril did not prevent him from continuing to play a prominent role in the House’s business and on 7 June he was named along with the lord chamberlain (Manchester), James Compton, 3rd earl of Northampton, John Colepeper, Baron Colepeper and John Robartes, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), to prepare a draft petition to the king from both houses requesting that he would make a proclamation against profanity, to be read in churches and at the assizes. Two days later he reported the draft to the House, which was approved. Wharton’s precarious situation was highlighted when on 11 June the House heard a petition from his former ward, Sir George Savile, demanding that the bill of indemnity should not extend to protecting Wharton from his (Savile’s) efforts to recoup the £4,000 he claimed Wharton had been in receipt of annually from his estates as his official guardian.34 Named to the committee considering the oath of allegiance on 14 June, the same day Wharton’s safety was threatened more directly when the House again took into consideration Richard Osborne’s letters of June 1648 concerning the alleged plot against the king’s life. In his letter to Manchester, Osborne had queried what reason there had been for the suppression of his information, ‘except it be to give those time that are concerned in it, better to think of some stratagem to evade this discovery.’35 Wharton’s apparent complicity in suppressing Osborne’s report was presumably one of the reasons for the renewed attempts to have him excepted from pardon. These were countered firmly by the interposition of his son-in-law, Willoughby de Eresby, and of his cousin, Sir Philip Musgrave‡, 2nd bt. (whom Wharton had protected during the Interregnum), who presented Wharton to the king at Greenwich for his pardon.36 He also received valuable support from Henry Grey, earl of Stamford, and from the king’s brother, James Stuart, duke of York.37
Despite his pardon, the spectre of Osborne’s information against him may explain the decline in Wharton’s activities in the House in July and August, during which time he was named to just six committees, but his involvement increased once more in September. On 3 Sept. he was added to the committee for the bill concerning patents and grants obtained during the troubles and three days later he reported from that concerning Augustine Skynner. On 10 Sept. he reported from the committee for the bill for restoring ministers in livings, amendments to which were passed. The same day, during the afternoon session, he was named one of the reporters of a conference with the Commons concerning amendments to the bill for ministers and the following day (11 Sept.) he continued to be heavily involved in the measure, being named to the committee appointed to make further amendments to the bill, and reporting from the conference held with the Commons, as a result of which the proposed proviso was agreed to, generating protests from four peers. Wharton was then named once more to be a reporter of a further conference with the Commons on the same business.
Wharton returned to the House for the second part of the Convention on 6 Nov. and was again present for approximately three quarters of all sitting days, during which he was named to 10 committees.38 On 12 Dec. he was named to the sub-committee appointed to consider the bill for attainting the murderers of the late king. The following day he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill for vacating Sir Edward Powell’s fines.39 On 22 Dec. he reported from the committee concerning the bill for review of the poll bill and on the same day he was named with Northumberland and Robartes to consider whether the Lords had been provided for in the bill for taking away the court of wards. On 28 Dec. he was named to a further committee considering the conference concerning the same business.
Wharton’s interest in the Commons declined substantially as a result of the elections for the Cavalier Parliament.40 The elections for Buckinghamshire saw the return of Sir William Bowyer‡ and William Tyringham‡ in place of Wharton’s candidates, Richard Hampden‡ and Richard Winwood‡.41 The broader extent of the decline is revealed by a second list he compiled, again detailing those he considered to be his ‘friends’ in the House. Most striking was the reduction in the number of ‘managers’ at his disposal. Whereas he had identified 22 in addition to himself in his first assessment, by 1661 a mere six remained. These comprised one Mr Stevens (probably Edward Stephens‡), Mr Lever (as yet unidentified), Edmund Petty‡, Mr Browne (possibly Richard Browne‡, member for Ludgershall), Sir Richard Onslow and Wharton himself. Between them the six managers were allotted approximately 133 individuals, but of these a number are almost impossible to identify (two are listed simply as ‘Mr…’) or failed to be returned. Of the 124 remaining, there are again a number of unlikely names, including Lawrence Hyde‡, cousin of the earl of Clarendon (as Sir Edward Hyde had since become).42
Cavalier Parliament 1661-67
Wharton took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661. On 11 May he was named to the standing committees for petitions, privileges and the journal. Three days later (14 May) he was named to that considering the bill for reversing Strafford’s attainder and to a further 17 committees over the course of the session, during which he attended on almost 78 per cent of all sitting days.43 In June Wharton took a prominent role in the debates over the bill of uniformity, arguing that Catholics could not be bound to any oaths that conflicted with their allegiance to Rome and that the retention of the penal laws might prove of use in seeking to end Catholic persecution of protestants abroad.44 On 17 July Wharton chaired the committee considering John Orlibeare’s bill.45 He reported it as fit to pass two days later and on 25 July he was named to the committee considering the penalties to be imposed on those excepted out of the act of indemnity (among whom Wharton had narrowly avoided being included). Wharton appears to have supported his kinsman Montagu Bertie, 2nd earl of Lindsey, the current holder of the office, in Lindsey’s contest with Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford over the great chamberlaincy, concerning whose rival claim he had compiled notes the previous month.46
Although Wharton resumed his seat following the adjournment on 21 Nov. he was named to no further committees until 24 Jan. 1662, when he was included on that considering the bill for repealing acts of the Long Parliament. Reflecting his close interest in the religious settlement, on 8 Apr. he was named to the committee nominated to draw up a proviso for members of the clergy deprived by the provisions of the uniformity bill and on 30 Apr. he was named to the committee considering the bill for restoring advowsons taken away upon compositions. On 12 May Wharton chaired the committee for stoppages on common highways, from which he reported back on 14 May.47 Following debate he was appointed with Warwick Mohun, 2nd Baron Mohun, to amend part of the bill. He reported their amendments the same day, which were read through and agreed. Three days later (17 May) Wharton was named one of the reporters of a conference considering the same bill, reporting its findings on the House’s resumption later that day, when he was also named a manager of the conference on the bill for poor relief. Wharton reported further amendments to the common highways bill on 19 May and was again appointed to draw up what was fit to be discussed with the Commons at the forthcoming free conference between the two Houses. The same day he was named manager of the conference held with the Commons concerning the bill to restrain disorderly printing.
In December one of Wharton’s servants, Walter Jones, formerly a servant to one of Cromwell’s kinsmen, was arrested as a result of information provided by Sir John Denham‡. Jones was questioned by Sir Henry Bennet, later earl of Arlington, but was freed shortly after at Wharton’s request.48 The incident both hints at Wharton’s own potential vulnerability at this point and the strength of his interest that he was able to secure Jones’s release relatively quickly. Wharton took his seat at the opening of the ensuing session on 18 Feb. 1663. On 19 Mar. he was named to the committee considering the bill for repealing acts of the Long Parliament and to a further six committees in the course of the session, of which he attended just under 60 per cent of all sitting days.49 In July Wharton was among those most forward in supporting the attempt of George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, to have the lord chancellor impeached. Wharton’s support for the measure may have been on account of Clarendon’s reputed role in advancing Catholics at court, though their antipathy long antedated this.50 As early as May 1660 Clarendon had been warned of the ‘ill offices’ being done to him by his enemies: Northumberland, Manchester, Saye and Sele and Wharton. Clarendon’s role in securing the restoration of the bishops to their places in the Lords was a further reason for Wharton to seek his displacement.51 When Bristol’s efforts misfired, Wharton attempted to secure his unlikely ally from the chancellor’s ire by moving during the debate in the House on Tuesday 13 July that Bristol should be protected by privilege arguing that, ‘no lord should be questioned, during the prorogation, or session of Parliament, for any thing that he had done in Parliament, that was not treason.’52 Although George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, seconded the motion, it was sidestepped deftly by Clarendon and his supporters. When it was proposed to adjourn the debate to the next day, Wharton attempted to secure more time for Bristol and his supporters by proposing that the House be adjourned to 16 July (Thursday), though this too was rejected. In the debates of the following day (14 July) Wharton was again prominent in arguing the importance of privilege in protecting the House from royal interference.53
Whatever Wharton’s precise motivation in attacking Clarendon, his role in the affair is again both enhanced and complicated by his composition of a list, which probably represents his assessment of how he expected the peers to act on the question of the impeachment. According to his forecast (which is open to interpretation), 43 or 44 peers holding 15 proxies were expected to support Bristol, while only 24 or 26 (and their three or eight proxies) were expected to hold firm for Clarendon. Fourteen or 15 were believed to be uncommitted. John Granville, earl of Bath, appeared twice, noted as being both in favour of Bristol’s attempt and opposed to it. William Grey, Baron Grey of Warke, was listed both as opposed to Bristol and uncertain. Only five prelates appear on the sheet, though it is clear that Wharton expected all of the 17 bishops present to back Clarendon.54 The resulting numbers, 58 (or 59) against 44 (or 51) with 14 or 15 undecided undoubtedly exaggerated the strength of Bristol’s support but, despite the difficulties presented by his assessment, Wharton’s list underscores the serious level of discontent in the House towards the lord chancellor in the summer of 1663, coalescing around the Catholic peers and former parliamentarians. It also suggests Wharton’s own determination to see Clarendon brought low.55
In the wake of Bristol’s failed attempt, Wharton remained active in the House. He opposed the passage of the conventicle bill in July and condemned the fact that ‘the exorbitant power given to a single justice of the peace or town officer [is] greater than the judges and all the justices of peace together now have or ever had.’56 Although the end of the session prevented further progress being made in this measure, Wharton’s very public disillusionment may have encouraged belief that he would be willing to lend his support to schemes to overturn the administration, which presumably explains his rumoured involvement in the Yorkshire plot of that year. In a letter of 24 Oct. 1663, in which he reported his progress in rounding up the conspirators, Sir Thomas Gower‡ reported to Joseph Williamson‡ how those that had been arrested ‘impeach one another, and great men are named’, proceeding to wonder whether Wharton would be among those implicated, ‘his carriage being much suspected, but he could get little and might lose much, considering his wealth.’ Evidence provided by Captain Robert Atkinson suggested that Fairfax and Manchester ‘were acquainted with the plot but disowned it’ and that Wharton ‘was privy to it.’57 Wharton himself was only too eager to distance himself from any possible association with the rising and to jettison any of his retainers whose conduct appeared to be in any way questionable. In an undated letter of that year in reference to one of his servants, whose movements had provoked suspicion, he entreated his correspondent to:
let Sir [Philip Musgrave] know that if there be jealousies concerning Ric[hard] Waller, I will not keep [him] in my service. My private opinion of him is that he is a very harmless fellow, and upon my knowledge he had… occasion of his repairing into Westmorland when he did (since my return out of the north) for the supplying himself with monies for paying of debts he is run into, but I say notwithstanding this or what ever I think of him I shall readily quit him, though I judge him to be so helpless a young man that I doubt much he will not know how to dispose of himself when he is gone from me.58
The man in question may have been the same sought out by Arlington at the beginning of December, who appears already to have been arrested and released (at Wharton’s intercession) the previous year. As far as his own conduct was concerned (which was certainly open to suspicion), Wharton was again able to rely upon his brother to counter any accusations of involvement with the plotters. On 18 Jan. 1664, Sir Thomas wrote to Wharton advising that he speak ‘with the king and good men in this, because I perceive by reports spread… that some people are busy to blast your good name’. Wharton was assisted by the speed with which information against him degenerated into claim and counter-claim among those taken up. One, Walters, swore that another conspirator, Denham, had proposed that Wharton should be their general, but that when ‘he had sent to let my lord know that the eyes of some were upon him’ he ‘found that he was not to be dealt with.’59
Poor health and concentration on clearing his name may explain a substantial decline in Wharton’s activity in the House over the following three sessions. He took his seat in the third session of the Cavalier Parliament on 29 Mar. 1664, but was then absent for almost three weeks. Excused at a call of the House on 4 Apr. (he was reported to have been ‘very ill of an ague’ that month) he resumed his place on 18 Apr., after which he attended on 55 per cent of all sitting days.60 He was named to just one committee (perhaps significantly, this was for the bill for transporting felons). Present for the prorogation day on 20 Aug., Wharton took his seat once more at the opening of the fourth session on 24 Nov., and was thereafter present for a little over a third of all sitting days. Excused at a call of the House on 7 Dec., he resumed his seat on 19 Jan. 1665 and was then named to just two committees before the close of the session.61
Wharton was absent from the opening of the following session that met at Oxford on 9 Oct. 1665, but he took his seat two days later and then proceeded to attend nine days of the brief 19-day session. Named to the committee considering the additional bill to prevent the plague on 26 Oct., the following day he was named to the committee concerning a bill in which he was closely interested: that for restraining nonconformists from residing within corporations. On 30 Oct. he was prominent among those who spoke in opposition to this, the five-mile bill, but their demand to have the bill recommitted was defeated through York’s interest.62 The Lords’ rejection of the Irish cattle bill, which had been first presented to the Commons on 18 Oct. by Sir Richard Temple‡, elicited a relieved missive from Wharton’s Irish agent, Samuel Bull, who wrote to Wharton on 15 Nov. that the news of its rejection ‘revives our spirits, the truth is if that bill had been enacted the inhabitants of this kingdom had been undone’.63
Wharton was one of only two peers (the other being Anthony Ashley Cooper Baron Ashley) to find Thomas Parker, 15th Baron Morley and 6th Baron Monteagle, guilty of murder at his trial in April 1666.64 He returned to the House for the ensuing session on 24 Sept., after which he was present for approximately 53 per cent of all sitting days. Absent at a call on 1 Oct., he resumed his seat on 19 Oct. and on 17 Nov. he was named to the committee considering the proviso to be added to the Irish cattle bill, which was again before the House. On 29 Dec. he was appointed one of the managers of a conference concerning the poll bill and to a further conference on the same matter on 2 Jan. 1667, on which day he was also named a manager of a conference concerning the public accounts. On 9 Jan. Wharton served as a manager of the conference concerning public accounts and on 12 Jan. he was appointed one of the reporters of a further conference on the poll bill. He was again a manager of the conference concerning public accounts on 24 January.
From Clarendon’s fall to Exclusion, 1667-1678
Wharton’s uncertain health intervened again later in the year and he was absent from the initial six months of the ensuing session. On 29 Oct. he was excused at a call on account of poor health and he was excused once more on 17 Feb. 1668. His ill health may explain his failure to support those attempting once more to achieve Clarendon’s impeachment. It may be that his neutrality was more deliberate and linked to hopes to obtain Clarendon’s assistance to achieve comprehension.65
Poor health certainly does not appear to have prevented Wharton from pursuing his own business. In May 1668 he appears to have been working closely with Andrew Marvell over the composition of an address to the crown desiring intervention to bring about better relations between Protestants, though nothing came of it.66 Towards the end of October he wrote to Samuel Bull, with letters enclosed for one Mr Eliot and James Annesley, styled Lord Annesley (later 2nd earl of Anglesey), concerning his petition to be given restitution for his losses in Ireland. Bull’s response, of 16 Nov., was dispiriting. Acknowledging receipt of the letters, he informed Wharton that ‘whoever informed your lordship that they could advance your lordship’s affairs does not know Ireland, if they do I am told to say that they do not know the commissioners as well as I do’.67
The anticipated resignation (or likely imminent death) of Sir Edward Atkyns, baron of the exchequer, at the close of 1668 was the occasion of Wharton seeking to propose William Ellys‡, one of those he had included on his list of 1660, for preferment. He approached John Wilkins, bishop of Chester, on Ellys’s behalf asking that Wilkins might use his interest with the lord keeper, Heneage Finch, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham), to procure him the vacant place but on 1 Jan. 1669 Wilkins replied advising Wharton that the place had already been promised to someone else.68 Wharton finally returned to his seat in the House on 9 Mar., after which he attended on a further 20 days (approximately 17 per cent of the whole session) during which he was named to two committees.
Following four years of poor health, Wharton’s attendance improved steadily for the remaining sessions of the parliament. He took his seat at the opening of the new session on 19 Oct. 1669 when he was named to the standing committees for privileges, petitions and the journal. Absent without explanation at a call of the House on 26 Oct., he resumed his seat four days later and was, thereafter, present without major interruption for the remainder of the session (a little under 70 per cent of the whole). Despite this, he was named to only one committee when on 9 Nov. he was added to that considering the report from the commissioners for accounts. Wharton was again present at the opening of the ensuing session on 14 Feb. 1670, after which he was present for approximately 67 per cent of all sitting days. Named again to all three standing committees, he was named to a further 19 committees in the course of the session.69 On 26 Mar. he entered his dissent at the resolution to pass the conventicles bill, something that threatened to touch him closely as it was reported the same day that he had been among those arrested the previous Sunday for attending the conventicle led by Dr Martin.70 On 8 Apr. he entered a further dissent against the supply bill. Five days after the adjournment (14 Apr.), Bulstrode Whitelocke‡ noted in his diary a visit by Wharton and Lady Wharton, commenting that, ‘his lordship came often to Whitelocke about the business of liberty of conscience, to which he was a friend.’71
During the summer adjournment Wharton was again perceived to be to the fore among those seeking a general toleration.72 He returned to the House on 24 Oct. 1670, but it is perhaps significant that despite his presence in the chamber for much of November and December he was not named to any further committees until 18 Jan. 1671 when he was added to that for the bill examining the accounts of money given to the poor during the plague and Great Fire of London. Named to a further 10 committees between February and April, on 20 Apr. he was named to the committee considering the bill for better observation of the Sabbath.73
Wharton returned to the House on 4 Feb. 1673 at the opening of the session that followed the lengthy prorogation that had lasted from April 1671 to February 1673 (interrupted only by his attendance at two sittings on 16 Apr. and 30 Oct. 1672). He was thereafter present for approximately two thirds of all sitting days. Named to the standing committees for privileges and petitions on 4 Feb., on 13 Feb. he was excused at a call of the House, but he resumed his seat again on 25 Feb., and was named to three committees during the remainder of the session.74 Closely involved, as ever, with matters relating to Protestant Dissent, Wharton communicated details of the session’s exchanges on the matter to the Dissenting minister, Samuel Hieron, though he took the precaution of omitting his name from the outside of the packets in which he sealed his messages.75
During the summer of 1673 Wharton’s attentions were taken up with attempting to secure a match for his heir, Thomas Wharton (later marquess of Wharton). In doing so he was aided by the assistance of his Buckinghamshire neighbour, Sir Ralph Verney‡ (who was credited with ‘making’ the match) and the Dissenting minister, William Denton.76 In September September a match was concluded with Anne Lee, niece of John Wilmot, 2nd earl of Rochester, and sister-in-law to James Bertie, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon). Norreys was already related to Wharton by virtue of the marriage of his half-brother, Willoughby de Eresby (now 3rd earl of Lindsey), to Elizabeth Wharton. The marriage proved controversial as Anne Lee had been intended originally to marry John Arundell, later 2nd Baron Arundell of Trerice, who had the king’s blessing for the match, but the combined pressure of Verney, the dowager Lady Rochester and Wharton himself ensured that Thomas Wharton secured Anne and her £10,000 dowry.77
Wharton returned to the House at the opening of the session of October, but attended just one of its four days. He took his seat in the ensuing session on 7 Jan. 1674, after which he was present on almost 90 per cent of all sitting days but was named to just two committees.78 Wharton’s commitment to the Dissenting cause was highlighted during the ensuing 14-month prorogation when he was again arrested for worshipping at a conventicle in March 1675. Other notables in attendance at Thomas Manton’s meeting house in Covent Garden included the countess of Bedford, dowager countess of Manchester and Lady Diana Verney.79 Wharton appears to have exercised some restraint over Manton and to have persuaded him not to preach on the occasion enabling Wharton and his fellow sufferers to initiate proceedings against the local justices for their treatment, for which they sought damages of £30,000.80 He returned to the House at the opening of the new session the following month on 13 Apr. and was once more assiduous in his attendance, being present on all but one of the 42 days in the session, during which he was named to six committees. Increasingly identified, as was Thomas Wharton, with the opposition grouping coalescing around the earl of Shaftesbury (as Ashley had now become), on the opening day of the session Wharton was one of 10 peers to register their protest against the vote of thanks to the king.81 The session was dominated by a series of protests against the test bill, to many of which Wharton subscribed. On 21 Apr. he registered his protest at the resolution that the bill to prevent dangers presented to the government by disaffected persons did not encroach upon the Lords’ privileges and five days later (26 Apr.) he protested again at the committal of the bill. On 29 Apr. he protested at the resolution that the previous protest had reflected upon the honour of the House and the following day he was again a prominent member of the opposition grouping, speaking in the debate within the committee of the whole considering the bill. He proposed an addition to the bill, which was rejected, and asked what was acknowledged to be ‘a very hard question’, whether the bishops claimed the power to excommunicate the king, to which they evaded giving a response. Later the same day, Wharton ‘apprehending the dialect’ interrupted a speech ‘of eloquent and well-placed nonsense’ delivered by Buckingham, bringing the debate to an end.82 He registered a further protest on 4 May at the decision to agree with the committee’s amendment that included both peers and members of the Commons in the first enacting clause.
Wharton returned to the House at the opening of the ensuing session and was thereafter present on each day of the session. On 8 Nov. he was named to the committee established to discover the identity of the publisher of A Letter from a Person of Quality (in which he featured, being described as ‘an old and expert Parliament man of eminent piety and abilities’), and to a further five committees during the brief 21-day session.83 On 20 Nov. he voted in favour of composing an address requesting that Parliament be dissolved. He then registered his protest at the rejection of the proposal.84 Wharton’s association with Shaftesbury continued to develop during the prorogation and together with Charles Mohun, 3rd Baron Mohun, the two men were observed whispering together during the trial for murder of Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis.85
During the summer of 1676 Wharton was once more noted as one of the notables frequenting Thomas Manton’s meeting house in Covent Garden.86 Wharton’s continuing attendance at dissenting assemblies, as well as his association with Shaftesbury, appears to have led to him coming under close scrutiny during the year. 87 His activities certainly attracted the interest of Sir Joseph Williamson around this time and in October Wharton’s cousin, Sir Philip Musgrave, submitted to him a detailed report of Wharton’s movements in the north, noting two meetings with Charles Powlett, 6th marquess of Winchester (later duke of Bolton), and of the presence of one Murray, ‘a Scotch gentleman… frequently with LW at his house in London and in the country and as often with Lord Shaftesbury.’ Musgrave recorded that Murray was the recipient of regular sums of money from Wharton’s secretary, but ‘to what end is not known nor what his business is with LW.’88
Wharton took his seat in the House at the opening of the new session on 15 Feb. 1677. Although one of the principal supporters of Shaftesbury and Buckingham in their contention that Parliament was dissolved by the 15-month prorogation, Wharton’s own argument differed significantly from that of his associates.89 He held that the prorogation had been illegal but did not extrapolate from that the conclusion that Parliament was thereby dissolved.90 Even so, the next day, following a further two hours of debate, John Frescheville, Baron Frescheville, and Richard Arundell, Baron Arundell of Trerice (father of Anne Lee’s former suitor) moved that Wharton, Buckingham, Shaftesbury and James Cecil, 3rd earl of Salisbury, the four peers who had questioned the legality of the prorogation, should be called to the bar.91 While the House recognized that Wharton had not ‘positively asserted and maintained that this Parliament is dissolved’ they did ‘observe your lordship did assert and maintain that this prorogation is illegal, about which the House has taken very great offence.’92 When Wharton (like his comrades) refused to sue for pardon (insisting that he had already done so before leaving the chamber the previous day), he was ordered to kneel at the bar of the House as a delinquent and was then sent to the Tower, where he remained for the following five months.93 He was the only one of the four not to request to be joined in the Tower by his own cook. The peers’ confinement was, at first, unexpectedly severe and after a week’s internment it was noted that they were being kept in the Tower as ‘close prisoners’ and not permitted any visitors except by permission of the king and House.94 On 20 Feb. the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Robinson‡, who had previously been included among Wharton’s list of friends in the Convention, reported that he had sent away a number of people closely associated with the opposition, among them Thomas Wharton and William Russell‡, Lord Russell, who had attempted to wait upon the imprisoned peers.95 Their incarceration gave rise to at least one comic verse, which ran:
What Cooper designs Sawpit dares not oppose,
And George leads soft Cecil about by the nose,
The first is a statesman, The second his tool,
The third a d[amned] Atheist, The fourth is a fool.96
Wharton’s experience appears to have persuaded him to detach himself from Shaftesbury and his co-internees. While the other three initially submitted joint petitions, in his efforts to gain his release Wharton appears always to have acted unilaterally. After two months’ confinement in the Tower, ‘deeply sensible of the displeasure he is under,’ he petitioned the House that he might be set at liberty, ‘in regard of his bodily infirmities and the affairs of his family.’97 On 16 Apr. the petition was referred to the king, who soon after expressed his ‘willingness on account of Lord Wharton’s indisposition’ to allow him a period of parole at his house in Buckinghamshire until 21 May. The other three peers’ joint petition submitted at the same time was less favourably received.98 Despite the growing distance between them, Wharton was noted ‘thrice worthy’ by Shaftesbury early in May.99 Wharton sought the interest of a variety of his acquaintance in the hopes of achieving his permanent release, among them his brother’s old patron, James Butler, duke of Ormond [I] (who sat in the House by right of his English earldom of Brecknock), and in a further petition to the king he expressed, ‘his deepest sorrow for having fallen under your majesty’s pardon’ and beseeched that he might, ‘out of your innate goodness and clemency [be] graciously pleased to grant a full release to your aged and infirm petitioner.’100 To strengthen his cause, Wharton also appealed to his Buckinghamshire neighbour, Sir Ralph Verney, for his assistance:
You will easily suppose I desire a total release and I am not out of hopes of it. You know of how great an import it would be to me to have a good word from my lord keeper therein, and I cannot bethink myself of any who I believe would be so ready to do me that kindness as yourself.101
Despite these efforts, Wharton was recommitted to the Tower on 21 May according to the terms of his parole.102 On 30 June he wrote to Verney again, this time on behalf of his daughter, Margaret Dunch, asking him to use his interest with the lord chancellor (Finch) to ensure that the forthcoming Berkshire assizes might be held at Abingdon rather than Reading. Salisbury’s successful application to be released in July inspired Wharton to write to Verney again on 25 July enclosing another petition ‘in the essentials’ conforming to Salisbury’s, though ‘the circumstance varying… it was requisite it should not be throughout the same (word for word).’103 On 29 July, Williamson at last communicated to Wharton that this latest petition for release had been successful. The king, he was informed, ‘accepts your submission as to that part of the offence which relates to him, and as to what relates to the House of Peers, he expects you to make the submission which the House enjoined you.’ The same day a warrant was passed for his release and two days later (31 July) he was freed from his confinement.104
In a letter of 7 Aug. 1677 Andrew Marvell recounted Wharton’s subsequent and remarkably jocular interview with the king. The latter, it was said:
jested with him and said he would teach him a text of scripture; ‘It will be very acceptable from your Majesty’. ‘Sin no more’. ‘Your Majesty has that from my quotation of it to my Lord Arlington when he had been before the House of Commons.’ ‘Well my lord you and I are both old men, and we should love quietness.’ ‘Beside all other obligations I have reason to desire it having some £1500 a year to lose.’ ‘Ay my lord but you have an aching tooth still.’ ‘No indeed, mine are all fallen out.’105
As his self-deprecating remark about the decay of his teeth suggested, Wharton’s incarceration appears to have taken its toll on his already uncertain health. In September it was even put about that he had died at his home in Buckinghamshire.106
On 7 Feb. 1678, almost exactly a year after he had first been imprisoned, Wharton returned to his seat in the House. In advance of his return efforts appear to have been made to incarcerate him, Salisbury and Buckingham again when the lord chancellor complained ‘of their being released out of the Tower without making satisfaction to the House’. Finch was not permitted to finish his accusation. Charles Howard, 2nd earl of Berkshire, interrupted him to inform the House that ‘to his knowledge one of them was ready to give all satisfaction’ and he also revealed that he was in possession of a petition from Buckingham.107 In the face of vocal support for the formerly incarcerated peers, Finch was compelled to back down, enabling Wharton to return to his place having made his submission at last for his offences of the previous year.108 The same day he was added to the committee for the bill concerning Deeping Fen and to a further four committees during the remainder of the session.109 As a consequence of his period in the Tower, Wharton was present for only 39 per cent of all sitting days in the session, but following his return he was regular in his attendance, sitting throughout February and March and for the majority of sitting days in May. Imprisonment had done nothing to temper his views and in mid-March he was noted, with Shaftesbury, Buckingham and Denzil Holles, Baron Holles, as one of the peers most eager for an immediate declaration of war with France.110
Wharton took his seat at the opening of the new session on 23 May 1678, following the brief 10-day prorogation. In the course of the session, of which he attended approximately 86 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to the standing committees and to a further 13 committees.111 He returned to the House two days into the following session on 23 Oct. when he was named to the committee appointed to examine papers concerning the Popish Plot. On the day the session opened Wharton compiled a list of those peers who had registered their proxies and who held them.112 Present for almost 84 per cent of all sitting days in the session, in November Wharton was named to the committee for examining constables to determine whether or not they were Catholics and to a further three committees relating to the emergency.113 On 9 Nov. he noted a list of ‘five expedients propounded concerning the papist lords’, in which it was proposed that no Catholic should be able to vote in matters of religion, that the king should not create any Catholic a peer, that no convert to Rome should sit in either House, that no Catholic peers should sit when there was a Catholic king on the throne and, finally, that no peer should sit unless he had sworn not to undermine the established Church. On 15 Nov. 1678 Wharton voted in favour of the motion made in committee of the whole considering the bill for disabling papists from sitting in Parliament that the declaration against transubstantiation should be under the same penalty as the oaths. On 19 Nov. he received Holles’s proxy, which was vacated by Holles’s return to the House on 13 December. On 29 Nov. Wharton voted in favour of the Commons’ motion that the queen and her Catholic retainers be removed from Whitehall.114
Early in December Wharton was again the subject of controversy within the House. On 2 Dec. it was questioned whether or not he had taken the oaths correctly, after it was noted that he had failed to kiss the Bible. Wharton argued in his defence that it was ‘idolatry to kiss the book’, which invited a rejoinder from his erstwhile associate, Shaftesbury, that, ‘he hoped kissing was no idolatry for then they must forbear kissing their wives’.115 Unwilling to back down, Wharton withdrew from the chamber and his name was struck from the roll. His behaviour precipitated a debate in the House on the implications for a peer not taking the oaths, ‘the clear sense of the House’ being, ‘that peers that took not the oaths were not degraded thereby, but upon taking the oaths should sit in their places and be in statu quo.’116 On Wharton’s return the following day he was permitted to resume his seat having retaken the oaths in the proper form and on 4 Dec. he chaired the afternoon session of the committee for examinations concerning the Popish Plot.117 Wharton received the proxy of the weak-minded William Fiennes, 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele (grandson of his friend the 1st viscount), on 6 Dec., which was vacated by the close of the session. The following day (7 Dec.) he was named to the committee for the bill to disable Catholic recusants from exercising certain trades.
In the midst of his vigorous efforts to curb the freedoms of the Catholic population, Wharton still found time to indulge his passion for art-collecting. On 10 Dec. 1678 he wrote to Peter Lely to confirm receipt of a painting of Ormond in garter robes. He complimented both artist and sitter in his praise of the work, ‘it being so excellent a piece of so excellent a person.’118 On 20 Dec. Wharton’s focus returned to Parliament again when he registered his dissent at the resolution to agree to amendments to the supply bill and three days later he registered a further dissent at the resolution that Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later successively marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds) should not withdraw following the reading of the articles of impeachment against him. Wharton voted against insisting on the amendments to the supply bill on 26 Dec. and registered his dissent again when the resolution was carried. The following day he voted in favour of committing Danby and dissented once more at the resolution not to do so.119
Following the dissolution, Wharton was active in the elections in Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire. He corresponded extensively with his son, Thomas, eager to discover where he intended standing and promising to do all he could ‘with all the lawyers and attorneys in town’ to engage agents to further their electioneering efforts.120 Both Wharton and Richard Hampden (with whom Wharton co-operated closely) were eager to offer their interest in Buckinghamshire to John Egerton, styled Viscount Brackley (later 3rd earl of Bridgwater), son of the county’s lord lieutenant, John Egerton, 2nd earl of Bridgwater.121 When Brackley declined to stand, Wharton acceded to Sir Ralph Verney’s request that his son, Thomas Wharton, stand for the county, in spite of his earlier intention that Thomas should stand for Malmesbury in partnership with Sir Walter St John‡ (a kinsman of Lady Rochester).122 To help secure his return, Wharton suggested that Thomas might bribe the under-sheriff of Buckinghamshire so that the poll were held at Aylesbury close to his and Hampden’s estates:
I have advised about preventing the election being at Buckingham, but cannot find any way to do it but by dealing with the under-sheriff who is now at Aylesbury and will be to the middle of the week. It may be 20 guineas may prevail with him if it be rightly managed. Or less.123
Leaving no stone unturned, Wharton prevailed on the duke of Buckingham to be present in person at Aylesbury on the day of the election and he also advised Thomas Wharton to send to another associate, John Lovelace, 3rd Baron Lovelace, for his interest. Thomas Wharton was duly returned with Hampden’s son, John Hampden‡.124
Exclusion and the reign of James II 1679-1688
Wharton took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Mar. 1679 and attended on each of the initial six days of the abandoned first session. On 11 Mar. he was named to the standing committees and the committee to receive information concerning the plot. He resumed his seat on 15 Mar., the effective opening of the new Parliament, and attended every day but one of the second session. On 17 Mar. was again named to the committees to which he had been nominated six days previously. In advance of the session he had been assessed by Danby as a likely opponent in two forecasts, though in a third (of 2 Mar.) he was noted merely as an ‘unreliable’ opponent.125 On 20 Mar. Wharton was named to the committee for the bill to disable anyone from sitting in Convocation before taking the oaths and two days later he was named to the committee appointed to draw up a bill for disqualifying Danby. Wharton received Saye and Sele’s proxy again on 29 Mar. (which was vacated on 9 May) and on 1 Apr. he was named to the committee for the bill to clear London and Westminster of papists. He voted in favour of the early stages of the bill for attainting Danby.126 On 10 Apr. Wharton was named to the committee for the bill for hindering the lord treasurer and other officers of state from making undue advantage from their places and on 14 Apr. he voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons in the bill.127
It was perhaps in connection with his interest in assessing the strength of both sides that on 16 Apr. Wharton again compiled a list of those peers who had registered proxies, including his own possession of that of Saye and Sele.128 Nominated one of the reporters of a conference concerning Danby’s impeachment on 24 Apr., on 3 May Wharton again acted a reporter of the conference concerning amendments to the habeas corpus bill. During that month he was one of three opposition peers suggested by Ralph Montagu, later duke of Montagu, to his father, Lord Montagu of Boughton, as suitable candidates with whom he could register his proxy.129 On 9 May 1679 Wharton was one of three peers to be appointed to draw up what was to be offered to the Commons at a conference concerning amendments to the habeas corpus bill. The following day, Wharton voted in favour of appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords.130 It was noted (that same day) that when the king expatiated on the recent ‘barbarous murder’ of the archbishop of St Andrews, expressing ‘great indignation against both the assassinates and their faction’, he directed his remarks pointedly towards Wharton.131 The king’s allusions seem not to have affected Wharton’s prominence in the session and on 11 May he was named to the committee appointed to meet with one from the Commons to consider the trials of the impeached lords.
Wharton was named to a further six committees during the remainder of the session.132 He took a prominent role in the debates that ranged between 6 and 20 May on the question of whether or not the bishops might vote in cases of blood.133 On 22 May he was again nominated one of the managers of a free conference with the Commons concerning the habeas corpus bill and on 23 May he registered his dissent at the decision to instruct the Lords committee meeting with that of the Commons that they could give no other answer with regard to the bishops’ voting. He dissented again the same day at a further resolution, instructing the committee that the House had decided to proceed with the trial of the five Catholic peers before that of the earl of Danby. Wharton was appointed a manager of the conference concerning habeas corpus on 26 May and the following day he registered his dissent at the resolution to insist upon the bishops’ right to remain in court in capital causes (a list of those peers who protested with him was again added to his collection).134 On the final day of the session (27 May) Wharton was again named a manager of the conference concerning habeas corpus.
Thomas Wharton was returned for Buckinghamshire again in the second election of 1679 on the opposition interest, but Wharton appears to have achieved some degree of rapprochement with the king following the dissolution. He also appears to have adopted a more cautious approach following his unwelcome five months in the Tower. While assuring those petitioning for a new Parliament at the close of the year that ‘his heart was with them,’ he followed Anglesey’s advice and avoided putting his name to any such request.135 Despite such circumspection, Wharton remained a central figure in the opposition. He was one of those rumoured (inaccurately) to be included in a new Privy Council (‘the lord Shaftesbury, Lord Radnor, duke of Buckingham, earl of Essex (Arthur Capell), earl of Halifax, and Lord Wharton, with such other like mad and improbable mixtures’), but was also one of only ‘very few’ people still to be seen visiting James Scott, duke of Monmouth, in November 1679. In March 1680 he hosted a meeting of the ‘malcontent lords.’ Later that year, Simpson Tongue reported that Wharton was one of three peers with whom his father, Israel, one of the central pedlars of the Popish Plot, had been particularly intimate.136
Wharton took his seat four days into the new Parliament (the second Exclusion Parliament) on 25 Oct. 1680, when he was added to the committee for receiving information for the discovery of the plot. Present on approximately 73 per cent of all sitting days, Wharton was named to a further eight committees in the course of the session and on 15 Nov. he voted against rejecting the exclusion bill at its first reading.137 On 23 Nov., he voted in favour of appointing a committee to meet in conjunction with the Commons to consider the state of the kingdom, entering his protest the same day when the resolution was not adopted.138 The following day he was one of five peers appointed to meet with the Commons to determine arrangements for the forthcoming trial of William Howard, Viscount Stafford.139 On 7 Dec. Wharton found Stafford guilty and on 18 Dec. he registered his dissent at the resolution to reject a proviso over regulating the trials of peers.140 In the middle of the month Wharton was granted leave to travel to Yorkshire, presumably to oversee his interests there, but he seems not to have hurried away as he was present in the House on 7 Jan. 1681 to enter a further protest at the resolution not to put the question whether to address the king to suspend the former lord chief justice, Sir William Scroggs.141
Wharton’s association with Shaftesbury appears to have declined by the time of the meeting of the Parliament at Oxford in March 1681. When Wharton’s servant, Thomas Gilbert, purposely arranged Wharton’s accommodation so that he and Shaftesbury could be in close proximity, Wharton rejected the proffered lodgings.142 There was no diminution, however, in his opposition to Danby. A pre-sessional forecast predicted that Wharton would oppose Danby’s efforts to be bailed in spite of Danby’s apparent efforts to appeal to Wharton along with several others using (in Wharton’s case) his daughter-in-law as a mediator.143 Wharton took his seat at the opening of the session on 21 Mar. and attended each day of the brief Parliament, during which he was named to the standing committees and the committee to receive information concerning the plot. On 26 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to proceed against Edward Fitzharris by common law rather than impeachment.144
The ensuing ‘Tory reaction’ in no way cowed Wharton, by then aged almost 70, into quiescence and he continued to be associated with radical opposition to the court and with championing dissent. In 1681 the grievances of certain Protestant Dissenters in Kendal were addressed to Wharton and in September 1683 rumours circulated of his being implicated with Robert Ferguson.145 Despite this, Wharton gave way gradually to a new generation. In May 1684 he made his submission to York, confessing himself to be an ‘old sinner’: a sentiment with which York concurred.146 Following the death of Charles II, the elections for the new Parliament demonstrated Thomas Wharton’s increasing prominence at the head of the family’s electoral interest in Buckinghamshire while Wharton himself was unable to bring sufficient influence to bear even to secure a seat for his younger son, William, at Cockermouth.147
Wharton took his seat in the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685 but attended on just 10 days (approximately 23 per cent of all sitting days) before retiring from the remainder of the session. On 17 June he registered his proxy with William Cavendish, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, and on 7 Aug. he was granted a passport to travel overseas for his health.148
Final years, 1685-96
Wharton’s journey overseas was not quite voluntary exile but, accompanied by the Dissenting minister John Howe, his decision to leave the country may have been a reaction to James’s pro-Catholic policies.149 Although Wharton’s original intention had been to travel to Bourbonne les Bains, finding ‘the proper season for taking the baths was over’ he headed instead for the Rhineland. A letter from the elector of Brandenburg to Alexander, Baron von Spaen, concerning Wharton’s sojourn in his territories suggested that Wharton’s reputation preceded him:
A certain English lord, named Wharton, has requested leave to make some stay in the district of Cleves and has shown various passports in token of his not being under the displeasure of his own sovereign. It is the elector’s pleasure that Lord Wharton should be protected against any act of violence or injustice; but should also be kept under watchful observation. Should any demand be made by the king of England for his expulsion his continuance within the elector’s dominions will be undesirable.150
There seems no reason to believe that Wharton’s activities on the continent were in any way suspicious but he clearly felt the necessity of explaining his actions to his hosts. From his retreat, on 18 Oct. Wharton penned a brief autobiographical memoir, addressed to von Spaen. No doubt eager to represent his former actions in the best possible light and perhaps mellowed by age, Wharton set out how ‘the three kings I have mentioned, from the first to the last, openly showed me all tokens of goodwill despite my constant opposition to the counsels prevailing, especially with the late and the present king’.151 The same month that he composed this ‘testament’ it was rumoured that Wharton had died while abroad (‘but no certainty’). The information proved fallacious but was not until September of the following year (1686) that he returned to England. By then his health appears to have improved and with it, some thought, a return of his political ambition. William Denton commented to Wharton’s neighbour, Sir Ralph Verney, ‘I hear Lord Wharton is come over and some will have it to do a job towards toleration, but cannot believe it.’152
Denton’s caution was well-founded. Nothing in Wharton’s actions after his return suggested that he intended to be involved with facilitating the kind of toleration desired by the king. At an audience he indulged in some badinage with James about the benefits of attending one of the Jesuit colleges he had met with on his travels but the drift of the conversation was dominated by the king’s suspicious enquiries as to why Howe had remained in the Low Countries.153 Wharton was noted as being opposed to repeal of the Test in two assessments of January and November 1687 and in May (1687) he was listed as an opponent of the king’s policies. He was again noted as opposed to repeal of the Test in January 1688.154 A rumour that July that Wharton was to be one of 15 new privy councillors was dismissed (correctly) by Morrice as improbable.155
In November Wharton rallied to the support of William of Orange (his son Thomas was one of the first to arrive in the prince’s camp). Noted as joining with Devonshire in presenting 20 Dissenting ministers to the prince in November, on 11 Dec. Wharton joined the peers assembled at the Guildhall.156 That day, he was one of the foremost in overturning the declaration composed by Francis Turner, bishop of Ely, demanding the omission of the clause affirming James’s right to the throne.157 Opposition to the former king did not prevent him from offering assistance to some identified with the old regime. Following the seizure of William Penn, Wharton was one of those to offer bail of £5,000, though in the event the sum was underwritten by two of Penn’s neighbours. Wharton also trod a distinctively individual line when it came to expressing his support for the new order. Although undoubtedly a firm supporter of the prince’s intervention, on being presented with the Association to sign on 21 Dec. Wharton demurred, commenting cynically:
That he had in several times signed several declarations, but he never found any signify much; had forgot many he had signed; and perhaps the words of this may not be agreeable to all men; and that, therefore, their lordships may consider of something that all may agree to, which their lordships may sign to prevent a division.158
Wharton’s attitude to the former king and his family was far more uncompromising. When it was suggested during the debates of 24 Dec. that the prince of Wales’s rights should be considered, Wharton was quick to point out that ‘the prince of Wales, as well as the king is gone’ and when Henry Hyde, 2nd earl of Clarendon moved that the House might inquire into the events surrounding James Francis Edward’s birth, Wharton responded angrily, ‘My Lords, I did not expect, at this time of day, to hear any body mention that child, who was called the prince of Wales. Indeed I did not; and I hope we shall hear no more of him.’159 Wharton was then named with Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and four others, to compose an application to the Prince of Orange to assume control of the administration.160 Wharton’s long-standing identification with the opposition and his support for William of Orange was no doubt the reason for his inclusion in a list compiled by Gilbert Burnet (later bishop of Salisbury) as one of those who ought to benefit from the change of regime. Burnet’s list noted Wharton among those who ought to receive a promotion in the peerage to an earldom. No such award was made, though Wharton was included in the new Privy Council.161
Wharton took his seat at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he attended on approximately three-quarters of all sitting days in the first session. He took a prominent role in the debates on the settlement of the administration, warmly defending the de facto government of the new king, and was named to some 29 committees.162 On the opening day, Wharton was one of those nominated to draw up an address of thanks to be presented to the prince and on 23 Jan. he was named to the standing committees for privileges, petitions and the Journal. Wharton’s interest in securing a satisfactory religious settlement was also evident. On 28 Jan. he was added to the committee concerning papists and he was also named to that considering which clauses in the Book of Common Prayer might be left out on the day of thanksgiving. On 31 Jan. he voted in favour of declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen and on 4 Feb. he voted to agree with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated.’ On 6 Feb. he again supported the Commons in their employment of the phrases ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacant.’163 Over the ensuing few days he was nominated to the sub-committee to draw up an oath of fidelity and nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the Lords’ amendment to the declaration of William and Mary as king and queen.164
Wharton’s commitment to achieving liberties for protestant non-conformists remained constant after the Revolution. In January and again in March 1689 he was one of those to present representatives of the nonconformist clergy to the prince. He also drew up a memorandum ‘to be discoursed with Mr Hampden’ detailing ways in which such a settlement might be accomplished.165 Advancing years did not diminish his willingness to dispute when he saw it to be necessary and over the following three months he entered a number of protests against resolutions of the House. On 23 Mar. he registered his protest at the resolution to reject a proviso extending the time for taking the sacramental test and allowing the sacrament to be taken in any protestant church, and on 25 May he protested again, this time at the resolution that the published paper entitled The Case of Titus Oates constituted a breach of the Lords’ privilege.166 On 31 May Wharton voted to reverse the judgments against Oates and registered his protest when the reversal was rejected.167
In spite of their vigorous disagreement in the House at the close of 1688, Wharton appears to have remained on amicable terms with Clarendon following the latter’s retirement from the Lords. In return Clarendon expressed ‘an extraordinary kindness and value for’ Wharton and noted Wharton’s efforts to assist him over his unwillingness to take the oaths.168 Nominated as one of the managers of a conference concerning the bill for the commissioners of the great seal on 20 June, Wharton was named to a further conference on the same matter the following day. On 25 June he registered his protest at the resolution not to reverse the overturning of a judgment in the cause of Sir Samuel Barnardiston v. Sir W. Soames. On 26 July Wharton was appointed one of the managers of a conference concerning the reversal of the perjury judgments against Oates and on 30 July he voted against the Lords’ amendments to the reversal of Oates’s perjury convictions. He then registered his dissent at the resolution to adhere to the amendments.169 Clarendon and Wharton continued to exchange visits and pleasantries in the late summer of 1689. In particular, Clarendon thanked Wharton for ‘his civilities in the House’, but while Wharton offered ‘assurances of the continuance of his friendship’ he again advised Clarendon ‘not to appear in the town.’170 Wharton seems to have been the victim of fraud at around the same time, the House taking notice of a protection claimed by a Cornish innkeeper, which he claimed to have been made out by Wharton. The offending publican was summoned to appear at the bar to answer the charges at the beginning of September.171 Wharton’s attendance of the House declined markedly after the first session of the Convention, apparently on account of renewed ill health.172 Absent at the opening of the second session, Wharton took his seat on 28 Oct. 1689, after which he sat for approximately 45 per cent of all sitting days. Named to just three committees in the course of the session, on 14 Jan. 1690 he entered his dissent at the resolution that it was the ancient right of peers to be tried only in full Parliament for capital offences.173 Carmarthen (as the earl of Danby had become) classed him as an opponent of the court on a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, adding that he was to be approached by Charles Powlett, now duke of Bolton.
Wharton’s interest in Cockermouth came under assault again during the general election, from both the local Tory magnate, Charles Seymour, 6th duke of Somerset, and Sir Wilfred Lawson‡, who had previously acted as one of Wharton’s managers in the Commons.174 Lawson’s decision to contest the seat was probably the more damaging as he had previously undertaken not to stand against Wharton’s younger son, Goodwin Wharton‡, ‘for the honour he had for your lordship and family.’ Sir Wilfred’s behaviour led a number of the burgesses to write to Wharton to inform him of Lawson’s ‘double-dealing’ and to warn him that ‘we have too much reason to believe that your lordship has the like from others.’ The result was that the seats were carried by Sir Orlando Gee‡ (on the Somerset interest) and Sir Wilfred Lawson, leaving Goodwin Wharton trailing in third place.175
Wharton returned to the House for the new Parliament on 21 Mar. 1690 but was then absent for the following 10 days. He resumed his seat on 31 Mar. after which he was present on approximately 72 per cent of all sitting days in the session. Named to just one committee, on 2 May he contributed a brief interjection to the debate at the second reading of the abjuration bill, pressing for information to be heard before any resolutions were taken, and on 13 May he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to allow the Corporation of London more time to be heard by their counsel.176 Following the adjournment on 23 May, Wharton was again noted as one of Clarendon’s visitors and on 6 June Clarendon attempted to reciprocate, but found Wharton away from home.177 Absent from the opening days of the following session of October 1690, Wharton took his seat at last on 21 Nov., after which he was present for almost 29 per cent of all sitting days. Added to the sessional committee for privileges on 25 Nov. he was named to a further four committees during the session, including that for annulling the marriage between Mary Wharton and James Campbell.178 Wharton was absent from the first three months of the ensuing session of October. He returned to the House on 27 Jan. 1692 and was thereafter present for just under 17 per cent of all sitting days in the session, during which he was named to one committee.179 At around the same time he featured on a list compiled by William George Richard Stanley, 9th earl of Derby, among those Derby thought opposed to restoring to him family lands lost during the commonwealth.
The (long-expected) death of Lady Wharton in August 1692 may perhaps explain Wharton’s absence from the opening of the following session of November.180 The bereavement left some on the fringes of the family gloomily expectant of the dynasty’s imminent extinction: Wharton being by now elderly and neither of his surviving sons having heirs.181 If this was the opinion of those around him, Wharton appears not to have allowed such maudlin concerns to stand in his way. Having taken his seat on 30 Dec. his attendance proved slightly higher than in the previous session (some 26 per cent of all sitting days) and on 31 Dec. he voted in favour of committing the place bill. On 3 Jan. 1693 he voted in favour of passing the bill and on 18 Jan. he was named one of the managers of a conference concerning the Lords’ amendments to the land tax bill.182 On 17 Feb. he moved for the inclusion of a clause condemning the Tory-dominated London lieutenancy and on 22 Feb. he was named to the committee concerning the bill for transferring the duty of alnage to the customs house. On 4 Mar. he was named to the committee for drawing an address to the king on the state of Ireland.183 Wharton was absent once more from the opening of the following session. He was excused at a call of the House on 14 Nov. before taking his seat on 30 Nov. after which he was present for approximately 28 per cent of all sitting days. On 22 Feb. 1694 he was named to the committee for the bill for settling the estate of John Stawell, 2nd Baron Stawell, but he was then named to just one more committee during the session (that considering the mutiny bill).184
A year after the death of his third wife, Wharton appears to have contemplated marrying again. The initial object of his interest seems to have been a Welsh heiress and on her death rumours circulated that he had redirected his attentions almost at once to the widow Ludlow, ‘who he took for her hair’.185 No marriage resulted, however. Fresh from his wooing, Wharton took his seat in the 6th session on 22 Dec. 1694 but attended on just 15 days (approximately 13 per cent of the whole) before sitting for the last time on 19 Mar. 1695. Late in August 1695 rumours began to circulate that Wharton was critically ill.186 The following month it was reported that he had died, though this proved to be premature.187 Early in February 1696 it was observed that his heir was unnaturally quiet during a debate in the Commons, which was thought to be a sure indication that Wharton had at last succumbed. Wharton died a few days later between 4 and 5 Feb. at his house at Hampstead.188 In his will Wharton made provision for the members of his household to be given board and lodging for a month after his death as well as bequeathing a number of sums of money to individual servants amounting to £131. The remainder of his estates were divided between his surviving sons Thomas and Goodwin. Sir Edward Harley‡, Sir Thomas Rooksby, John White‡, Harley’s second son, Edward Harley‡, Thomas Bendlows and William Mortimer were appointed executors. Wharton was buried at Wooburn and succeeded by his eldest son, Thomas, as 5th Baron Wharton, to whom he bequeathed his Parliament robes, an estate estimated at £16,000 per annum and the foundations of one of the richest electoral interests in the kingdom.189
R.D.E.E.- 1 G.F.T. Jones, Saw-Pit Wharton, 17; VCH Yorks. North Riding, i. 360; Morrice, Ent’ring bk. iv. 196; TNA, PROB 11/430.
- 2 Timberland, i. 342.
- 3 Saw-Pit Wharton, 42-5, 48; Private Journals of the Long Parliament ed. V. Snow and Steele Young, (1992), iii. 127, 159n., 198n.
- 4 VCH Yorks. North Riding, i. 241; B. Dale, The Good Lord Wharton (1901), 42.
- 5 Jones, First Whigs, 103; VCH Yorks. North Riding, i. 237.
- 6 Saw-Pit Wharton, 15-17, 19.
- 7 The Good Lord Wharton, 24, 35.
- 8 Clarendon, Rebellion, i. 203.
- 9 Saw-Pit Wharton, 26, 34-5.
- 10 Clarendon, Rebellion, i. 244.
- 11 Saw-Pit Wharton, 44, 46, 48, 58, 63-5.
- 12 Clarendon, Rebellion, iii. 297.
- 13 Saw-Pit Wharton, 94.
- 14 Halifax Letters, i. 18.
- 15 Clarendon, Rebellion, iv. 456, 459.
- 16 Saw-Pit Wharton, 116-8.
- 17 Saw-Pit Wharton, 133, 139-40; Bodl. Carte 80, f. 749; EHR, x. 106-7.
- 18 CCSP, iv. 328.
- 19 Saw-Pit Wharton, 149.
- 20 Carte 80, f. 553; Saw-Pit Wharton, 152.
- 21 CCSP, iv. 614, 616.
- 22 Bodl. Clarendon 71, ff. 305-6; CCSP, iv. 665-6.
- 23 Carte 81, ff. 74-77; EHR, lxxix, 307-54.
- 24 HP Commons 1660-90, iii. 49.
- 25 Lacey, Dissent and Parliamentary Politics, 30-1.
- 26 HP Commons 1660-90, ii. 682.
- 27 Carte 81, f. 63.
- 28 CCSP, iv. 681; Clarendon 72, f. 59.
- 29 LJ xi. 3, 5, 6, 10, 20, 30, 38, 44, 47, 61, 104, 127, 132, 133, 143, 148, 153, 158, 159, 161, 166, 167.
- 30 LJ xi. 3-4.
- 31 Saw-Pit Wharton, 19; Bodl: Carte 81, ff. 736-8.
- 32 J. Carswell, The Old Cause (1954), 29.
- 33 Schoenfeld, Restored House of Lords, 202.
- 34 Halifax Letters, i. 28.
- 35 LJ xi. 62.
- 36 Saw-Pit Wharton, 141-2; HP Commons 1660-90, iii. 121; HMC Le Fleming, 26.
- 37 Swatland, 104.
- 38 LJ xi. 183, 185, 193, 197, 208, 211, 215, 219, 220, 231.
- 39 Timberland, i. 23.
- 40 Schoenfeld, Restored House of Lords, 202.
- 41 HP Commons 1660-90, i. 135.
- 42 Carte 81, ff. 79-80.
- 43 LJ xi. 255, 267, 292, 313, 314, 320, 369, 377, 384, 389, 390, 401, 418, 424, 437, 442.
- 44 Carte 81, ff. 183, 185-8.
- 45 PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, p. 60.
- 46 Carte 109, ff. 311, 317.
- 47 PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, p. 285.
- 48 CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 607; Carte 81, f. 189.
- 49 LJ xi. 495, 505, 552, 563, 572, 574.
- 50 Seaward, Cavalier Parlt. 230.
- 51 CCSP, v. 12.
- 52 Carte 32, f. 737.
- 53 Jnl. Relig. Hist., v (1968), 26-7.
- 54 R. Davis, ‘The ‘Presbyterian’ opposition and the emergence of party’, 28-34; G. Trevallyn Jones suggests the figures should be 26 holding eight proxies: Jnl. Relig. Hist., v, 24, 29.
- 55 Carte 81, f. 224.
- 56 Carte 77, f. 392.
- 57 CSP Dom. 1663-4, pp. 313, 352.
- 58 Carte 81, f. 191.
- 59 Carte 81, ff. 189, 199, 203.
- 60 Bodl. Rawl. letters 104, f. 31.
- 61 LJ xi. 588, 669-70.
- 62 Verney ms mic. M636/20, Sir N. Hobart to Sir R. Verney, 1 Nov. 1665; Rawl. A 130.
- 63 Trans. Am. Phil. Soc.., n.s., lx. pt. 2 (1970), 17; Carte 228, f. 22.
- 64 Stowe 396, ff. 178-90; HEHL, EL 8398.
- 65 Seventeenth Century, xviii. 255.
- 66 Seventeenth Century xviii. 256.
- 67 Carte 228, f. 33.
- 68 Carte 81, f. 278.
- 69 LJ xii. 291, 296, 315-6, 329-30, 342, 407, 429, 440, 469, 472, 480, 486, 491, 499, 507.
- 70 Add. 36916, f. 173.
- 71 Whitelocke Diary, 754.
- 72 Verney ms mic. M636/23, C. Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 6 June 1670.
- 73 LJ xii. 407, 429, 440, 469, 472, 480, 486, 491, 499.
- 74 LJ xii. 538, 549-50.
- 75 Rawl. letters 53, no. 94; Rawl. letters 50, f. 254.
- 76 Verney ms mic. M636/26, C. Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 11 Aug. 1673, M636/26, Lady A. Hobart to Sir R. Verney, 14 Aug. 1673, M636/26, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 11 Aug. 1673.
- 77 J.W. Johnson, A Profane Wit: the life of John Wilmot, earl of Rochester, 175-6; HP Commons 1660-90, i. 549.
- 78 LJ xii. 629, 640.
- 79 Verney ms mic. M636/28, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 1 Mar. 1675; HMC Buccleuch, i. 321.
- 80 HMC Portland, iii. 350; Add. 70012, ff. 183, 188.
- 81 LJ xii. 656, 683, 684, 697, 710-11.
- 82 Timberland, i. 152, 157.
- 83 LJ xiii. 20, 23, 25-6.
- 84 Carte 72, ff. 292-3; Add. 35865, f. 224; Timberland, i. 184; Bodl. ms Eng. hist. e. 710, ff. 14-15.
- 85 Hatton Corresp. i. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxii), i. 136.
- 86 Eg. 3330, ff. 16-18.
- 87 Lacey, Dissent and Parliamentary Politics, 81-2.
- 88 CSP Dom. 1676-7, p. 358-9.
- 89 Timberland, i. 195; Bodl. ms Eng. misc. c. 300, f. 133.
- 90 Lacey, Dissent and Parliamentary Politics, 82-3.
- 91 HMC Rutland, ii. 38.
- 92 Add. 32095, ff. 18-19.
- 93 HMC Rutland, ii. 38-9; Carte 228, f. 98; Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 6, box 1, folder 23.
- 94 HMC Rutland, ii. 40.
- 95 HP Commons 1660-90, iii. 341; CSP Dom. 1676-7, p. 564.
- 96 HMC Le Fleming, 143.
- 97 CSP Dom. 1677-8, p. 92.
- 98 Carte 80, ff. 799, 813; HMC Le Fleming, 136; CSP Dom. 1677-8, p. 96; Poems and Letters of Andrew Marvell ed. H.M. Margoliouth, 2 vols, (3rd ed., Oxford, 1971), ii. 351.
- 99 BIHR, xliii. 92-5.
- 100 Carte 80, f. 799.
- 101 Verney ms mic. M636/30, Wharton to Sir Ralph Verney, 5 May 1677.
- 102 Carte 80, f. 810; Verney ms mic. M636/30, Lady Anne Hobart to Sir Ralph Verney, 26 Apr. 1677.
- 103 Verney ms mic. M636/30, Wharton to Sir Ralph Verney, 30 June 1677, M636/30, Wharton to Sir Ralph Verney, 25 July 1677.
- 104 CSP Dom. 1677-8, p. 274; Carte 228, f. 92; HMC Le Fleming, 138.
- 105 HMC Portland, iii. 355; Marvell, ed. Legouis, ii. 354-5.
- 106 Wood, Life and Times, ii. 389.
- 107 Carte 228, f. 90.
- 108 CSP Dom. 1677-8, p. 631; Verney ms mic. M636/31, Sir Ralph Verney to Edmund Verney, 7 Feb. 1678.
- 109 LJ xiii. 148-9, 182, 197.
- 110 HMC Ormonde, iv. 416; HEHL, HA Parliament Box 4 (8).
- 111 LJ xiii. 227-9, 234, 237-8, 240, 245, 260, 267, 278-9.
- 112 Carte 81, f. 364.
- 113 LJ xiii. 348, 360, 379.
- 114 Carte 81, f. 380, 387, 401.
- 115 Verney ms mic. M636/32, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 3 Dec. 1678, M636/32, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 5 Dec. 1678.
- 116 Timberland, i. 224; Carte 81, ff. 388, 390, 394.
- 117 HMC Lords, i. 1.
- 118 Carte 80, f. 663.
- 119 Carte 81, f. 405.
- 120 Carte 79, ff. 168, 171, 185.
- 121 Lacey, Dissent and Parliamentary Politics, 246.
- 122 Verney ms mic. M636/32, Sir Ralph Verney to Edmund Verney, 29 Jan. 1679; HP Commons 1660-90, i. 452.
- 123 Carte 79, f. 173.
- 124 Carte 79, f. 175.
- 125 Add. 28091, ff. 136, 138, 142.
- 126 Add. 28091, f. 134; Carte 81, f. 588.
- 127 Add. 29572, f. 112.
- 128 Carte 81, f. 550.
- 129 HMC Buccleuch, i. 331.
- 130 Carte 103, f. 270.
- 131 HMC Ormonde, v. 88-89.
- 132 LJ xiii. 572, 574-5, 588, 590.
- 133 Carte 81, ff. 566-7.
- 134 Carte 81, f. 569.
- 135 Verney ms mic. M636/33, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 8 Dec. 1679; Lacey, Dissent and Parliamentary Politics, 135.
- 136 HMC Ormonde, iv. 554, 566; Hatton Corresp. i. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxii), 204-5, 223-4; CSP Dom. 1679-80, p. 628.
- 137 LJ xiii. 655, 679-80, 687, 692, 722, 724, 729; Northants RO, Finch Hatton mss 2893D, 2893A; Carte 81, f. 654; Add. 51319, f. 55.
- 138 Carte 81, f. 669; Timberland, i. 253.
- 139 HMC Ormonde, v. 506.
- 140 Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 1, series II, box 4, folder 173; Rawl. A183, f. 62; Carte 80, f. 823.
- 141 Carte 72, f. 513, Carte 81, ff. 656-7; Timberland, i. 255.
- 142 Saw-Pit Wharton, 248; Rawl. letters 53, f. 101.
- 143 Beinecke Lib. Osborne mss, Danby pprs. box 2; Add. 28042, f. 83.
- 144 Timberland, i. 260; Carte 79, f. 188.
- 145 Carte 77, f. 602.
- 146 Morrice, Ent’ring bk. ii. 475.
- 147 HP Commons 1660-90, i. 187.
- 148 CSP Dom. 1685, p. 441; Carte 103, f. 260, Carte 81, f. 731.
- 149 Seventeenth Century, xviii. 254.
- 150 Carte 81, f. 733.
- 151 Carte 81, ff. 736-8; Saw-Pit Wharton, 11-12.
- 152 Verney ms mic. M636/40, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 13 Oct. 1685, M636/41, Sir R. Verney to J. Verney, 5 Sept. 1686, M636/41, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 29 Sept. 1686.
- 153 Morrice, Ent’ring bk. iii. 254.
- 154 Add. 34526, ff. 48-56.
- 155 Morrice, Ent’ring bk. iv. 297.
- 156 Rawl. letters 109, ff. 112-13; CSP Dom. 1687-9, p. 378.
- 157 Horwitz, Parl. Pol. 6.
- 158 Kingdom without a King, 151.
- 159 Clarendon Corresp., ii. 235.
- 160 Kingdom without a King, 162; Bodl. ms Eng. hist. d. 307, f. 16.
- 161 Add. 32681, ff. 317-18; Beinecke Lib. OSB mss file ‘N’, folder 10812, OSB mss fb 210, ff. 357-8; NAS GD 157/2681/40.
- 162 Lacey, Dissent and Parliamentary Politics, 228; LJ xiv. 109, 144, 149, 156, 170, 172, 176, 178, 189, 192, 194, 204, 213, 215, 219, 224, 227, 231, 238, 244, 253, 258, 260, 298, 301, 307, 309.
- 163 WSHC, Ailesbury mss 1300/856.
- 164 HMC Lords, ii. 29; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/24.
- 165 Morrice, Ent’ring bk. iv. 458, v. 29; Horwitz, Parl. Pol, 21-2.
- 166 Timberland, i. 353.
- 167 WSHC, Ailesbury mss 1300/856; Timberland, i. 367.
- 168 Rawl. letters 104, f. 13; Clarendon Corresp., ii. 277.
- 169 WSHC, Ailesbury mss 1300/856.
- 170 Clarendon Corresp., ii. 284.
- 171 LJ xiv. 309.
- 172 Verney ms mic. M636/43, Wharton to Sir R.Verney, 19 Oct. 1689.
- 173 LJ xiv. 396, 399, 402.
- 174 HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 123.
- 175 Carte 81, ff. 796, 798.
- 176 Eg. 3347, ff. 4-5; Timberland, i. 404.
- 177 Clarendon Corresp., ii. 313, 317.
- 178 LJ xiv. 585, 603, 609.
- 179 LJ xv. 83.
- 180 Add. 70270, R. Harley to his wife, 1 Nov. 1690; Add. 70014, f. 350; Add. 70015, f. 153; Add. 70116, A. Harley to Sir E. Harley, 3 Sept. 1692.
- 181 Verney ms mic. M636/45, C. Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 17 Jan. 1693.
- 182 WSHC, Ailesbury mss 1300/856.
- 183 Horwitz, Parl. Pol. 110-11; LJ xv. 243, 274.
- 184 LJ xv. 405.
- 185 Add. 70114, T. Foley to Sir E. Harley, 25 July 1693; Verney ms mic. M636/47, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 30 Aug. 1694, M636/47, A. Nicholas to Sir R. Verney, 11 Sept. 1694.
- 186 Verney ms mic. M636/48, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 28 Aug. 1695, M636/48, Sir R. Verney to J. Verney, 1 Sept. 1695.
- 187 Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 535; Verney ms mic. M636/48, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 16 Nov. 1695.
- 188 Add. 72486, ff. 18-19; Verney ms mic. M636/49, Cary Stewkeley to Sir Ralph Verney, 9 Feb. 1696; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 14.
- 189 C.A. Robbins, Earl of Wharton and Whig Party Politics, 77; PROB 11/430.