HARCOURT, Simon (1661-1727)

HARCOURT, Simon (1661–1727)

cr. 3 Sept. 1711 Bar. Harcourt; cr. 11 Sept. 1721 Visct. Harcourt

First sat 9 Oct. 1711; last sat 17 July 1727

MP Abingdon, 1690-1705, 1708-20 Jan. 1709, 4-19 Oct. 1710; Bossiney, 1705-8; Cardigan Boroughs, 22 Feb.-21 Sept. 1710

b. ?Dec. 1661, o. s. Sir Philip Harcourt‡ of Stanton Harcourt, Oxon. and Anne, da. of Sir William Waller‡ of Osterley Park, Mdx. educ. Shilton, Oxon. (Samuel Birch) to 1677; I. Temple 1676, called 1683, bencher 1702, treasurer 1702; Pembroke, Oxf. matric. 30 Mar. 1677, aged 15, BA 1679, DCL 1702. m. (1) 18 Oct. 1680, Rebecca (d.1687), da. of his fa.’s chaplain, Rev. Thomas Clarke, 3s. (2 d.v.p.) 2da.; (2) aft. 1695, Elizabeth (d.1724), da. of Richard Spencer, Vintner, of Berry Street, Aldgate, London and Newington, Surr., wid. of Richard Anderson‡, of Pendley, Herts. s.p.; (3) 30 Sept. 1724, Elizabeth (d.1748), da. of Sir Thomas Vernon of Twickenham Park, Mdx., wid. of Sir John Walter‡, 3rd bt. s.p. suc. fa. 1688; kntd. 1 June 1702. d. 28 July 1727; will 30 May 1727; pr. 14 Nov. 1727 and 19 Mar. 1745.

Solicitor-gen. 1702-Apr. 1707; attorney-gen. Apr. 1707-1708, Sept.-Oct. 1710; ld. kpr. Oct. 1710-Apr. 1713; ld. chan. Apr. 1713-Sept. 1714; PC 19 Oct. 1710-Sept. 1714, 25 Aug. 1722-d.; ld. justice 1723, 1725, 1727.

Commr. Union with Scotland 1706.

Recorder of Abingdon June-Dec. 1687, Oct. 1689-Apr. 1711; clerk of the iter to c.j. in eyre south of the Trent 1695-?9; steward, Woodstock manor and hundred of Wootton, Oxon. 1705-9; freeman, Ludlow 1707, Hereford 1710.

Commr. rebuilding St Paul’s 1702-7, Q. Anne’s bounty 1704, building 50 new churches 1712-15; gov. Charterhouse 1711.

Associated with: Cockthorpe and Nuneham Courtenay, Oxon.

Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, aft. 1710, Pembroke, Oxf.

The lawyer-politician

Harcourt was one of the leading lawyer-politicians of his day, having been called to the bar in 1683, served as solicitor and attorney-general and having sat in the Commons almost continuously since 1690. After resigning with Robert Harley, the future earl of Oxford, in 1708, he was a marked man. Following the Whig victory at the polls of that year he was unceremoniously unseated in January 1709. This treatment may have accelerated his shift from a middle-of-the-road politics to a more committed Toryism.1 It also gave him more time to practice the law, not least in cases heard before the Lords.2 Indeed, a mere four days after his ejection from the Commons, James Johnston‡ related that Harcourt had been involved in a five-hour hearing before the Lords speaking ‘an hour like an angel having only been consulted yesternight in place of the attorney-general, who would not come to the bar’.3

Most impressive of all was his role as one of the defence counsel during the impeachment of Dr Henry Sacheverell in 1710. Ironically, it was only Harcourt’s absence from the Commons that allowed him to undertake that role and his return for a by-election was delayed to allow him to do so. According to George Smalridge, the future bishop of Bristol, Harcourt’s speech on 3 Mar. was ‘the noblest entertainment that ever audience had’. He ‘spoke with such exactness, such force, such decency, such dexterity, so neat a way of commending and reflecting as he had occasion, such strength of argument, such a winning persuasion, such an insinuation into the passions of his auditors as I never heard.’4 For his efforts Sacheverell presented him with a gilt basin used for washing after dinner and Harcourt reciprocated by becoming a significant patron of the doctor.5

At the end of March 1710 Harcourt was representing two Oxfordshire landowners, Montagu Venables Bertie, 2nd earl of Abingdon, and Sir John Walter‡, in their dealings with William Guidott‡, the agent of John Churchill, duke of Marlborough, and was also practising on circuit.6 Harcourt’s perceived closeness to Marlborough, nurtured by his role in the transfer of Woodstock from the crown to the Churchills, may have given Harley doubts about his suitability for the role occupied by William Cowper, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, a favourite of the queen, who, could he be retained, might help to fulfil Harley’s ideal of a ministry not dependent wholly on one party.7 As such Harley planned originally to return Harcourt to his old post of attorney-general.8 Nevertheless, by early August rumours abounded that Harcourt would be made lord chancellor.9

Meanwhile, Harcourt’s notoriously poor eyesight provided him with a cover, either as an excuse to avoid the lord chancellorship, or as a bargaining chip. On 4 Sept., Ralph Bridges wrote that Harcourt ‘having been lately couched for a cataract, refuses to be lord keeper and had rather be attorney general.’10 Harley continued to plan as if Harcourt would be attorney-general, writing a memorandum on 12 Sept. in which he noted that ‘most of the members of the House of Commons which are immediately necessary should be provided for before their elections’, the first name on his list being that of Harcourt as attorney-general.11 Once the queen had been convinced of the need for a dissolution, Harcourt was to replace the existing attorney general, Sir James Montagu‡, as Charles Montagu, Baron (later earl of )Halifax, recognized on 16 Sept. when he wrote to Cowper that his brother’s days were ‘numbered’ and that Harcourt ‘is to resume his places very suddenly’. For Halifax, the one glimmer of hope in this was that ‘since this all-powerful gentleman is pleased to content himself with his old office he may not hurt us in a more vital part’, that is the lord chancellorship.12 On 14 Aug. William Stratford had thought that there was a difficulty in replacing Cowper, if Harcourt proved ‘obstinate’, and on 19 Aug. he reported a conversation held on 17 Aug. with Harcourt in which he ‘still says he will not have the seal’, although Stratford thought this a ploy ‘only to raise his terms, that he will insist on’, which was likely to be ‘somewhat considerable for the life of’ his son. Certainly his son was in need of a sinecure given his propensity to bring opprobrium on himself by drinking healths to the Pretender and implying that his father was in the same interest, prompting Harcourt to say his son ‘might have called him a Mohammetan as well as a Jacobite’.13

The situation was sufficiently unclear for Swift on 15 Sept. 1710 to record that Harcourt had been appointed lord keeper, only to correct it two days later to attorney-general.14 Harley still harboured hopes of keeping Cowper in office, the latter recording on 18 Sept. that Harley’s approach to him included an undertaking that Harcourt approved of him continuing as lord chancellor. On 22 Sept. Cowper added that ‘the reason of all this importunity, I guess, proceeded from the new ministry being unprepared of a successor that would be able to execute the office well; Sir S. Harcourt having chose to be attorney-general and her [the queen] not knowing if he would take it’.15

The dissolution of September 1710 precipitated Cowper’s resignation on 23 Sept., whereupon both Harcourt and then Sir Thomas Trevor, the future Baron Trevor, refused the lord keepership, which was placed in commission.16 One issue behind Harcourt’s refusal was financial. As Charlwood Lawton put it on 9 Oct., ‘unless a good pension is settled upon him for life, I cannot wish he should be put into a post, that is precarious and out of which, if he is put, he hath lost the opportunity of increasing his fortune by his profession, at the top of which he now stands as a private man’. Nevertheless, he came under pressure to accept the post. By 17 Oct. Harcourt was writing to Harley of the latter’s failure to secure him a ‘reprieve’ and insisting that it ‘was my duty not ambition placed me in that slippery station, in which I never could have entered had I not that utmost confidence in her majesty’s goodness’.17 Despite his qualms, the office was not unremunerative. Between 1711 and 1714 it has been calculated that Harcourt received in excess of £8,000 p.a. by virtue of his office.18

Lord Keeper

Harcourt was declared and sworn in as lord keeper at the council held on 19 Oct. 1710.19 On that day, a correspondent of Charles, Lord Bruce, the future 4th Baron Bruce of Whorlton, revealed that Harcourt had told him that he feared that ‘he shall never see any more of one eye and that the other is not perfectly well but he will do what he can to preserve it by keeping extremely regular hours at night, which is the only part he can be master of’.20 He took up residence in the house in Lincoln’s Inn Field which had been vacated by Cowper.21 His house at Cockthorpe was close enough to enable short visits from London, as occurred for five days in June 1711.22

Harcourt continued to be involved in electoral matters. During September 1710 Thomas Sclater‡ revealed that Harcourt was the source of his information that Mr Annesley (presumably Arthur Annesley, who became 5th earl of Anglesey on 18 Sept.) had advised making an interest immediately for the next election for Cambridge University.23 On 20 Oct. Harcourt was present at Harley’s house when it was ‘agreed for my Lord Stirling’s taking the oaths and signing his proxy next Monday’ for the forthcoming Scottish peerage elections.24 Following his appointment Harcourt attended the vast majority of cabinets held before 17 June 1711, although his attendance at meetings of the lords of the committee (a sub-group of the cabinet, without the queen present) was severely restricted by the fact that they met during the week at 11 a.m., when he was usually engaged in legal business.25 Another of his tasks was the regulation of the county magistracy, mainly adding Tory justices to the bench. Sometimes this involved calculations of electoral expediency, but generally Harcourt’s regulations fitted into a pattern of action before the winter and summer assizes. Overall his remodelling was more extensive than that undertaken by Cowper between 1705 and 1710. He also did most of the work independent of recommendations from the crown, through the secretaries of state or Privy Council.26 Harcourt was also much involved in patronage matters relating to Welsh judgeships and the lieutenancies.27

When the 1710 Parliament opened on 25 Nov. 1710, Harcourt presided over the Lords as lord keeper. As such his role in the Lords was limited, although he was listed as a Tory patriot during the first session of the 1710 Parliament. His importance was also recognized in his regular attendance at the dinners hosted by Harley on a Saturday, together with Henry St John, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, and sometimes Richard Savage, 4th Earl Rivers. Gradually more people were admitted to these dinners which became, according to Swift, ‘of less consequence and ended only in drinking and general conversation’.28 He also hosted his own entertainments, Swift recording a dinner at Harcourt’s on 17 Apr. 1711, the other guests being Thomas Mansell, Baron Mansell, Matthew Prior‡, George Granville, the future Viscount Lansdown, and Charles Caesar‡, the same quintet dining at Granville’s on the 21st.29

Harcourt’s duties as lord keeper involved delivering the formal thanks of the House in a speech on 12 Jan. 1711 to Charles Mordaunt, 3rd earl of Peterborough, for his conduct in Spain and acting as a commissioner to give the royal assent to legislation. Behind the scenes he was also influential, being notably unsympathetic on 18 May to the agents of the Bertie family, who had a claim to the ancient earldom of Oxford and were contemplating putting a caveat against allowing Harley to adopt the same title.30

Shortly before Harley was made a peer on 23 May 1711, Arthur Maynwaring‡ predicted a similar honour for Harcourt, ‘that he may take place of Lord Cowper’. However, in his next missive Maynwaring told the duchess of Marlborough that there was a report that Cowper would return as lord chancellor, ‘it being impossible for a man so blind as’ Harcourt ‘to do the business long; and indeed it is ridiculous to see him on the bench, for when he is to read any paper, he is forced to hold his glass in one hand, and to keep the light from his eyes with the other’.31 In early May Swift had also picked up rumours that Harcourt would soon be made a peer, but on 19 May Harcourt himself told him that he would not be a peer immediately.32 On 20 May Harcourt wrote that Francis Atterbury, the future bishop of Rochester, had ‘desired he might have the making my preamble’, so that if Harley ‘really intended to order one for me, I think he must be sent to’.33 On 14 June 1711, a newsletter reported that the warrant for passing the patent for creating Harcourt a peer of Great Britain ‘is daily expected. One of his titles ’tis said will be Lord Viscount Stanton Harcourt—the preamble of the patent is already drawn and very fine’. On 5 July another newsletter reported his creation as a peer and expected his promotion to the lord chancellorship on the following Sunday, 8 July.34

Harcourt’s peerage was nevertheless delayed. On 29 July James Butler, 2nd duke of Ormond, wrote to Harcourt, ‘I am sorry for the occasion that has delayed the honours that the queen designs you’, probably a reference to the ministerial reshuffle occasioned by the unexpected recent deaths of John Holles, duke of Newcastle, and James Douglas, 2nd duke of Queensberry.35 The delay may have been prolonged by the death of Edward Villiers, earl of Jersey, on 25 Aug. 1711, on the eve of his appointment as lord privy seal. On 29 Aug. 1711, Harcourt wrote from Cockthorpe to Mansell with the news that the new privy seal would be John Robinson, bishop of Bristol.36 Harcourt’s main aim during his visit had been to bolster his interest in the university, ready for his son’s candidature at the next election, but he decided to delay it in the hope of being present at Atterbury’s installation as dean of Christ Church. Stratford noted that the two men already enjoyed ‘the strictest alliance that is possible between them’.37 Harcourt had long been an advocate of Atterbury’s promotion to the deanery and Atterbury in turn was to promote Harcourt’s interest in the university, especially the candidature of his son. Atterbury nurtured conflict however, and soon the dean was at loggerheads with fellows such as Stratford and Francis Gastrell, the future bishop of Chester, both supporters of Oxford.38

At some point, the queen informed Oxford that she did not think it ‘right’ that Harcourt ‘should be a viscount’, and that Oxford should therefore ‘endeavour to make him easy in the matter’.39 Presumably he did so, and Harcourt’s barony was announced along an earldom for William Legge* 1256], 2nd Baron Dartmouth, and an English barony (Boyle) for Charles Boyle, earl of Orrery [I].40 Clearly Harcourt was important for the ministry; indeed at the end of August 1711 Swift thought that ‘the safety of the present ministry to consist in the agreement of three great men, lord keeper, lord treasurer [Oxford] and Mr Secretary [St John]’.41

On 25 Sept. 1711 Ralph Bridges wrote that he could learn little about the Peace, although ‘some lay great stress on the lord keeper’s sudden removal of himself and family out of the country, contrary to his resolutions of settling there till the meeting of the Parliament’. At the prorogation of 9 Oct., Harcourt was introduced by John West, 6th Baron De la Warr, and Charles Mildmay, 18th Baron Fitzwalter. He also presided over the prorogations on 13 and 27 November. On 30 Nov. Bridges wrote that ‘the attorney and solicitor generals [Sir Edward Northey‡ and Sir Robert Raymond†, the future Baron Raymond] have received a great mortification this term being reprimanded by the lord keeper for suffering’ Nicholas Lechmere†, the future Baron Lechmere ‘to harangue at the queen’s bench bar against the ministers, in the case of the Observator.’42 Harcourt’s name appears on Oxford’s list, probably of supporters, of about December 1711.

When the session opened on 7 Dec. 1711, Harcourt presided over every sitting. He may have been partly responsible for the procedural confusion of the vote on 8 Dec. on the address, as he was in the chair when some Tories challenged the inclusion of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause that had been agreed to on the previous day, and insisted upon a division, though it was abandoned when others realised that they were likely to lose it.43 After the confirmation of the address Harcourt joined Oxford and St John ‘on business’.44 On 15 Dec. Dr Hamilton recorded that the queen had said that it was Harley’s misfortune that St John and Harcourt, ‘who took fees of little lords’ was with him, a reference to Harcourt’s grasping reputation.45

Harcourt was forecast on 19 Dec. 1711 as likely to support the pretensions of James Hamilton, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in Parliament under his British peerage and voted accordingly the following day, signing the subsequent protest when the resolution against Hamilton was carried. In the debate on 20 Dec. Harcourt spoke in support of Oxford’s motion that the judges should be consulted on whether the queen had a right to grant the patent, making ‘a very fine speech’ showing that ‘as ’twas matter of law ’twas always the custom to ask the judges’ opinion, and that when they had asked their opinion they might determine as they pleased as to their privileges, and said the most of any body as to the validity of the patent’. He then spoke ‘to confirm’ what John Erskine, 22rd earl of Mar, had said, ‘appealing to the commissioners of the Union, whether ’twas not at that time understood by them all that the queen’s prerogative remained as it were before the Union’, because the Scots had been assured that the election of 16 representative peers did not ‘debar any of them being made peers of Great Britain … [as] the queen’s prerogative would still be the same, which was the chief inducement to them to agree to be represented by so small a number’.46

On 14 Jan. 1712 he received the proxy of Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury. On 17 Jan. Harcourt delivered a message from the queen, part of which related to the affairs of Scotland, especially ‘the distinction such of them who were peers of Scotland before the Union must lie under, if the prerogative of the crown is strictly barred against them alone’; she asked the advice of the House ‘in finding out the best method of settling this affair to the satisfaction of the whole kingdom’. This provoked a debate as to the correct response to the message; Harcourt ruled that an address was in order as it had not been a speech, but a message sent to the House via the lord keeper.47 On 25 Jan. Harcourt and Oxford, in a committee of the whole, supported the resolution that ‘the sitting of the peers of Great Britain, who were peers of Scotland before the Union, in this House, by election, is alterable by Parliament, at the request of the peers of Great Britain who were peers of Scotland before the Union, without any violation of the Union’.48 On 18 Feb. he again received Shrewsbury’s proxy. Also on 18 Feb. he reported information to the House from Muell, a muster master of marines who had been captured by the French in 1705, although there is no mention of this in the Journal.49

On 29 Apr. 1712 the Lords adjourned until 5 May, probably in reaction to the Commons’ tacking provsions appointing commissioners to examine grants since 1688 to the lottery bill. Peter Wentworth recorded visiting Harcourt in Oxfordshire and Harcourt’s reaction to the tack and to the Commons’ resolutions laying a further duty on stamped paper, which was that ‘he believed those gentlemen did not mean to complement’ Sidney Godolphin, earl of Godolphin, ‘and the late ministry, but they acted as if they were advised by them’.50 On 16 May 1712 Harcourt received the proxy of James Brydges, 8th Baron Chandos, and on 19 May that of Lansdown. In May Harcourt was also involved in preparing a bill to enable Ormond to sell his county palatinate to the queen.51 On 28 May 1712 he supported the ministry over the restraining orders sent to the duke of Ormond.52

The Power Struggle with Oxford 1712-14

On 26 Sept. L’Hermitage reported that Harcourt, Shrewsbury, St John, now Viscount Bolingbroke and John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham, were

for dissolving the present Parliament to get one which would last three years to complete (or perfect) all they had planned to do, on the assumption that the next Parliament would be as favourable as this one because of the good disposition of the public (“peace is at hand”), which might not last.53

Three days later, Maynwaring noted that Shrewsbury, Harcourt, and Bolingbroke had fallen out with the treasurer.54 However, on the matter of signing a separate peace with the French, Harcourt appears to have sided with Oxford against Bolingbroke in the cabinet held on 28 Sept. 1712.55 As a result of these disagreements, Harcourt retired to Cockthorpe, from whence on 2 Oct. he referred to ‘that true satisfaction which I can never hope for but in retirement’, and asked Oxford to obtain the queen’s pardon because he could not ‘without very great inconvenience attend at Windsor on Sunday next [5th]’.56 On 13 Oct. Peniston Lamb informed Sir John Newton that ‘it is said the lord keeper refuses to put the broad seal to a separate peace with France which puts the ministry in difficulties’.57

On 29 Oct. 1712 Harcourt attended the dinner at Goldsmiths’ Hall that followed the swearing in of the lord mayor, Sir Richard Hoare‡.58 He presided over the prorogation on 6 November. He then intended to visit Cockthorpe for a week in order to confer with Atterbury between the end of the legal term and dealing with seal business. On 20 Nov. Stratford thought that it was ‘somewhat odd’ for Harcourt to expect to be able to nominate the president of St John’s College to the bishopric of Raphoe [I], while he did ‘nothing to extinguish quarrels in a place, where my lord treasurer desires to have peace; which quarrels must cease if they were not supported by my lord keeper’, a clear reference to continuing quarrels involving Dean Atterbury at Christ Church, Oxford.59 The bishopric went instead to Thomas Lindsay.

The theme of finance again reared its head for Harcourt in a letter to Oxford of 24 Nov. 1712 in which he referred to the lack of a ‘retreat’ from his office. This was of some importance given the decline in the profits of his post combined with the expense of it, whereupon he would ‘leave little other memorial in my family of my having been in the great station, than the bare honour of it’.60 This is somewhat ironic, as contemporaneously (29 Nov.), Stratford was detailing Harcourt’s expenditure on land: his purchase of Nuneham (1710) for £17,000, his laying out £4,000 at Cockthorpe and paying £10,000 for Sir Edmund Warcup’s estate adjacent to it.61

On 3 Dec. 1712 Harcourt sought Oxford’s intervention in the continuing differences at Christ Church. These ‘must be speedily ended, or they will be incurable … I am not proper to act the part you commanded me. Your Lordship’s authority will bear down all cavils and your character will not permit you to be suspected of partiality’.62 According to Stratford, the problems were of Harcourt’s own making, ‘all the bustle to make this man [Atterbury] dean, all the unjust support of him in all his villainies since he has been dean, was only by his interest to influence things here as [the] lord keeper should think most proper for his own turn’.63

In late December 1712 Shrewsbury asked Harcourt to accept his proxy again, although the absence of a proxy book for this session does not allow us to discover Harcourt’s response.64 On Swift’s list, amended by Oxford, of late March–early April 1713, Harcourt was expected to support the ministry. On 7 Apr. Harcourt was promoted from lord keeper to lord chancellor and duly opened the Parliament in that capacity on 9 April. He presided each day. On 15 May Harcourt intervened in the debate on the case of Huband alias Pollen v. Huband, to declare ‘the matter of fact’ in relation to the two previous trials on the case.65 On 19 May 1713, the House ‘after a long hearing’ and ‘without any debate’, affirmed the lord chancellor’s order in the cause between Thomas Pelham, 2nd Baron Pelham, and the duchess of Newcastle.66 Harcourt had long been involved in the dispute surrounding the descent of the estates of John Holles, duke of Newcastle. His legal acumen was used by Oxford in the disputes surrounding the Newcastle estate, and particularly the claims of the dowager duchess, preparatory to the marriage of the Holles heiress with Oxford’s son. 

In the committee of the whole on the malt bill on 8 June 1713, John Elphinstone, 4th Baron Balmerinoch, noted that Harcourt and Trevor ‘opened not their mouths, knowing well they had nothing to say’. In a private conversation with Balmerinoch, Harcourt had urged payment of the malt tax on the grounds that ‘equality of taxes was necessary for equality of trade’.67 On or about 13 June Oxford listed Harcourt as expected to support the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty, if it reached the Lords. On 3 July Harcourt reported the queen’s answer to the address for the removal of the Pretender from Lorraine. In the absence of both Oxford and Bolingbroke he had to concede a further address from the Whigs expressing their surprise at the failure of previous attempts to secure his removal.68 On 7 July he took part in the public thanksgiving for the peace at St Paul’s Cathedral.69

By this stage Harcourt had joined Bolingbroke in seeking to undermine Oxford. He had a success with the appointment of Atterbury as bishop of Rochester on 5 July, a promotion he had been advocating for some time.70 Oxford later recollected that, after the 1713 session, he had felt the need to ‘put everything into a steady measure before the new elections’ and so proposed a ministerial reshuffle involving the promotion of several of his allies, including Mar, James Ogilvy, 4th earl of Findlater, William Bromley‡, William Wyndham‡, and Robert Benson, the future Baron Bingley. This angered Bolingbroke and Harcourt, the latter suggesting that he would refuse to affix his seal to Findlater’s appointment as keeper of the great seal of Scotland.71

On 6 Aug. 1713 Harcourt sent Oxford a draft of the proclamation dissolving Parliament and also put the lord treasurer in mind of speaking to Jonathan Trelawny, bishop of Winchester, before he went out of town, presumably about his electoral influence.72 Harcourt’s possession of the great seal was used to electoral advantage; following the dissolution of 8 Aug., Lansdown told Oxford that the lord chancellor had ‘sent me notice that our writs will be delivered to the sheriff upon Monday sevennight [31st]’ thereby triggering his own journey to Cornwall.73 However his own influence was seen as weak, at least by Stratford, who noted, writing on 11 June about the election of Harcourt’s son at Wallingford, that Harcourt’s interest ‘runs as low in the county as it does in the university’, and that with such opposition young Harcourt ‘must have recourse to Cornwall’, which would require Lord Harcourt ‘to pay for his own election there [in 1705], which he has not yet done, before they choose the son’. The young Harcourt was in fact elected for Abingdon.74

On 21 July 1713, Stratford wrote that Atterbury had the ‘entire ascendancy’ over Harcourt, by means of either flattery or ‘some secret’, as ‘there is nothing … that is trusted to [the] lord chancellor which the bishop of Rochester is not master of’.75 On 30 Aug. Harcourt congratulated Oxford on the marriage of Lord Harley, noting that although ‘I have no thoughts of returning with my family to London, till the middle of October, but I will be there myself the first moment my presence can be of use to your Lordship, or give any sanction to what I hope is happily before this time concluded.’76 In late October, Ralph Bridges noted that Harcourt ‘has lately made a grant of two prebends in Rochester and Gloucester and annexed them for ever to the two headships of Oriel and Pembroke,’ a move designed to strengthen his interest in the university.77

Oxford entertained Harcourt among others to supper at Windsor in early January 1714, when the former arrived to see how the queen was convalescing.78 On 19 Jan. Harcourt, Oxford and Bolingbroke went over the list of Lords in order to assess their strength in the forthcoming session.79 Harcourt presided over the prorogation of 12 January. He opened the Parliament on 16 Feb. and presided over each meeting during the session.

On 15 Mar. 1714 Oxford wrote to Harcourt seeking his advice over his belief that he had become,

a burden to my friends and to the only party I ever have or will act with for many months ever since this was apparent I have withdrawn myself from every thing but what neglect would be inexcusable. When a retreat happens to be desirable to one’s friends and agreeable to one’s own inclination and interest it must be sure to be right.80

In his reply on 16 Mar. Harcourt asked Oxford ‘to think calmly and give me the first opportunity you can to attend you.’81 The following day he wrote that he was concerned that should Oxford ‘give way to your resentment’ the public confusion would see his enemies triumph. On 19 Mar. Harcourt warned Oxford that he had lost Lady Masham’s good opinion and that the queen was complaining of his failure to attend her. On 20 Mar. the queen summoned Harcourt, probably in order to urge a reconciliation. Yet, although Harcourt did not wish Oxford to quit, he was by now engaged with Bolingbroke in an attempt to undermine Oxford’s authority at court.82

In early April 1714 Johnston referred to the disputes at Court, noting that Bolingbroke, Harcourt and Trevor had acted together and that Oxford had given them assurances of being ‘more communicable, more vigorous and to come into new measures and not to act by himself’. On 4 Apr. Harcourt, together with Oxford and Bolingbroke, was one of those who met about 30 Tory Members at Secretary Bromley’s office in order to concert measures for the remainder of the session.83 On 5 Apr. 1714, when Robert Shirley, Earl Ferrers, moved his motion that the Protestant succession was not in danger, Harcourt courted controversy by adding to the question the phrase ‘under her majesty’s government’. When the Whigs accused the lord chancellor of unparliamentary conduct, Ferrers intervened to say that was how he meant to style the question.84 On 7 Apr., Harcourt spoke to the attorney-general to tell Henry Eyre that ‘he thought it proper to defer bringing our affair on for a few days, that some notice had been taken of it in the House of Lords, and hoped it would be no inconveniency’.85 This related to the payment of Queen Mary’s dowry, a payment to James II’s queen originally agreed by William III, and now meant as a sop to the Jacobites, which Harcourt scuppered by refusing to affix the great seal to any such payments.86

On 12 Apr. 1714, while Harcourt was in Whitehall to deliver the address of the Lords to the queen, he was approached by the Hanoverian envoy, Baron Schütz. At their subsequent meeting Schütz demanded, on behalf of Princess Sophia, a writ of summons for her grandson, Prince George, duke of Cambridge (later George II). Harcourt

told him I thought it my duty to give the queen immediate notice thereof. He desired to know whether I would issue the writ or not. I told him the writ had never be[en] denied, or to my knowledge, demanded, I should acquaint her majesty with what had passed, and that he should without any delay hear from me.87

According to Bateman, Harcourt was able to delay issuing the writ because Cambridge was out of the country,

it was a colour for its lying at the lord chancellor’s, and for evading the envoy’s having it, and to back this proceeding better, ’tis given out that the envoy had no authority from his master or the duke for demanding it, but that he did it of himself, or in concert with some here.88

The cabinet then considered the issue that evening and ensured that although the order for the writ was granted, Harcourt was to make it clear that Cambridge’s presence was not welcome.89 On 13 Apr. Harcourt wrote to Schütz that when he had told the queen of his request, she had not believed he had any direction from Hanover to do it, adding that the writ for Cambridge had been sealed at the time of those for all peers and ‘lies ready to be delivered to you, whenever you call for it’.90

On 20 Apr. 1714 Harcourt received the proxy of Barons Trevor and Ferrers. Towards the end of April, Oxford began to spread rumours that both Bolingbroke and Harcourt harboured Jacobite sympathies.91 On 4 May, however, Erasmus Lewis‡ thought that Harcourt and Bolingbroke ‘seem already to have broken their new undigested confederacy’.92

On 7 May 1714 Ralph Bridges wrote of the ‘noise’ made by Lords in ‘reversing a decree’ of Harcourt’s. ‘One Ratcliffe, a papist’, had made a will in which his estate was to be sold to pay his debts. The remaining money was devised to his ‘popish heirs’, thereby defeating the next Protestant heir, who laid claim to this remainder by virtue of an act passed under William III, disabling Catholics from disposing of their estates. Harcourt at the hearing of this cause called in the assistance of the two chief justices and the master of the rolls [Sir John Trevor‡], and decreed that this money, being personal estate, was not included in the act. The lord chief justice, Sir Thomas Parker†, the future earl of Macclesfield, offered a contrary opinion and this weighed so much with the Lords ‘that they reversed the decree by a great majority’.93

On 9 May 1714 Henry Somerset, 2nd duke of Beaufort, provided an insight into Harcourt’s electoral role when he wrote to remind Oxford of an assurance made by Oxford and Harcourt of ‘a good post’ for Thomas Webb‡ ‘if he should desist from being member of Parliament’ for Gloucester. 94 On 24 May Harcourt thought that the bill resuming church revenues in Scotland was unwise and that ‘immediate care’ should be taken with ‘our friends’ in the Commons ‘lest they engage themselves too far’.95 On 25 May George Lockhart‡ thought that both Harcourt and Oxford were opposed to the proposed bill to resume all the revenues accruing from former episcopal property in Scotland which was subsequently dropped in favour of a bill to appoint commissioners to inquire into the grants.96

On 27 May 1714 Harcourt received the proxy of George Brudenell, 3rd earl of Cardigan. Harcourt’s role as a ministerial manager was brought into sharp focus on 27 May, when the government was taken by surprise in a thin House and found the malt bill at risk at its second reading. As Sir John Perceval‡ was informed, Harcourt, ‘finding a debate growing against receiving the bill, and that the Scotch were going that way sent in great haste to the coffee houses and other places for Lords’. As a result the government just managed to secure the bill by five votes.97

At or about the end of May 1714, Nottingham forecast Harcourt as likely to support the schism bill. On 13 June 1714 Harcourt asked Oxford if he included him in the number of those he accused of ‘running mad’, and that if he ‘err for want of information’ it was Oxford’s fault more than his own.98 On 14 June, at the report stage of the schism bill, Shrewsbury had arrived in time to speak against the amendment made in committee of the whole that the legislation be extended to Ireland. He was answered by Harcourt, who discounted the objection that it should be done by a separate bill.99 On 30 June he again received Trevor’s proxy. On 3 July, Harcourt ‘gave an account how it stood by the counsel at the bar’, before the bill for the relief of William Paterson out of the equivalent was rejected on second reading.100

On 5 July 1714 Ralph Bridges wrote of the schism ‘amongst the great ones at court’. Bolingbroke, Harcourt and Atterbury were ‘the men chiefly concerned in what they call the new scheme’; they were ‘resolved to out the treasurer, and Bolingbroke is to have the staff and be premier minister’.101 On 8 July when the House examined into the treaty of commerce with Spain, Harcourt asked each commissioner of trade in turn if they had seen a letter from one Gilligan or Gillingham of the South Sea Company offering Arthur Moore‡ a pension from the king of Spain.102 Harcourt presided over the prorogation on 9 July, but only after reading the queen’s reply in response to the Lords’ address on her share in the Asiento. So inflammatory was it that Harcourt had to backtrack upon declaring the session adjourned, and the House debated an address requesting the identity of the advisors of the message. The queen then arrived before a vote could be taken and prorogued the session.103

On 11 July Edward Harley‡ wrote to his brother, Oxford, that Harcourt desired to meet him.104 On 14 July Harcourt was still pressing for a meeting as he was going into the country on Friday [16th], and had to take leave of the queen on the 15th.105 Lewis reported that on 15 July Harcourt had a long conference with Oxford, ‘kissed him at parting and cursed him at night’. Harcourt then went into the county on the 16th leading some to ‘conjecture nothing considerable will be done’.106 One of Harcourt’s tasks was to ‘lay the first stone of the new college’ in Oxford, the statutes of which he was expediting because ‘he did not know how long he might have the seals’.107

Harcourt intended to stay in the country until 10 Aug., but on the 20 July he ‘was sent for express by Lord Bolingbroke’ who, confident of his victory over Oxford, required Harcourt’s presence for ‘besides the Irish dispute, which some consideration must be had upon Thursday morning [22nd], there are too many other affairs of consequence now on foot to dispense with your Lordship’s absence’.108 On his arrival on 21 July Harcourt went into discussions with Bolingbroke and the queen.109

On 21 July 1714 Johnston wrote that it was still the ‘general opinion’ that Oxford would be removed. Three days later, Lewis reported that Oxford had ‘broke out into a fiery passion’ with Harcourt, ‘sworn a thousand oaths that he would be revenged’.110 On 27 July Oxford resigned and on his way from an audience with the queen, he again erupted against Harcourt: ‘I found you a poor rascal, and by my means you became rich and great, but by God I’ll never leave you till I make you again what you was at first’.111 As L’Hermitage wrote on 5 Oct., following the appearance of Secret History of the White Staff, Oxford’s apologists blamed the Tories’ difficulties on Harcourt and Bolingbroke. 

On 30 July it was Harcourt who gently guided the queen’s hand as she placed the lord treasurer’s staff in Shrewsbury’s custody.112 Following her death, on 1 Aug. 1714, Harcourt signed the proclamation of George I. By virtue of his office, he was one of the regents of the realm in the king’s absence. He also presided over each meeting of the session of August 1714, including the delivery of the speech from the lords justices on 5 August. Also on 5 Aug. he received the proxy of Lord Bruce.

According to Thomas Carte’s notes, probably based on Lansdown’s recollections, ‘Harcourt has complained often in very feeling terms’ to Ormond ‘that he knew no more of the measures of the court’, even though he was lord chancellor, ‘than his footman’, and that Bolingbroke ‘had not made him a visit of a year and Lord Oxford did not so much as know him, but just before the queen died, Bolingbroke brought him into his measures and they were entire confidants’. Their scheme was in favour of the house of Hanover, to make Marlborough general and if Ormond agreed, to allow him the post of lord lieutenant of Ireland.113 An alternative view was provided by Henry Pelham‡, who later told Sir Dudley Ryder‡ that on the death of the queen, there was a meeting between Bishop Atterbury, Thomas Howard, 8th duke of Norfolk (the earl marshal), Bolingbroke and Harcourt, at which the bishop offered to proclaim the Pretender, but only the earl marshal came into it.114 This latter account is somewhat odd, given that Norfolk, as a Catholic, did not act as earl marshal. Perhaps Pelham was referring to his deputy and kinsman, Henry Howard, 6th earl of Suffolk.

Harcourt was dismissed on 21 Sept. and replaced by Cowper. He was present at the coronation on 20 Oct. 1714.115 Thereafter he continued in opposition until his rehabilitation which saw him gain a viscountcy in 1721 and serve as a lord justice. He died on 28 July 1727.

Harcourt has been widely perceived by both contemporaries and historians as an able man, but with a seriously flawed character: ‘a convivial man of presence and authority in polite society’, but ‘vain, pushing and greedy’.116 The duchess of Marlborough around 1710 described him as ‘a man of great ability and reputation in his own profession but in nothing else, and when he was in a less station was always thought to be very corrupt’.117 On the latter Swift agreed: ‘I believe everything you can say of him, and that nothing but guineas can influence him’.118 More impartially, Prince Eugene cited him as an example of Oxford’s ability to use men ‘of low birth and small fortune, but good parts’, he being ‘a country gentleman of small fortune, but a good lawyer and of a bold spirit, a great asserter of the Church of England, which entitled him to the queen’s favour and to the great station he is now in, and very compliable to all the treasurer’s measures’.119

S.N.H.

  • 1 PH, xxix. 283.
  • 2 HMC Lords, n.s. viii. passim.
  • 3 Add. 72488, ff. 47-48; HMC Lords, n.s. viii. 8-9.
  • 4 Bodl. Ballard 7, ff. 35-36.
  • 5 LPL, ms 941/25; HMC Portland, vii. 23.
  • 6 Add. 61367, f. 133.
  • 7 Gregg, Queen Anne (2001 edn) 323.
  • 8 PH, xxix. 279, 299.
  • 9 Lewis Walpole Lib., Charles Hanbury Williams mss 80/153-4; Surr. Hist. Cent. Midleton mss 1248/III, f. 9; Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 47, ff. 19-20.
  • 10 Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 620; Add. 72495, ff. 19-20.
  • 11 Add. 70333, Harley memo.
  • 12 Herts. ALS, DE/P/F55, Halifax to Cowper, 16 Sept. 1710.
  • 13 HMC Portland, vii. 11, 13, 37.
  • 14 Swift, Jnl. to Stella, 18-19, 22.
  • 15 Cowper, Diary, 43, 45-46.
  • 16 PH, xxix. 305-6.
  • 17 HMC Portland, iv. 611, 615.
  • 18 D. Lemmings, Gents. And Barristers, 253n.
  • 19 TNA. PC 2/83, p. 123.
  • 20 HMC 15th Rep. VII, 203.
  • 21 Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 645.
  • 22 HMC Portland, vii. 34.
  • 23 Add. 70028, f. 204.
  • 24 Add. 72500, f. 27.
  • 25 TRHS, ser. 5, vii. 143.
  • 26 Glassey, JPs, 201, 209, 213-17, 222, 228, 230.
  • 27 HMC Portland, iv. 695.
  • 28 Jnl. to Stella, 193, 205; Swift, Prose Works ed. Davis, viii. 124.
  • 29 Jnl. to Stella, 245, 247.
  • 30 HMC Ancaster, 443.
  • 31 Add. 61461, ff. 116-23.
  • 32 Jnl. to Stella, 265, 273.
  • 33 HMC Portland, iv. 695.
  • 34 Thynne pprs. 47, ff. 252, 269-70.
  • 35 Add. 70214, Ormond to [?Harcourt], 29 July [1711].
  • 36 Holmes, ‘Great Ministry’, 132.
  • 37 HMC Portland, vii. 47, 51, 59-60, 75.
  • 38 G.V. Bennett, Tory Crisis in Church and State, 143, 146, 156, 158.
  • 39 HMC Bath, i. 213.
  • 40 London Gazette, 4-6 Sept. 1711.
  • 41 Swift Corresp. ed. Woolley, i. 371.
  • 42 Add. 72491, ff. 42, 55-56.
  • 43 Wentworth Pprs. 222-3; PH, ii. 193-4.
  • 44 Jnl. to Stella, 434.
  • 45 Hamilton Diary, 34.
  • 46 Wentworth Pprs. 228.
  • 47 Wentworth Pprs. 238, 251-4; Nicolson London Diaries, 578.
  • 48 Scot. Hist. Soc. Misc. xii. 147-8.
  • 49 Nicolson, London Diaries, 588.
  • 50 Wentworth Pprs. 288.
  • 51 Add. 70230, Harcourt to Oxford, n.d., 25 May 1712.
  • 52 PH, xxvi. 177.
  • 53 Add. 17677 FFF, ff. 361-2.
  • 54 Add. 61461, ff. 189-92.
  • 55 Holmes, ‘Great Ministry’, 223.
  • 56 Add. 70230, Harcourt to Oxford, 2 Oct. 1712.
  • 57 Lincs. Archs. MON 7/12/197.
  • 58 Evening Post, 28-30 Oct. 1712.
  • 59 HMC Portland, vii. 113.
  • 60 HMC Portland, v. 247.
  • 61 HMC Portland, vii. 115.
  • 62 Add. 70230, Harcourt to Oxford, 3 Dec. 1712.
  • 63 HMC Portland, vii. 121.
  • 64 Add. 41843, f. 26.
  • 65 HMC Lords, n.s. x. 30.
  • 66 Berks. RO, Braybrooke mss D/EN/F23/2.
  • 67 Scot. Hist. Soc. Misc. xii. 161, 164.
  • 68 Holmes, ‘Great Ministry’, 271; Boyer, Anne Hist., 640.
  • 69 Post Boy, 7-9 July 1713.
  • 70 Holmes, ‘Great Ministry’, 278-9, 284.
  • 71 HMC Portland, v. 466; Holmes, ‘Great Ministry’, 285.
  • 72 Add. 70230, Harcourt to Oxford, 6 Aug. 1713.
  • 73 Add. 70031, f. 88.
  • 74 HMC Portland, vii. 139, 153.
  • 75 HMC Portland, vii. 157.
  • 76 Add. 70230, Harcourt to Oxford, 30 Aug. 1713.
  • 77 Add. 72496, ff. 20-21.
  • 78 Holmes, ‘Great Ministry’, 320; HMC Portland, vii. 176.
  • 79 Bolingbroke Corresp. iv. 437.
  • 80 Add. 70230, Oxford to Harcourt, 15 Mar. 1713/4 [draft].
  • 81 Add. 70230, Harcourt to Oxford, 16 Mar. 1713[/4].
  • 82 HMC Portland, v. 400, 403; Holmes, ‘Great Ministry’, 349-54.
  • 83 BIHR, xxxiv. 213.
  • 84 Holmes, ‘Great Ministry’, 360-1; Wentworth Pprs. 364.
  • 85 HMC Stuart, i. 317.
  • 86 Szechi, Jacobitism and Tory Politics, 164.
  • 87 Add. 70230, Harcourt’s memo. to Oxford.
  • 88 Add. 72501, f. 119.
  • 89 Lockhart Letters, 97; Holmes, ‘Great Ministry’, 367-8.
  • 90 Macpherson, Original Pprs. ii. 591-2.
  • 91 Holmes, ‘Great Ministry’, 382; Macpherson, ii. 615.
  • 92 HMC Portland, v. 434.
  • 93 Add. 72496, ff. 136-8; Wentworth Pprs. 380-1.
  • 94 Add. 70257, Beaufort to Oxford, 9 May 1714.
  • 95 HMC Portland, v. 449.
  • 96 Lockhart Letters, 101.
  • 97 Add. 47027, f. 119; BIHR, xxxiv. 216; Szechi, 158.
  • 98 HMC Portland, v. 458.
  • 99 Wentworth Pprs. 390.
  • 100 HMC Lords, n.s. x. 374.
  • 101 Add. 72496, ff. 147-8.
  • 102 Wentworth Pprs. 398.
  • 103 Holmes, ‘Great Ministry’, 422-3.
  • 104 Add. 70236, Harley to Oxford, 11 July 1714.
  • 105 Add. 70230, Harcourt to Oxford, 14 July [1714].
  • 106 Swift Corresp. ii. 8.
  • 107 HMC Portland, v. 472-3.
  • 108 Harcourt Pprs. ii. 52; Swift Corresp. ii. 19.
  • 109 Boyer, Anne Hist. 712-13.
  • 110 Add. 72488, ff. 89-90; Swift Corresp. ii. 24.
  • 111 Holmes, ‘Great Ministry’, 430; HMC Portland, vii. 198.
  • 112 Wentworth Pprs. 408.
  • 113 Bodl. Carte 231, ff. 39-41.
  • 114 Harrowby mss Trust, 430, doc. 24 (i), Sir Dudley Ryder diary, 22 Aug. 1741.
  • 115 Add. 17677 HHH, ff. 374-5, 412-13, 436-8.
  • 116 Glassey, JPs, 200; Bennett, 140.
  • 117 Add. 61418, ff. 150-4.
  • 118 Swift Corresp. ii. 81.
  • 119 HMC Portland, v. 157.