LEE, Edward Henry (1663-1716) | History of Parliament

LEE, Edward Henry (1663–1716)

cr. 5 June 1674 (a minor) earl of LICHFIELD

First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 11 Feb. 1689

b. 4 Feb 1663, 1st s. of Sir Francis Henry Lee, 4th bt. and Elizabeth, da. of Thomas Pope, 2nd earl of Downe [I]. educ. G. Inn 1675, travelled abroad (France) 1678-9.1 m. 6 Feb. 1677 (with £20,000),2 Charlotte Fitzroy (c.1664-1718), da. of King Charles II and Barbara Villiers, duchess of Cleveland, 13s. (at least 7 d.v.p.), 5da. (?1 d.v.p.) suc. fa. as 5th bt. 4 Dec. 1667. d. 14 July 1716; admon. 3 Aug. 1716 to s. George Henry, 2nd earl of Lichfield.3

Extra. gent. of the bedchamber 1680-3, gent. 1683-8.

Ranger, Woodstock Park 1680-1705;4 high steward, New Woodstock 1685-92, Oxford 1687-8;5 ld. lt. Oxon. 1687-9.

Col., 12th Ft. 1686-8, 1st Ft. Gds. 1688.6

Associated with: Ditchley Park, Oxon.;7 Downing Street,8 Westminster; St James’s Street, Westminster9 and Greenwich, Surr.10

Likenesses: oil on canvas, Sir G. Kneller (attrib.), Kiplin Hall, N. Yorks.; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, Ditchley Park.11

‘A worthy man’ and of a ‘good temper’ but ‘too credulous’, Lee was advanced to the peerage while still underage following a contract to marry one of the king’s favourite children, Charlotte Fitzroy.12 Reports of the match being imminent had circulated earlier that year when it was also speculated that Lee was to be created earl of Danby. His expected title was soon after corrected to Lichfield, a peerage recently extinct by the death of the king’s cousin, Charles Stuart, 3rd duke of Richmond (Lichfield having been Richmond’s peerage before his accession to the dukedom).13 The decision to grant Lee this peerage may have been intended as a deliberate snub to Richmond’s widow.14 At the time of the contract in May 1674 both Lee and his bride were minors and it was not until February 1677 that the marriage was confirmed.15 The king’s affection for his daughter was reflected in a series of generous grants: the countess was granted a portion of £20,000, from which the earl received an annual pension of £2,000, and a further £600 for ‘house keeping’ and he was also granted the reversion to the rangership of Woodstock Park (then held by his kinsman, John Wilmot, 2nd earl of Rochester).16 The profits from Woodstock were estimated to be worth approximately £800 per annum.17 They were also presented with a house on Downing Street, where they proved intolerant of anyone seeking to build anywhere near their land.18

Lichfield’s interests were concentrated in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, his influence there reinforced by his connection to a number of prominent families in both counties. Lichfield’s grandmother, Anne St John, married as her second husband Henry Wilmot^†, earl of Rochester. Lichfield’s cousins Eleanor and Anne Lee, daughters of Sir Henry Lee, also made influential matches: Eleanor marrying James Bertie, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon), while Anne was married to Thomas Wharton, (later marquess of Wharton). Connection to the Bertie family was then further underpinned by the marriage of Lichfield’s mother to Robert Bertie, 3rd earl of Lindsey.

Much of the time between Lichfield’s elevation to the peerage and attainment of his majority was taken up by the young peer’s trustees securing his title to lands and pensions settled on him at his marriage. In 1678 he was granted a warrant to hold a weekly market and four fairs each year at Charlbury.19 That summer he was also promised the next bedchamber place that should fall vacant, after which he departed on a foreign tour to France. Lady Lichfield was said to have wept bitterly at her husband’s abandonment of her while Lady Lindsey sought to assure herself that the marriage had been consummated before allowing Lichfield to depart. He was said to have assured her that he had ‘lain with his wife 40 times for certain.’20

Lichfield was expected back from his foreign journey in the spring of 1679, but he failed to return in time to be present at the birth of his first daughter. At the same time reports circulated of additional preferment headed his way and that he was to replace John Lovelace, 3rd Baron Lovelace, as ranger of Woodstock.21 For all the appearance of wealth and favour shown to Lichfield and his wife, by the summer of 1679 they were said to have been in desperate straits with Lichfield lacking even ‘6d. to buy him bread.’ The principal cause of their troubles seems to have been Lady Lindsey, who had encumbered the estates with her debts, as well as a long-running legal suit with his Bertie kinsmen over the settlement of his estate. By the close of June his allowance was nine months in arrears with no prospect of a solution in sight.22 Later that summer Lichfield and his countess waited on the king at Windsor, presumably in the hopes of securing his intercession, but by the beginning of October it was reported that they would not be in town during the winter, presumably on account of the need to retrench.23 Lichfield’s problems continued to go unsolved, and by the spring of 1680 John Cary commented to Sir Ralph Verney^‡ how great a grief it was to him ‘to think what will become of him or how he will live.’ With the king unwilling to intervene all that was left was to him was to sell off his property.24

Matters failed to improve for Lichfield for much of the year. Efforts to sort out his finances were still unsettled by the autumn and in October he suffered the loss of his heir, styled Viscount Quarendon, who had been born a few months before.25 It was not until December that agreement was finally arrived at for settling Lichfield’s finances, but this was almost immediately thrown into doubt when he was commanded by the king to settle his estate on Sir Caesar Cranmer’s son in (false) anticipation of a marriage with another of the king’s daughters by Moll Davis. Lichfield was said to have been so upset by the command that he retreated to his chamber and refused to see any visitors.26 By the spring of 1683 matters seem to have improved. In April he was sworn of the bedchamber in place of the recently deceased Robert Montagu, 3rd earl of Manchester, and on 4 Feb. 1684 he finally came of age.27 He busied himself with his responsibilities as ranger at Woodstock, where he appears to have taken a very active role in the management of the deer and it was noted that he ‘loves to be at the killing of all himself.’28 He also seems to have been interested in building his interest in the locality, and following the death of Charles II and with the summons for a new Parliament, he was approached by the countess of Rochester to lend his support to the nomination of Montagu Venables Bertie* (later 2nd earl of Abingdon) as member for Woodstock, despite the fact that the boy was only 13 years old.29

The accession of James II promised Lichfield the expectation of an improvement in his fortunes as he proved himself amenable to many of the new king’s policies. Lichfield took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685, introduced between Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, and Thomas Lennard, earl of Sussex. He was thereafter present on 53 per cent of all sitting days, and on 6 June was named to the committee considering the bill for rebuilding the house of William Herbert, marquess of Powis, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. News of the rebellion of James Scott, duke of Monmouth, inspired Lichfield to join the army opposing the insurgents but he appears to have been too late to participate at Sedgemoor. By September he was back at Woodstock.30

Lichfield’s close relations with the court were indicated by Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and Lady Anne Spencer standing godparents to his daughter in the summer of 1686. That summer Lichfield and other members of his family were faced with a new crisis over his brother’s mésalliance with Miss Williamson, daughter of a serjeant-at-arms. Lichfield’s annoyance with his brother was not confined to his poor match, and by September it was reported that they were to resort to the courts over a disputed legacy amounting to £10,000.31

The early autumn of 1686 found Lichfield engaged in his favourite pursuit of hunting, though a bad fall brought an early end to his activities and resulted in him being laid up with a dislocated leg. He had recovered by the middle of November when he returned to London in order to be on hand for the court case with his brother.32 In a series of assessments compiled between January 1687 and January 1688, Lichfield was noted among those believed to be in favour of repealing the test acts and as a supporter of the king’s policies in general. The king took advantage of Lichfield’s sympathetic stance by commissioning Catholic officers into Lichfield’s foot regiment as a means of gauging support for his policies, but all save two Catholics in the regiment refused to co-operate.33 In November 1687 Lichfield replaced his kinsman, Abingdon, as lord lieutenant of Oxfordshire, though Abingdon retained his colonelcy in the county militia. Having delayed quitting London, Lichfield was back in his new lieutenancy in mid January 1688 in order to put the three questions to the gentlemen of the county. The results, it was thought, were not encouraging but equally it was not believed that Lichfield had made much effort to press the matter.34 After the birth of the prince of Wales in the summer of 1688 Lady Lichfield, as one of the ladies of the bedchamber to the queen, was one of those who gave depositions confirming the circumstances of the prince’s birth while Lichfield was quick to communicate the news to his deputies in Oxfordshire commanding them to ‘show all such testimonies of joy and gladness as are usual on such a public thanksgiving’.35

Despite a royal policy of retrenchment that led to Lichfield’s pension being reduced to £1,200 a year, at the Revolution of 1688 Lichfield remained loyal to James II.36 Reports of 27 Nov. and of 6 Dec. that he was among those deserting to the Prince of Orange were inaccurate as was a report that he had been promoted major general or lieutenant general.37 He was, though, one of the beneficiaries of the desertions from James’s army as he was awarded the command of the guards regiment formerly commanded by his brother-in-law, Henry Fitzroy, duke of Grafton.38 On the afternoon of 13 Dec. he took his place in the council chamber for the meeting of the provisional government when he was one of four peers ordered to travel to Faversham to rescue the king after James’s failed attempt to leave the country.39 Lichfield then resumed his place for the final two sessions of the provisional government held in the Lords on 24 and 25 December. His close relations with the deposed monarch no doubt encouraged rumours that he accompanied the king into exile at the time of his second flight.40

Unsurprisingly, given his close association with the former regime, Lichfield was soon stripped of most of his offices. In early January 1689 it was reported that he had lost command of his regiment to Thomas Wharton while the Oxfordshire lieutenancy was returned to Abingdon.41 Lichfield took his seat at the opening of the Convention but was thereafter present on just 16 days (ten per cent of the whole) before quitting the House for the last time. On 29 Jan. he voted in favour of establishing a regency, and two days later he voted against the declaration of William and Mary as king and queen. On 4 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the Commons in the use of the word abdicated and he maintained this position in the second division on the same issue two days later. He then subscribed the dissent when the resolution was carried. Once it was clear that the throne would be offered to William and Mary, Lichfield retired from the chamber. He was granted a warrant excusing him from attending the coronation and soon after the opening of the second session he communicated his inability to attend citing ‘affairs of great consequence in the country’.42

Although absent from the chamber for the rest of his career, Lichfield remained a significant political broker in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. He was also cited frequently over the next few years among those engaged in low level Jacobite intrigue. According to Ailesbury, Lichfield’s mentor was major general Sackville, and it was Sackville that Ailesbury blamed for a breach in relations between the two earls over their respective ambitions to be made lord chamberlain should James ever succeed in achieving his restoration.43 Whether Lichfield was ever truly interested in securing office or not, his attention at the close of 1689 was once again taken up with his ongoing dispute with his brother, which his friends hoped it would be possible to settle without ‘the great expense of a suit in law and the unavoidable animosities that may arise thereon.’ Over the next few weeks the prospect of achieving agreement without resorting to the courts faded with Lichfield’s brother apparently intent of driving the action on, even though it was thought it would be ‘much to his prejudice’. The resulting case overshadowed Lichfield’s affairs for much of the first half of 1690.44

At the close of June a warrant was issued for Lichfield’s arrest along with a small number of other high profile adherents of the former regime.45 Lady Lichfield insisted that her husband had done ‘nothing he needs be afraid of but the expense and charge of a long imprisonment’, but for all her assurance as soon as Lichfield heard of the seizing of Sir John Fenwick^‡, he was quick to abscond.46 On 14 July he was included in a list of people for whose apprehension a proclamation was issued, and at the close of the month it was reported that he had at last surrendered himself.47 His decision to hand himself in coincided with reports of a final settlement of his cause with his brother and also of a successful intervention on his behalf by his wife and Grafton who were able to secure his continuance in place as ranger of Woodstock Park in the face of a concerted campaign by Lovelace to supplant him.48 He was only permitted a brief respite, though. By the close of the summer it was understood that his brother intended to revive his suit by appealing to the Lords and at the beginning of October he was ordered to attend King’s Bench to be bailed ‘on the same conditions with others in his lordship’s circumstances.’49 Lichfield’s family was dealt a further blow in October 1690 with Grafton’s death in Ireland. To add to his own problems Lichfield was named in the duke’s will along with Sidney Godolphin, Baron (later earl) Godolphin, as one of the guardians of the young Charles Fitzroy, 2nd duke of Grafton.50

Lichfield and his fellow non-jurors had been released by the close of the year. He was also, once more, said to have arrived at a final agreement with his brother.51 In spite of his experiences in the summer of 1690, Lichfield remained an adherent of the exiled monarch, and in the winter of 1691-2 he was one of those named by Fuller as having subscribed an address to the French king seeking his help in restoring James II.52 He was also included by William George Richard Stanley, 9th earl of Derby, among those Derby thought likely to be sympathetic to his efforts to recover estates alienated during the Commonwealth.53 In May 1692 a fresh warrant was issued for Lichfield’s arrest along with several others but he again avoided being taken up immediately. On 14 May it was reported that he had been seized and sent to the Tower. It was also rumoured that he had been injured while resisting arrest.54 Lichfield was expected to be bailed from King’s Bench once again in mid June, and by the beginning of July he was resident at his house at Blackheath.55

For the next few years Lichfield avoided any further scrapes with the ministry, but he continued to feature in occasional news reports, such as one of January 1694 that relayed a tale of him having died after drinking bad wine in a tavern in company with two other peers (who were also supposed to have perished). In November of that year the newsletters again announced his premature demise.56 News of the assassination plot in the spring of 1696 found Lichfield once more implicated in Jacobite affairs, as he was named by Peter Cook as one of the peers in correspondence with the exiled king.57 At the beginning of March orders were made out for his arrest once more, and by 23 Mar. it was reported that he was either held under house arrest or had been taken into custody again.58 Once more, Lichfield avoided serious repercussions and at the beginning of September he was free to grumble to Sir Ralph Verney about the inconvenience of his wife giving birth to yet another daughter, ‘which is no very welcome news to my family.’59 The same year while travelling to Epsom, he was seriously injured in a fall from his coach when the wheels ran over his hip.60

Lichfield survived this latest accident without long lasting consequence and for the rest of his life he concentrated on his local interests. Although he avoided Parliament, he was not averse to involving himself in elections. In December 1696 in response to a request from Sir John Verney^‡ (later Viscount Fermanagh [I]) he undertook to do all he could on Verney’s behalf in the Buckinghamshire by-election, where Verney was opposed by Henry Neale^‡, standing on Wharton’s interest.61 In the event, in spite of all that Lichfield could do, the Wharton interest proved too strong and Neale topped the poll beating Verney into third place. Two years later, Lichfield encouraged Verney to stand again for the general election of 1698. The decision appears to have been made rather hastily and once again Verney was unsuccessful, but Lichfield was compensated with the return of William Cheyne^‡, 2nd Viscount Newhaven [S], a former associate of Wharton’s, whom he had undertaken to support alongside of Verney.62 He was also successful in his quiet promotion of the moderate Whig, Sir Thomas Littleton^‡, at Woodstock, though it contributed to a fraught relationship with his Bertie relations in the weeks following on from the election.63

Lichfield was faced with more immediate anxieties by the news of the conversion of his daughter, Charlotte, to Catholicism in the autumn of 1699. Her decision proved ‘a great affliction’ to him, not least because he insisted that he had used the ‘utmost care to have her well grounded in the Protestant religion.’ Others doubted the extent of his sorrow and reckoned that he was on the point of converting himself, ‘He is accounted but a weak man which the world says is all as can be said for him.’64

Expectations of a dissolution before the close of 1700 found Lichfield eager once more to use his interest on behalf of Newhaven in Buckinghamshire. He also enquired after Verney’s intentions, being willing to support his candidature again. In spite of Lichfield’s resolve to send out his bailiff and command everyone over whom either he or his mother had any influence to be for Verney and to ‘highly resent it of any person that is not’, the result was the same with Newhaven securing a seat and Verney again unable to compete against the Wharton interest.65

Lichfield’s rights to the Oxfordshire estate at Adderbury, which had been left to him by his grandmother Anne, countess of Rochester, were challenged in 1701 when Edward Montagu, 3rd earl of Sandwich, John Vaughan, Viscount Lisburne [I], and Francis Greville petitioned the House on behalf of other members of the family. In the event Lichfield’s possession of the manor was upheld, but three years later he faced further difficulties over his rights there when a challenge was launched by Sir Edward Cobb. Once more Lichfield resisted the attempt, but he was still being harried by Cobb at the end of the decade.66

The accession of Queen Anne sparked early rumours that Lichfield and other non-jurors might be willing at last to take the oaths but these were quickly ended. In March it was again put about that he was one of those to have taken the oath of allegiance, but this too proved to be fanciful and when Lady Litchfield sought leave to wait on the queen, she was informed that she might not do so until her husband had qualified himself.67

Lichfield never did fulfil the queen’s condition, and in April 1705 he was noted as a Jacobite in an analysis of the peerage. The decision to reward John Churchill, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, with the royal estates at Woodstock that year left Lichfield stripped of his remaining interest there, but it was reported that he had been handsomely compensated with an estimated £20,000 for his ‘pretensions’.68 Lichfield had settled the estate on his son-in-law, Benedict Leonard Calvert^‡, (later 4th Baron Baltimore [I]), in 1699 at the time of his marriage to Charlotte Lee, so it was the latter who was the real beneficiary.69

Lichfield was assessed as a Tory in a list of peers’ party affiliations in the early summer of 1708. He failed to rally to the cause of Dr Sacheverell two years later and was noted as being in the country at the time of Sacheverell’s trial. Despite this and for all his declining interest in Oxfordshire, Lichfield retained his influence in Buckinghamshire, and in December 1710 he wrote to Viscount Fermanagh (as Sir John Verney had since become) congratulating him on his return in the autumn election, trusting that his servants had ‘obeyed my orders in speaking to all those I can influence to be for your lordship.’ His efforts on behalf of one of the other candidates, Sir Henry Seymour, were less effective and Seymour was left trailing in last place.70

From the beginning of 1711 Lichfield’s health seems to have been on the wane, and he complained of a weakness of the legs that prevented him from walking up and down stairs without difficulty. Even so, there seem to have been rumours of his return to office, though he professed himself uninterested being only too ‘sensible of the vanity of employments and the trouble that attends them.’ Two years later he again undertook to use his interest on behalf of Fermanagh, this time in partnership with John Fleetwood^‡. Both men were successful in defeating their Whig opponents, though Lady Fermanagh complained of Lichfield’s failure to give directions to a number of his tenants who would otherwise vote the other way, their ‘inclinations’ being ‘for the low party.’71

Lichfield did not long outlive the Hanoverian accession, which spelled the end of what remained of his interest. Even at the height of his influence, he appears to have been only modestly effectual and he was always dependent on acting in concert with others. William Lloyd, bishop of Norwich, thought him ‘a very sober good tempered gent’, while the duchess of Marlborough admitted ‘a respect for his character because he is plain and fair’, even though he was ‘not in the interest I wish for.’72 He remained a non-juror and died, ‘much grieved at the iniquity and distraction of the times,’ at his house in Greenwich in the summer of 1716.73 A monument was erected afterwards to Lichfield and his countess in Spelsbury Church.74 He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, George Henry Lee, as 2nd earl of Lichfield.

R.D.E.E.

1 Verney ms mic. M636/31, J. Cary to Sir R. Verney, 31 Dec. 1677, P. Osborne to Sir R. Verney, 1 Aug. 1678.
2 HMC Rutland, ii. 40.
3 TNA, PROB 6/92, f. 92.
4 VCH Oxon. xii. 401-2, 433, 441.
5 CSP Dom. 1685, p. 108; VCH Oxon. xii. 382-3; Bodl. ms Wood diaries 32, f. 58.
6 CSP Dom. 1687-9, p. 367.
7 TNA, C104/110.
8 Survey of London, xiv. 113-28.
9 E. Hatton, New View of London (1708), ii. 623-39.
10 TNA, PROB 5/3644.
11 Catalogue of Paintings in the Possession of the Rt. Hon. Viscount Dillon at Ditchley, Spelsbury, Oxfordshire, 21.
12 Ailesbury Mems. 272; Hearne, Remains, 191-2.
13 Verney ms mic. M636/27, W. Fall to Sir R. Verney, 7, 14 May 1674.
14 E. Hamilton, Illustrious Lady, 146-7.
15 HMC Rutland, ii. 40.
16 Oxf. Hist. Centre, Lee xiii/1; TNA, C104/110.
17 Bodl. Top. Oxon. c. 351, f. 94.
18 Survey of London, xiv. 128.
19 CSP Dom. 1678, Addenda 1674-9, p. 63; VCH Oxon. x. 145.
20 Verney ms mic. M636/31, P. Osborne to Sir R. Verney, 25 July, 7 Aug, 15 Aug. 1678.
21 Ibid. M636/32, Sir R. to E. Verney, 6 Jan, 17 Mar. 1679, Sir R. Verney to J. Heron, 7 Feb. 1679.
22 Ibid. M636/32, J. Cary to Sir R. Verney, 22 May, 26 June 1679, M636/33, copy decree, 20 Nov. 1679.
23 Ibid. M636/33, P. Osborne to Sir R. Verney, 2 Oct. 1679.
24 Ibid. M636/34, J. Cary to Sir R. Verney, 2 Mar. 1680, Sir R. Verney to J. Cary, 3 May 1680.
25 Ibid. M636/34, P. Osborne to Sir R. Verney, 14 Oct. 1680, J. Cary to Sir R. Verney, 19 Oct. 1680.
26 Ibid. M636/35, J. Cary to Sir R. Verney, 9, 24 Dec. 1680; Bodl. Tanner 36, f. 215.
27 Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 1, box 1, folder 29, [Yard] to Poley, 6 Apr. 1683; Verney ms mic. M636/38, J. Cary to Sir R. Verney, 2 Jan. 1684.
28 Verney ms mic. M636/39, J. Cary to Sir R. Verney, 6 Aug. 1684.
29 VCH Oxon. xii. 382-3; Corbett, Spelsbury, 176-7.
30 Verney ms mic. M636/40, Sir R. Verney to J. Cary, 20 June 1685, J. Cary to Sir Ralph Verney, 22 Sept. 1685.
31 Ibid. M636/41, P. Osborne to Sir R. Verney, 13 July, 7 Sept. 1686, C. Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 4 Aug. 1686.
32 Ibid. M636/41, Sir R. Verney to Lichfield, 14 Oct. 1686, E. Verney to J. Verney, 17 Oct. 1686; J. Cary to Sir R. Verney, 16 Nov. 1686.
33 J. Childs, Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution, 158; Duckett, Penal Laws, 173-4.
34 Verney ms mic. M636/42, A. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 16 Jan, 6 Feb. 1688, M636/42, J. Cary to Sir R. Verney, 18 Jan. 1688; Add. 70140, C. Blackmore to E. Harley, 24 Jan. 1688.
35 CSP Dom. June 1687-Feb. 1689, p. 327; Add. 33954, f. 3.
36 Oxford RO, Lee xiii/3.
37 Bodl. Carte 130, f. 309; Verney ms mic. M636/43, J. Stewkeley to Sir R. Verney, 6 Dec. 1688, J. to Sir R. Verney, 28 Nov. 1688.
38 Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 1, box 2, folder 92, newsletter to Poley, 4 Dec. 1688.
39 Add. 36707, f. 51.
40 Verney ms mic. M636/43, J. Cary to Sir R. Verney, 25 Dec. 1688.
41 Beinecke Lib. OSB mss fb 210, ff. 323-4.
42 CSP Dom. 1689-90, p. 55; HMC Lords, ii. 278-9.
43 Ailesbury Mems. 272.
44 Verney ms mic. M636/44, J. Cary to Sir R. Verney, 7, 26 Dec. 1689, 27 Jan., 4 June 1690.
45 Ibid. M636/44, J. to Sir R. Verney, 26 June 1690; Proclamation for Apprehending Edward Henry, earl of Lichfield, (14 July, 1690).
46 Verney ms mic. M636/44, J. Cary to Sir R. Verney, 30 June 1690, C. Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 2 July 1690.
47 CSP Dom. 1690-1, p. 65; Verney ms mic. M636/44, C. Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 29 July 1690.
48 Verney ms mic. M636/44, J. Cary to Sir R. Verney, 31 July 1690; HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 475-6.
49 Verney ms mic. M636/44, J. Cary to Sir R. Verney, 23 Sept. 1690; TNA, PC 2/74, p. 20.
50 CTB, 1689-92. pt 3. p. 999; Verney ms mic. M636/44, P. Osborne to Sir R. Verney, 28 Oct. 1690.
51 Verney ms mic. M636/44, J. Cary to Sir R. Verney, 6 Dec. 1690.
52 HMC Finch, iii. 344; Glasgow UL, ms Hunter 73, lxxi; Bodl. Carte 130, ff. 337-8.
53 Lancs. RO, DDK 1615/9.
54 Add. 29574, f. 43; Verney ms mic. M636/45, J. to Sir R. Verney, 14 May 1692.
55 Verney ms mic. M636/45, J. to Sir R. Verney, 15 June 1692, Sir R. to J. Verney, 3 July 1692.
56 Ibid. M636/47, C. Stewkeley to Sir R. Verney, 28 Jan. 1694; Add. 29574, f. 348.
57 CSP Dom. 1696, p. 111.
58 HEHL, HM 30659 (58); Verney ms mic. M636/49, J. to Sir R. Verney, 23 Mar. 1696.
59 Verney ms mic. M636/49, Lichfield to Sir R. Verney, 7 Sept. 1696.
60 HMC Hastings, ii. 260.
61 Verney ms mic. M636/49, Sir J. Verney to Lichfield, 7 Dec. 1696, Lichfield to Sir J. Verney, 12 Dec. 1696.
62 Ibid. M636/50, Lichfield to Sir J. Verney, 15, 26 July 1698.
63 HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 476-7; VCH Oxon. xii. 401-2.
64 Verney ms mic. M636/51, Lichfield to Sir J. Verney, 17 Oct. 1699, C. Gardiner to Sir J. Verney, 31 Oct. 1699.
65 Ibid. Lichfield to Sir J. Verney, 9, 14 Dec. 1700.
66 LJ, xvi. 607, 631; VCH Oxon. ix. 15; TNA, C104/135; Verney ms mic. M636/54, Lichfield to Fermanagh, 14 Apr. 1709.
67 Add. 70073-4, newsletter, 12 Feb, 12 Mar. 1702; HMC Rutland, ii. 169.
68 Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 163, box 1, Biscoe to Maunsell, 27 Jan. 1705.
69 VCH Oxon. xii. 433.
70 Verney ms mic. M636/54, Lichfield to Fermanagh, 15 Dec. 1710.
71 Ibid. Lichfield to Fermanagh, 8 Feb, 3 Mar. 1711; M636/55, Lichfield to Fermanagh, 28 May 1713; Lady Fermanagh to Fermanagh, 30 June 1713; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 112.
72 Bodl. Tanner 26, f. 50; Add. 61125, f. 159.
73 Hearne, 191-2.
74 Corbett, 181.